“Why I wish I kept track of my loans”
– One student’s story

“I didn’t realize what had happened until a few months after I graduated college. All of a sudden, I started getting harsh-sounding letters and phone calls from a loan company. I didn’t even recognize their name, but they were telling me that I was “delinquent” and I owed them money.

At first, I thought it was a scam. But it wasn’t. It turned out that with everything else I had to keep organized in college, I just forgot about the loan I took out in the spring of my junior year. And now I was getting notices that I better start paying, or else.

I’m not saying I shouldn’t have to pay it. I’m just saying that with all the different student loans I had to take out for college, I guess I just lost track of that one.

Seriously, with a different loan every year from the government, and a bunch of different loans from different lending companies over my four years in college, it’s not all that surprising that one got away from me. I’m kind of surprised it wasn’t more than that.

But really, I figured it was up to them to get in touch with me when it was time to pay back. I didn’t realize that you have to notify the companies you got loans from about when you graduate. And like a lot of people, I moved after I got out of school. I also changed my email address to my work email. So maybe that was part of the problem, too.

The other thing is, if I had kept a record of all my loans when I signed for them, I’d probably have had a better idea of how much I owe and who I owed it to. Looking back, that would have been a smart thing to do.

All I can say is, find some good way to keep track of all of your loans. Because you can get yourself into some unwelcome trouble if you don’t.