| # | First Name | Last Name | Please provide a comment or personal story. |
|---|
| 451 | nancy | macdonald | this is a great petition and i hope something actually comes out of this to help out the students that have no choice but to get a student loan. |
| 452 | Anonymous | Anonymous | People with hardships for 10 years or more should have their loans written off by the government without having to claim bankruptcy, as this is an added hardship for people who cannot afford it. |
| 453 | Rebecca | Cadger | I agree with this petition. Also, bring back grants! |
| 454 | John | Shayler | I am appalled at the ever escalating fees for students trying to access and then survive financially in post secondary education institutions. I disagree with the current fee structures and particularly the heavy debt load that young people trying to start a new career while educating themselves. compared to a number of industrial democracies, Canada lags far behind in thoughtful post secondary fee and loan structures. |
| 455 | William | Sinnett | This has been an unbelievable experience and I have not even begun classes yet! The application process, faxing of information,misinformation, mass confusion to the point of crying from the sheer frustration of it all. At some point accountabilty, continuity, and respect must enter the system....must.My provincial loans office has been top notch when dealing with any questions I have had and even they have said that federal loans is a confusing complex process! When my provinvial loans officer called me back after"trying" to talk with someone at federal loans centre her opening words were" william I understand your frustration now" They even put the provincial office on hold indefinitely. If that is not an indicator of the commitment to quality service we as students face....and the attitude I've seen in print about....it's not that bad, then whoever is responsible for the administration of the program should be removed. |
| 456 | Anonymous | Anonymous | Good work guys!!! That would make CANADA a smarter country!!! |
| 457 | Julia | Zandbergen | i'm only in my first year of schooling, three years to go, and i already have two seperate student loans. i can forsee a lot of issues and i totally support any movement to make the system better. |
| 458 | Heather | Skibeneckyj | Make education possible! |
| 459 | Ben | Kovacs | My student loan has gone into default , due to processing errors, and interest was continued even while i was still attending school. |
| 460 | Anonymous | Anonymous | We should not or should I say the government should not be making a profit off of the people who are trying to better themselves. I t seems only the very poor or aboriginals have the right to benefit from education without massive debt. |
| 461 | Sharon | White | It is difficult to start any career with such a significant loan to repay. |
| 462 | Anonymous | Anonymous | It started when I missed 3 payments due to illness. I spoke with the bank and was told to pay 4 payments that afternoon to get back in good graces with them. I borrowed 4 payments and made the payment. I had no idea that my account was already in collections (I was called by the collection agency literally an hour after paying the bank). I explained to the agency that I made the payments and I was in contact with the bank. I than called the bank represenative to help take back my file. She refused and said it was out of there hands. I spoke to several bank reps but they were done with me.
I never could catch up after making those payments to the bank and one agency after another have taken my account. The most recent has apparantly NO record of any payments EVER made to anyone and are demanding my Original loan amount in full.
I paid what I could when I could despite illness and thats all I can do.
The government needs me in a coma on life support before taking me as a hardship case/forgiving my loan.
my $13000.00 loan has accumulated interest and is now $1780.00 |
| 463 | Art | Boersma | It is a shame that the government is using the interest rates to supplement their income. |
| 464 | Lorna | Kao | I have a student loan that I am still paying and I still would like to go to school but the student loan system is so bad that I would rather wait to go back to school then use the student loan system |
| 465 | peter | blakeney | Canadian education system taught world view, travel, explore to broaden creativity of Canadians. Student Loans helped make it possible. now 7 years later, i am a self-employed artist and resident in europe (which is hard enough to become) and still struggling with student loans. overseas payment are ridiculous and the bureaucracy of having to be in canada to receive interest relief, in my opinion, counters the possibility of keeping Canadians on the economic cutting edge without sacrificing their autonomy. |
| 466 | Kristen | Beer | I have $60,000 worth of student debt. I have a degree in education but how am I suppose to pay off my loans when it can take up to five full years to get a full-time teaching contract. This situation has made it difficult for my fiance and I to start our life together. |
| 467 | Jason | Cross | I have had a great many negative experiences with Canada Student Loans. The bottom line is that I have been given respect, courtesy, or due process due to the fact that I am a "poor student". The system is not in fact helping those it is set up to help. Rather than feel gratefullness to the CSL system, I feel regret and hostility. |
| 468 | Karen | Cook | I couldn't agree more: if you lower the interest rate and extend the payment terms, you would get FAR less defaulters on the loans. The American Federal student loan system is a good example.
Transparency on the part of the lenders should be an absolute requirement. I have been told that I would be charged to get statements on anything other than year end tax statements! We should know exactly how much we are paying and where it is going.
The list of ineptitude, problems and outright corruption on the part of the lenders needs to be addressed and corrected. This is a good start. |
| 469 | Anonymous | Anonymous | Due to bank incopetence and appathy, I am left with approx.$70,000 in combined sl debt, Which I've been able to reduce from $85,000....but was left with no access to interest releif or debt reduction ( on initial annual of less than $10,000....even now I'm making less than $30, 000 per year), because the banks told me it was easier to send the loans into default than to chase us "students" around. Thus, I'm left with no access to relief or NO hope for a future! |
| 470 | Anonymous | Anonymous | It has taken me a year and a half to find a stable, full time position in a job that pays me a wage that I can live on and pay back my student loan. In the past year and a half I have had to ask for repeated interest relief programs. This program has been a godsend for me. But the first agent, who would be fired if she worked in customer service, was abusive and rude and didn't tell me about the program. It wasn't until I was unemployed and had $30 in the bank and student loans started to collect payments that I called back student loans and was told about the program. This is so frustrating. |
| 471 | Todd | Arseneau | I am shocked to see all that has changed with the program. I hope this helps. |
| 472 | Ken | LeBlanc | Will be paying for my student loans until I'm 33. Interest rates are too high, makes things hard when you're trying to raise 2 kids, making $600/month payment while working 2 jobs. |
| 473 | Anonymous | Anonymous | The student loan problem is a far-reaching crisis. I am a graduate-degreed licensed health professional and am living outside of Canada as a direct consequence of my student loan problems and not being able to locate employment in Canada. |
| 474 | Anonymous | Anonymous | The government has never given me a chance for the interest relief program. I was never told about it. I just had my taxes taken and thought for sure it would have brought my loan down to a reasonable amount. Ha, right. They told me it was still at $12,000 when in 2005 it was $14000. KILLER INTEREST RATES. They get the loan money back and then enough to school someone else on the interest. Ridiculous! |
| 475 | Anonymous | Anonymous | I've been making payments on my student loan for a few years, a few months ago, out of nowhere, I received a letter from a collection agency offering a settlement on my loan...not the loan I had been paying but a different portion of my original student loan. I didn't even know I had a loan in default. |
| 476 | Samantha | Williams | The interest relief program is horrible. They would send me forms, have me complete them, then tell me they were missing forms and that they had shredded my application. It eventually got sent to collections because of their incompetence, and now my GST and Income Tax Refunds are taken and put directly on my loans. They expect you to pay them around 50% of your paycheque, which is completely unreasonable. Something needs to be done - this has completely ruined my credit and I can't even get a credit card now!! |
| 477 | Deva | Neely | I have had numerous harrassment issues when dealing with the collection agencies that currently hold my student loans despite the fact that I was paying them. I have had to hire a lawyer to fight for my rights. That is totally unfair that the government has lead us to such measures! |
| 478 | marsha | bullerwell | After graduation i have had a string of health problems preventing me from working. i was on interest relief but with huge problems such as faxed in documents were repeatedly lost and then being charged with interest anyways. interest relief ran out long before my hardships were over resulting in harrassing calls from collection agency's. The agency's would call me names, lie, threaten law suites and hang up on me when i calmly told them they could not break those rules. I strongly believe the current system is unfair and cruel and i will be very disappointed if drastic changes are not made. |
| 479 | Jeff | Cornell | A next generation poorhouse has been created, the inhabitants live at home though, discriminated upon for their choice of taking on a "special type of debt" and trusting our societies' institutions and government. A waste of the best & brightest who succeeded academically but required financial assistance. Some real relief for the situation is overdue & desperately needed. |
| 480 | Samantha | Cornell | I have qualified for interest relief since I graduated. I have been unable to find a job in my field and am unable to pay even the monthy interest payments on my loans. All told I would be paying over 850.00$ per month. Obtaining interest relief has been a trial at best. I have been threatened by collection agencies, even after explaining that the loan was being recalled from their organization. The only way to stop the insults was to record the phone calls. I agree with the recommendations in this petition. |
| 481 | Bob | Rae | In my work in Ontario I concluded that the current system is broken.
I am glad to add my name to the petition, and to support the key points in your message.
Bob Rae |
| 482 | Sarah | Albertson | With Credit Card debt you can negotiate your interest rates, not so with student loans. Why not? |
| 483 | Douglas | Haddow | BCSL did not properly correspond with me and failed to notify me regarding an outstandling balance of 60 dollars, even though I repeatedly asked for information. Subsequently, they told credit organizations that I had defaulted on the loan and now my credit rating is...horrific. |
| 484 | Anonymous | Anonymous | Repeatedly misplaced correspondance along with misinformation about repayment and inept and/or indifferent response when seeking help or clarification which eventually led to being behind the eightball with reveue Canada |
| 485 | Anonymous | Anonymous | It costs almost six thousand dollars a year to attend university, even while I live at home to reduce costs. This is not right. |
| 486 | Rachel | Garrick | I owe about $40,000 for one degree and one diploma. I completed these while single parenting. |
| 487 | Marlo | Winlaw/Taylor | After moving into a house that had mold and damaging my lungs, I decided that I needed to take a break during the second semester. I didn't use any of my student loan provided for that school year, and I had sent in my proper documentation to notify that I was attending school as well at the begining of the school year. After the first semester I called and informed both loan agencies asking what I needed to do to ensure everything was upto date and did everything I was told to do. After a two months, I checked up and found there were mistakes and was told there was nothing I could do about it. I further pressed the issue along with help from my family. To end this story short - after several months, we got prety much no where and was still billed incorrectly. The sad comment said to us was that "we can't change your file or we would have to change thousands". Scarry to know that I am not an exception to this horror I have delt with. |
| 488 | Ian | Wojtowicz | Investing in education should he a high priority for this country. |
| 489 | Vanessa | McGivern | The loans system deters if not outright scares off potantial students. Post secondary needs to become honestly meritocratic- everyone who wants to go ought to have the opportunity. |
| 490 | Kye | Meechan | Out of school for just over six years now. Still over $25,000 in debt. Fully agree with all the points listed on the petition. |
| 491 | Doug | Orwick | Both my wife and I have had student loans since 1999. A couple of years after graduation we were faced with a severe financial hardship as my wife was not working (on interest relief) and I became disabled for a period of aproximately six months. We had no choice but to declare bankruptcy. Today we still cannot borrow to buy a home or a car as the rules around the loans while under bankruptcy made it impossible to pay during that time and once we were discharged the loan automatically was sent to collections without an opportunity for negotiation. We later found that the loans that were given to us were not government loans. Apparently our loans were issued by the bank we dealt with and not the BC or Federal government. Although they were described as Government student loans.
Thank you.
Do you know a good(and free)Lawyer? |
| 492 | Dana | K | My BCSL nightmare began when I received a "notice of overdue payments". I was extremely confused as I had never been late with a payment and my bank statements clearly showed the BCSL deductions each month. This continued for several months with the overdue amount and interest increasing each time. Attempted calls to BSCL lead nowhere. Each person I spoke to gave me a different story as to what was happening, such as stapling my voided cheque to the wrong piece of paper – not true. . Other stories followed this one and I was able to get nowhere. I was told at one point that I had forgotten to put an initial on my form, also not true. I became so frustrated with the inability to resolve this situation that I was often reduced to tears after speaking with a representative.
Finally, I appealed to my parents and gave them power of attorney to act on my behalf. My parents spent many long hours on the phone and my Mom finally began asking to speak directly to a supervisor. It was only then that we began to make progress in resolving the issue.
Basically, what had happened was that a form, which I had sent in requesting a higher pre-payment amount, was lost and did not make it to the accounting department. The supervisor admitted to my mother that this is what had happened, but refused to take any responsibility for what transpired as a result. In the mean time, my name had been forwarded to the Credit Bureau showing I was in arrears. My Mom insisted that BCSL submit the necessary paperwork to the Credit Bureau to reverse the negative reporting. The onus was placed on me to clear my name, when the reason the account was in arrears lay completely with BCSL. They have never admitted their mistakes in handling my account.
Finally, in desperation and complete frustration, I took out a loan for the remaining amount I still owed and even then, BCSL still could not get it right. First, they lost my certified cheque sent by registered mail, Express Post. Next, this letter, sent to Vancouver, went to the wrong department and ended up in Toronto. By the time this was sorted out, another month had passed and I once again owed interest.
There was enough information in dealing with this account to fill a complete set of encyclopaedias. It absolutely terrifies me to think that these people have this type of power and make life so difficult for so many. Had it not been for my parents support, I do not know what I would have done. My word of advice to students contemplating borrowing from BCSL would be to go elsewhere and not to use BCSL AT ALL, EVER!!!!
All of my friends have had similar encounters and frustrations but this has been my experience. |
| 493 | Nicholas | Kabele | I will be graduating in the next 6 months, and am already dreading the burden that my education costs are going to present. Educated people get better jobs, make more money, and pay more taxes in the long run. Why shouldn't education be a right? |
| 494 | Anonymous | Anonymous | I have been out of college now for seven years, and I still owe $15,000 on my student loans from 4 years post secondary education. The interest rates are astounding. At one point I was paying more in student loan payments than my rent!
Moreover, because of my huge debt, going back to school is not an option for me. I probably won't be able to afford buying a home or even a new car until until I'm well into my mid thirties. I'm 28 now. |
| 495 | Lesley | Goodwin | This is a scam! Interest should not be allowed. We are trying to educate ourselves to get jobs to SURVIVE!!! When 90% of post-secondary students need a loan to go to school, and 75% of those students can't pay this loan back it is time government intervention! Did you know that Canada is the ONLY first world country without an accessible student grant program? This is hard to write without SWEARING #@$%^!!!@ |
| 496 | christopher | olson | Thanks for taking money out of my account, unnanounced inbetween semesters and making my rent cheque bounce, guys. |
| 497 | Angela | Hold | i was privileged enough to avoid getting entangled in the student loan system during the course of my undergraduate studies (thanks to living at home and working full time). *great* improvements need to be made to the canadian system of student loans - and the system of education funding in general. the eight point plan to reform the student loan system layed out by the Coalition for Student Loan Fairness is long overdue. |
| 498 | Elsie | Kipp | * |
| 499 | Jeremy | Green | Would be lovely if this actually happened. As a Graduate (2002) who holds 4 loans and who's monthly payments are half what my entire gross takehome is, but are still $22 over the income relief line, I die a little every month and have lived in poverty even while working! Change is needed, and this is a fair start. |
| 500 | V. | Thompson | I went to college for 1 & 1/2 years (2 diplomas)and am still trying to pay off my student loans 9 years later due to interest charges. Students are the future of this country! I think student loans should be interest free! |
