Dear Congresswoman Robin Kelly – Part 1
Since my daughter’s school loans matured I have made it a personal quest to try and address and resolve the issues with this country’s federal school loan program. In an effort to expose the horrible way this is being managed, and the terrible conditions under which our citizens are being placed, I decided as an initial phase of my campaign to write letters to the president and to my local representatives in the federal government. In Addition, so that I can hopefully achieve as much exposure as possible, I am publishing these letters here on my blog.
The first communication I sent went to the president, Congresswoman Kelly, Sen. Dick Durbin, and Sen. Kirk around March of this year.
So far I have received responses from Dick Durbin’s office, and I have had extensive communication with Congresswoman Kelly’s office. In this case, I will post my Letter to Congresswoman Robin Kelly
The second communication was sent this week to the same four people. Because this letter is about three times longer than the first I am going to publish it in three parts; this is the first part.
Dear Mrs. Kelly
Once again, thanks for contacting me and allowing me to be a part of this process of hopefully improving our countries school loan situation.
INTRODUCTION
In short, I am not looking to cheat the government or renege on my responsibilities. I accept the fact that I did borrow this money for the purpose of making sure my daughter could get a good education. I accept the fact that I am responsible for paying this money back.
What I have an issue with is how this whole process is organized and how one sided the payment process is. I am disturbed by how confusing, misleading, and convoluted the path of obtaining, using, and paying this money back really is.
What I hope to accomplish with this document is to:
- Review my situation from the beginning to assure that the reasons for my complaints are clear.
- Present what I have done and what I plan on doing to aid in paying this loan off without losing my home and what little standard of living I have.
- Discuss what I would like to do to help raise awareness about this problem; how I plan on helping others by bringing about change that will benefit all.
- Discuss what I would like to see done with the present government policies that I believe would help those of us who are struggling with these loans.
- Present my plans on how I think this process should be changed to improve the system for all families who have had and who will need assistance with college expenses.
IN REVIEW
From the beginning this process was confusing.
With my oldest daughter, the process was complicated and was difficult to get the funding needed for college. However, who owed what and how it was expected to be paid back was very clear.
With my youngest daughter it was surprisingly easy to get the money by comparison to what I went through before. However, it wasn’t until the second year of her education that it was finally made clear to me that these loans were my responsibility and that I was not just co-signing to help her get started.
It was not at all very clear up front who was responsible for what as far as the monies being borrowed.
Once I realized that I was ultimately responsible for her expenses I made alternative suggestions that would have been cheaper for college as a way of saving cost. However, what she was trying to accomplish was not available in any of these cheaper institutions so we stuck to the plan.
