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Hello, I would first like to thank the people who run this site and post for the wealth of useful (and scary!) information on student loans. Suffice to say, as a recent grad, I wished I'd known this years ago, and not naively assumed that student loans would be student friendly. I could really use advice, so feel free to skip the next two paragraphs (just some background and venting).
So here's where I'm at (hopefully this is in the right place, if not admins feel free to move it). I just graduated in April 2011. I further was a full time student after I graduated over the summer semester (as an unclassified student, to ensure I'd filled the obligations for potential grad work) and during this period I applied for (and received) a student loan.
Now somehow the NSLC started calling me saying I owed money. I told them I was in school and they said I needed to send in a form 2, for which I needed to speak to my education institution. I did this, and they told me that that was garbage and having a student loan negates any form 2. The long and short of it is, I receive a call from a company called Tricura and, having about $20 in my bank account at the time, find -$300 AND I had my credit rating hit - all while I was still in school. I seem to have solved this problem by sending in a RAP form Tricura sent me (I faxed it given the trouble people have mentioned on this forum) but I haven't yet heard back.
This isn't my biggest concern though. This whole process caused me to much more heavily research my student loan and have left me with numerous questions.
1) There were some posts on this site about reducing the principal of student debt, but they are all outdated. Example: http://www.canadastudentdebt.ca/forum_posts.asp?TID=4070&title=debt-reduction" rel="nofollow - http://www.canadastudentdebt.ca/forum_posts.asp?TID=4070&title=debt-reduction
Having looked through this forum, google, and canlearn (and affiliated websites) I can't find the information on debt reduction. I may simply be misunderstanding some of the terminology.
2) Prior to having money taken out of my account I had accumulated interest on my student loan about two years into my degree without every leaving school other than over the 4 month summer semester. I spoke with the NLSC, without success, and don't know how to get this interest removed from my account.
3) Is contacting federal and provincial MPs any use? Learning about how the student loans work now scares me, and even the updates listed on this site (circa 2009) don't seem to help at all. What can we do?
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