This September 17, Rolling Jubilee Will Buy Back – And Abolish – Student Debt

http://www.nationofchange.org/september-17-rolling-jubilee-will-buy-back-and-abolish-student-debt-1408280503

As part of our effort to buy private, unsecured student loans, we talked to Doug St. Peters, the Vice President of Portfolio Management at Sallie Mae, who packages that company’s debt into securities and sells your loans on the secondary market. He confirmed that Sallie Mae does sell its private loans to two large debt buying companies.

He would not name names, and he refused to sell us any of these portfolios when he learned that we intended to abolish the debt.

According to St. Peters, private Sallie Mae loans are sold for as little as 15 cents on the dollar. We repeat: a Vice President at Sallie Mae confirmed that they sell private loans for 15 cents on the dollar.

One goal of the Rolling Jubilee campaign has been to educate ourselves and others about how little our debts are actually worth to the creditors who control our lives. If you have a private Sallie Mae loan, you should know that it may be sold at pennies on the dollar, even as the lender and debt collectors demand full payment, plus interest, from you.

Though we were not able to purchase Sallie Mae loans, we have had some success with other portfolios, and we think those who have been petitioning us to buy student debt will be pleased with the results. We will share all of the details on September 17.