Building the necessary paradigm shift numbers
This is a great site so far but each time I check it there are still only a few who post on the topics which concern all of us if not anyone else you know who just does not have a clue yet what they are about to experience. It is important to continue to post and check in with each other as I have experienced my student loan nightmare overwhelming at times in my life without connection with others suffering the same. I have prime time TV story like many of you but cannot go it alone. It is our organization talking to each other that builds a block of people with the same interests. It takes all of our energy to create more and build more. Not one of us can take this on alone.
No one makes money engaging in this forum (I bought some guys book about 10 years ago about advice how to get out of student loan debt...folks that was free info so don't bother ....there is only one solution and that is more and more people forming an alliance, as an alliance pressuring government (remember these folks once were supposed to work for us)...I posted on this site one solution for some of us....non-penalties for withdrawing from any pension funds to pay off a student loan debt....
OK more to come...I reached my can't stand the sucking energy thing anymore for this day. Please respond, get involved, help all of us.....jpdc
Safety (and strength) in numbers
You're absolutely right, jpdc. The extent to which the members of this community are effective in getting the word out to other potential members will ultimately determine the success or failure of our effort to change the landscape of the student loan industry. Although our current membership is small, allow me to suggest that if every member would spend two hours each week for the next four weeks engaging in internet-based outreach, the size of our community could easily double in size. If every member of our community would accept the challenge to try to double the size of our community every four weeks, six to twelve months from now we could wield sufficient clout to DEMAND the attention of the media, and of sympathetic members of Congress. Put a pencil to it. Think about it. There are over 20 million student loan borrowers in the U.S. that are potential members of our community. Examples of outreach efforts include identifying, posting replies, and sending email to people who post messages on forums such as the FindLaw student loan message board (like Pauper and other loyal SLAVE members have done and continue to do; http://boards.lp.findlaw.com/ and then "Debt and bankruptcy" > "Student loans"), and to potentially receptive university students with email addresses posted on university websites. Connecting with each other using our SLAVE community website is an important activity. Participating in chat rooms with topics related to debt management or university/student issues that are hosted by sites such as Yahoo is another way to establish new contacts with individuals who will support our cause. Reaching out to other people for the purpose of spreading the word about the value of joining together to demand change within the student loan industry is absolutely critical to our success. "Preaching to the choir" is fine, but if our "congregation" is not expanded, our efforts will fail due to the lack of the critical mass necessary to wield the necessary clout with the media, with our elected representatives in Washington, and with the courts in pursuit of our strategic plan involving litigation on behalf of student loan borrowers. There is safety in numbers! Anything each of you can do to expand the size of our membership will constitute a contribution of inestimable value to our collective positive impact on the student loan industry. If anyone has any ideas on how our members can more effectively expand the size of our community, please share your ideas. Any and all ideas are welcome!
An infusion of fresh air and how to grow
I am so grateful for your response which is of such practical reason and solutions we try to wake up those of us who have sometimes had to shut down just to get by day to day sometimes with focus on this student loan nightmare. I understand so perfectly the months and years of just trying to escape or manage an unmanageable situation. I am 20 years into this for any readers...that should speak for the seriousness of the situation and the paradigm shift took this long. that personally means to me that i likely will not benefit from my efforts to change the status quo or make the situation better for others who follow. It takes a long time to effect significant mindset change let alone a change in government policy. Why should bother to help any of you out there?
For any newly engaged member of SLAVE please read our posts, engage in the process, do as minimal as post on this site about your own nightmares and at least turn others onto the site. I have forwarded this site info to a colleague who now has his wages garnished etc. He is in denial at this stage (get it?) but nonetheless he has NO FUTURE and that is fact. This is a guy with 100K debt who now owes over 1/2 million dollars...he does the William ford pay percentage of income but in the end....he pays taxes on probably over a million dollars to work at a professional salary of ~ 45K...in 20 years maybe 55K. Get the picture?
Safety in numbers is important, small efforts as much as it takes a lot out of surviving helps us all....just start to write in this forum, lets collect enough stories, hey maybe Oprah might think more about this than the next make-over....it is not only about us who are in the thick of the problem but for every other person behind us....that translates to a lot of people, maybe even your own children. Thanks for the post ....I needed that....
get involved, write just one letter, find solutions, explore at least options to take pension money if yopu have it to get out of debt...i already had one response to this suggestion from my congressman ( not that i have a lot of faith in it but lets overwhelm them, eh)