Dear student who keeps sending vitriolic, grammatically flawed, typographically suspect and unsigned letters regarding his/her student loans (Letters, January 14): Evidently, your school is not requiring an acceptable level of writing skills of its students, or you are not making use of the education for which you are receiving said student loans.
As an individual who spent 30 years with the provincial civil service (15 of those as an administrator in the Student Assistance Office), I can speak to the complexities of the student loan programs and the processes required to access them. I spent an additional five years working for the federal student loan service provider, from which position I fired myself last year. And why did I do that?
Because, dear students, I found that after 20 years in the field, my tolerance for stupidity had waned to the point that it was becoming difficult to remain civil to you as I attempted to assist.
In my experience, students bring about a lot of their own problems:
• Students do not refer to the student loan websites, where limitless information regarding programs and process may be found.
• Students do not read the fine print on the loan documents themselves and for the most part, have no idea what they’re signing.
• Students do not take the initiative to keep current on their student loans even after signing the loan document wherein they agree to take the necessary steps to keep their loans in good standing.
• Students have an attitude that civil servants are unfeeling, incompetent and uncaring. Try doing their job for a day.
It is not the responsibility of the Student Assistance Office to babysit students through what is usually their first foray into adult responsibility. You will be dealing with governments and financial institutions for the rest of your life, and none of it will be easy or without frustration. Get used to it. It won’t take long for you to join the ranks of taxpayers who are concerned that 30 percent of borrowers default on their loans and thereby waste taxpayer dollars.
Grow up. Assume the responsibilities of an adult and act like one. Oh, and by the way, I and most of the Student Assistance staff, past and present, have post-secondary education and went through the student loan process to get it.—Afraid for the future of the world, Halifax
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 3, 2010.
I feel your comments are very untrue. I have always double check my forms before sending them, read the fine print, kept all my information up to date etc. etc. etc. On numerous occasions (more that 4!) the papers I have sent into the student loan officer,either by fax or mail, were “misplaced”. Explain this. How this can happen so many times? I have been charged interest when I haven’t because forms were not properly handled by both provincial and federal student loan offices. You get paid for what you do so do it right.
It’s interesting that “Afraid for the future of the world, Halifax” (AFTFOTWH) complains about someone sending unsigned letters, when s/he is also incognito. And then to claim certain facts / inside knowledge about the student loans office. The statements may well in fact be true, and the complaint valid, but how does AFTFOTWH deserve any more credibility than the person s/he is complaining about? And why does the Coast support this credibility by stating that AFTFOTWH is “An individual who spent 15 years with the provincial student loans organization responds to bitching about student loans officers.” I am not opposed to anonymous comments or letters, but I am surprised at the moral high ground claimed, and the Coast’s support of it. The Coast’s own policy states that letters must be signed. (Coast, any comment?). I would suggest that AFTFOTWH needs to grow up him/herself – if you want the weight of authority you seem to claim, you should be prepared to put your name to it.
Most of my problems with student loans had to do with “reassessment.” If all my information is correct, and I signed that it was, how do you change your mind about how much money to give me? That was always a pain when I was in school. 60% of tuition was paid in September, but bills for rent etc were the same all through the year – so when January came around and I was reassessed, I got less money than I budgeted for because I was “overpaid” in September.
Now I just have to deal with paying student loans back, which hasn’t been bad – except for the recent Amended Income Tax Receipt for my 2008 tax year, which says I paid less interest than the official I receipt I got last year, but doesn’t say why. And when I called the student loan centre, the person I spoke to couldn’t say why it had changed but that they would get back to me. I’m still waiting…