| # | First Name | Last Name | Please provide a comment or personal story. |
|---|
| 351 | Kirsty | McRae | I am worried about graduating because I don't want to have to deal with student loan problems like my sister has. I am also very worried because, combined, my two montly payments equal more than my rent. |
| 352 | Anonymous | Anonymous | Let's get this changes approved. |
| 353 | Sherri | Fortier | My husband sent in the required application for debt relief, and it was not received. He then resent it in, and they still didn't receive it. As a result, they have now garnished our income tax returns, GST rebate, and Child Tax. |
| 354 | Carla | Bobychuk | I put myself through university using student loans as a means of financing. This was 20 years ago but I understand that many students are overwhlemed with growing hikes in interest rates and climbing tuition fees making payback much more difficult. I support fairness in the student loan process. The key here is trying to make post-secondary education not an elite-est system, but to offer assistance to those who cannot afford it. New government policies need to be created to insure that all students have access to higher education and that affordability and fairness in financial structures/programs are used as well as consistent measures taken to insure proper and fair delivery of those financial assistance programs. |
| 355 | Anonymous | Anonymous | . |
| 356 | Anonymous | Anonymous | Student loans have been problematic for me. I have a crown loan that will not negotiate after years of interest building up. Even when I make reasonable payments it does nothing to the balance. I am going for stats barred. I would have paid this off as I did with my other 2 loans if they would have negotiated with me. Now I shall disapear. |
| 357 | Clayton | Enga | I do not have a student loan but I agree with the petition based on the experiences of my friends who do. |
| 358 | Tara | Gallagher | Look at Europe - not America as a standard we should strive for. |
| 359 | Anonymous | Anonymous | I think the interest rates for student loans are appalling. They should lower them or get rid of them altogether.
Also, I had applied for interest relief well ahead of the deadline to apply, but guess what, the application came in way too late and I could no longer apply. I had the resources to pay some of the money back for about 3 years, but now I am unable to pay anything due to not having any gainful employment. My loan has been sent to collections and I have received hundreds of phone calls from collection agencies but I now refuse to answer the phone when I see "out of area" on my call display, or certain other numbers if I don't know who they are. I am sick of this mess I'm in, and wish I had NEVER taken out student loans. It's been the biggest mistake of my life! |
| 360 | James | Woods | I am going through student loan troubles right now, i have RBC calling me every few days saying i am late with payments when i am already on intrest relief |
| 361 | Toren | Barnes | The current policies are a farce because they inhibit the students' financial and professional progress as much as it helps their academic career. |
| 362 | belinda | kerfont | I am living on social assistance and have been for the last 13 years. this do to medical problems with both my husband and my self, have explained this to the collection people but they do not care. They would rather see me tormented by the calls form them and after explaining many times that I just can't pay what I owe it does not matter. I wish that I could pay, there should be something out there for people that are in direr need of having there loans forgiven when they can provide prove that they just do not have any money and ar just living day by day. |
| 363 | Will | Muise | As a child who grew up with a single parent who went to school, and is still currently struggling with her student loans, I support this petition whole-heartedly. |
| 364 | Frank | Reeves | Too high! |
| 365 | Daniel | Bull | I am currently in grade 12, and think that paying this much for an education is obscene. |
| 366 | Anonymous | Anonymous | I defaulted on my loan and have no idea what I owe |
| 367 | Anonymous | Anonymous | I fully support this petition. |
| 368 | Marge | Jackiew | I was fortunate not to have to apply for a student loan when I was in university, my youngest son will have to. We hope he will not be paying it off forever. |
| 369 | Fawn | Gafencu | Need to help people that are willing to pay but can't afford to pay much. Lower interest rates. Don't damage peoples credit rating it will effect there job and family. |
| 370 | Erik | Gionet | The cost of repayment is out of control it will take me 10 years to pay off my debt because I want to improve myself |
| 371 | kelly | nairn | Just an ex-student struggling to pay off my loans - I want to pay it all back but the interest rate is not fair. |
| 372 | Karen | Hunsberger | this system needs to get in touch with reality |
| 373 | Jenny | Simpson | I have $42000 of loans left, I started with $65000. I have to pay over $500 a month until I am 35 and while I am now making enough to pay the full payment, I am likely not going to be able to save enough to pay for a home until after I am done paying off my loans- in 7 years. The principal fo my loans would be only 43000 to start with if only the BC government hadn't abolished the Remission Program 4 months prior to my graduation. I filled out those forms for 4.5 years and nothing came of it. I am the only one of my friends who worked the whole time throughout university to survive- because my parents truly could not afford to pay for my schooling- so I had to work to earn the necessary money to pay my bills at university. I am now working two jobs to pay my loan and to possibly save $ for a down payment in the future. I would like to have a family, a house and all the things that a hardworking person commonly desires. I would like to feel less like a prisoner in my own country. I have always wanted to travel and teach, but i am unable to do so as many of the opportunities (outside of asia) do not pay enough to pay for living as well as my loan payments. Also, I have a parent who is very ill and it is very stressful to not be able to take time off to spend with them, as I have to worry about finances instead of my true priorities. |
| 374 | Anonymous | Anonymous | Harrassed at work even though I paid and it was their mistake |
| 375 | Travis | Henne | I owe 10000 for my school and now as I am headed out into the world I must 1st pay back this money before other life things can happen |
| 376 | Nicole | Bowman | If we want the future of our country to be successful, we need to support anyone willing to get an education and help them to succeed for the future. |
| 377 | Laura | Hunter | Huge debt no job/ |
| 378 | Fadi | Bachir | ridiculous interest, starts too early and is too high. no mercy on those with legitimate hardship. NO STATEMENTS??? We are supposed to be the future of canada and we get treated like a business, one of being enslaved in to work for a student loan. |
| 379 | Sandra | Alvarez | I've been paying this loan for 5 years and I feel like almost nothing has come of it. The interest is too high and my credit is garbage since the government will not take my provincial loan back from collections even though it has been p-aid ontime for over 2 years. The whole miserable process has almost made me regret my university education. |
| 380 | Byron | Calvo | Our life do not belong to us anymore, they have become part of the government inventory, please help us to get back our life, our dreams.
Thank you |
| 381 | Stephen | Arenburg | 8 years after graduation and I still owe over $30000! |
| 382 | Katherine | Davidson | I have a huge student loan and am paying upwards of $1000 per month. Even though I have been finished school for three years, I am still living like a student, while making $50,000/year. I try to look at my monthly payments as being akin to paying rent to have a fulfilling job that I enjoy. I have no problem paying back the money that I borrowed from the government, but I STRONGLY believe that government student loans should be interest free as long as required payments are being made. |
| 383 | Tera | Walsh | Student loans have ruined my life. As a single mom with obligations and responsibilities to my children first, I fell behind in my payments. Because there was no negotiating the monthly fees I was required to pay(ie, I did not have the option to give what I could based on income), my loans went into default. I live below the poverty line, can not afford to put food on the table for my kids, or even buy simple things like a chocolate bar or things they need like rubber boots. I do not qualify for any loans(for anything), lines of credit and I have been denied banking priviledges from some banking institutions. I go without a phone, cable, internet and most of the basics that people take for granted (using my mom's internet account right now to send this) I feel I have to run and hide constantly because the monthly payments these people demand is beyond my ability to pay. My education ruined my life and I regret it. The legacy I pass on to my children will be nothing but debt, debt and more debt. I'm at a point in my life right now, due to disability, that I need to look at changing my career. I can not do that, because education costs money and I qualify for nothing. I wish I could rewind time so I could have maybe taken a different path. |
| 384 | Anonymous | Anonymous | Why should student pay 8.5% interest when the mortgage is only 5%? Why should our fellow students be treated so unfairly? Students are the future of the country they're not cows to be milked. |
| 385 | J | Blaney | Please ensure that loan forgiveness, debt reduction, and interest relief are determined on a case-by-case basis. When you have 3 loans with as many agencies, it can easily slip into default and then the hole becomes deeper. |
| 386 | Jackie | McKay | I have a disability but I can't get disability relief because I now live commonlaw. My partner is not responsible for me or my student loans but unless we break up we have no other choice. The fact that I owe so much money in student loans and for health reasons I will never be able to pay them off eats away at me every day. I will also never be able to own anything. |
| 387 | Anonymous | Anonymous | I went on student loan as a method of survival because I could actually do the hours required for school, but not enough for employment (with all my appointments..) I was hoping to finish my education, and hopefully I'd at least get a job out of it and be able to pay back the loans. Well that didn't happen, condtions have gotten worse. Now I have a loan that I can probably never pay off and survive to add to my current stressors... Ther should be some forgiveness/chance of bankruptcy for those who will probably never be able to pay back the loans. When my interest relief runs out.. I'll have no choice but to default. When your on unemployable assistance from the government, you don't have income to spare to pay back loans. |
| 388 | S | Gifford | The collection agencies are particularly abusive. |
| 389 | Anonymous | Anonymous | As a student who was married but became single. I completed my first degree in a province away from my family. upon graduating I found there was no work in my field and began a new field of study completing my second degree in two and a half years studying throug the summers. The cost of living away (my parents did not live near a university town), daycare and school boosted my student loans up to $75,000. ($5000 was forgive with a new program that came out - others that had their loans later received $1000s more)After 6 months I found a job. Paying much less than anticipated. I began paying on my loans after another interet free period. After a while I began to use my credit cards to pay bills and my cash to pay student loans of initially 850 a month (they reduced it to 665 a month after I spoke with them about my financial situation and asked for more interest relief. After a while, whne my child was in grade 2 I took my child out of day care and let him stay with friends (Big mistake!). I began to search for possible solutions to my loan problem. Eventually my life fell apart I moved home with my family and they helped me try and get back on my feet. Collection agencies have been calling them for the past number of years. Finally they got hold of me. The man I spoke with was nasty and abusive. I asked of their was any kind of relief program or debt reduction he said no. I had asked the same thing before I went into default on my loans. So here I am with a 9.xx% interest rate and a $14000 Canada Student Laon and 35 or $45,000 (I've lost track the interest is undoing all my payments made up to this point. Because I was miss informed, according to legislation I don't apply for debt reduction! What do I do?!? I seems kind of hopeless now my payments are at $1000.00. How can I afford to live and raise my two children? I wished I had been better informed!!! |
| 390 | Anonymous | Anonymous | I support this petition, and I would also like to see this elitist education model become publicaly funded, fully socialized. Nobody needs to go to school for 2 years to learn how to do accounting. The requirements for school are overtly rigorous and geared towards people of average intellect, and it's the gifted ones in society that really have to suffer. My partner went to school for network engineering, paid $13,000 for that crap, and he knew how to do it before having to spare that money on a piece of paper from a school that went bankrupt before he could even finish. He performs his own organic chemistry as needed; surely a piece of paper would help but this guy finds situations in his everyday life that call for it. His current application of this knowledge has been on reducing the cost of his medication, Fucidin, which he has devised a process compatable with all compounds found in the cheaper tablets (result in an 10-fold reduction in cost, which is more affordable than $50 a month for meds). The medication he makes is every bit as effective, safe. He is well educated on a variety of subjects beyond the organic chemistry, and has performed electronic board modification, microcontroller and computer programming, engineering/invention design (which he is near complete making a prototype), biology, science, physics. This guy is smart and well respected as a brilliant person by many, and the one thing I've always heard him comment on is "how crippling current education models and systems have been on his life, the internet while not an accredited source, is free and a heck of alot more educational than any school". |
| 391 | Anonymous | Anonymous | When I was unable to pay on my student loan the stress of the un-human collection practices caused a mental break down and trashed my life and future. :-( |
| 392 | Anonymous | Anonymous | I strongly support the above requested changes. It is so unfortunate that so many of our students who go on to better their education then spend the next ten plus years of their lives trying to get their feet on the ground and make ends meet. I wonder if the government has ever done a study to find out how many graduates declare bankruptcy or have to work 24-7 in order to make ends meet. |
| 393 | Laura | McMaster | I have had to hire a lawyer, mobilize my MP, and spend countless hours on the phone to solve many student loan problems not of my making. The program must be changed to avoid having higher education be a burden to be carried for a huge portion of one's career. |
| 394 | Kris | Moroski | I too have 3 payments to make on my student loans, and personally have experienced the difficulties when it comes to dealing with the various parties that have my seperate loans. |
| 395 | Bruce | Davidson | Fight the brain drain and make it possible for Canadians to seek out more advanced degrees! Crippling debt is my number one reason for not staying in school. |
| 396 | Kim | Mitchell | Student Loan burden has been crippling; humiliation and despair beyond my worse nightmares; forget Quebec separation concerns--we are the ones who have been severed; we should be looking to establish a new government for ourselves! |
| 397 | Anonymous | Anonymous | I don't believe that an individual who is pursuing post-secondary education and who likely will be a valuable and contributing member of society has to "mortgage" their life at the age of 25 or 26 to accomplish this. |
| 398 | Gail | Bryant | Student loans need to fair and reasonable, which is a win/win for the borrowers and lenders. Please revisit the currrent regulations, or lack thereof, and make this process more efficient and manageable for students. |
| 399 | Anonymous | Anonymous | When my daughter was applying for a student loan, she was denied help despite financial hardship due to my being a single mother of three, and receiving minimal support from my ex. Because we lived in a home and I owned a vehicle, she was denied. |
| 400 | Quin | DiPetrio | Can't believe the gov is making monday out of us students! Shame on you Canada, shame on you |
