For those that are not familiar with my story, refer to my previous Post regarding my Student Loan Debt here:
I am now going to break the whole History of this Debt down year by year, from the first Promissory Notes at the start of Law School in 1992, to the present. I will try my best to stick to the facts, sans personality and non-relevant commentary or moralizing. I will also scan and post whatever documents are relevant to the history and facts.
This effort will be somewhat therapeutic for me, and I hope my examination will prove to be more or less interesting for some readers--especially the manner in which the debt has changed hands, and/or has been sold over the years, until it finally ended up with the Federal Government, where it will remain for at least the next two decades. (I will be, again at the very least, 66 years old at that point.)
For the sake of organization and simplicity, this project may take some time, be somewhat lengthy, and require several Posts.
It might be helpful to know that I believe my files are well-nigh complete, as I do not recall ever having thrown away anything with respect to this Debt.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, so stay tuned. More tomorrow evening.
*If anyone has any ideas as to what I should be looking for in my files, please let me know; especially with respect to the original Promissory notes, which I signed with a more youthful and hopeful hand.
Of course, my career and income or lack thereof are relevant to the History of this Debt, so I will try to add that information as best I can, year-by-year, trying to be simple and brief.
And So:
IN THE BEGINNING
As a preliminary, I'm looking at a worksheet I must have made within a year or two of my finishing College at Long Island University/C.W. Post Campus. According to the worksheet I had covered around half of my undergraduate education expenses with Loans, Financial Aid Grants, and a small amount of Scholarship money, as well as money earned over the summers by myself. The grand total says 21K. All other expenses were paid by my parents. About 10K of this 21K figure was in the form of Stafford Loans, and that 10K amount of indebtedness was carried into Law School, where I obviously had to borrow even more in Student Loans in order to attend.
I lived at home and commuted in my 1980 Subaru station wagon. My graduation date was 1990. My degree was a Bachelor of Arts in English. I did not finish in 4 years. It took me six altogether, with some time off in between. I had started out trying to study business, but was terrible at understanding Economics, and even more terrible with math and calculus. Business formulas stymied me, and charts and graphs and ratios and etc. really, really confused me, and still do to this day. In addition, I found the first year core Science classes I had chosen to be extremely difficult.
IN any event, I did graduate, and as an aside, I had shortly thereafter started a Graduate Program in English, with the intention that I was to become a teacher at the middle or high school level. It was in that program that I met and dated a woman who was 28 at the time. I was 25. She had been divorced and, according to her recitation of her personal history, had, ironically, been married to a starving and deeply indebted Criminal Defense Attorney; and it was not too many months later that she had learned through a sort of grapevine of old acquaintances of hers, that this ex-husband of hers as I say had been found at home all alone and quite naked, and also quite dead, in his bed.
But here I go straying off the main storyline again. However, at the risk of annoying the reader overmuch, I will merely add that the story of the ex- husband of the ex-girlfriend was largely a product of hearsay piled upon even more hearsay, part of which raised the conjecture that the unhappy defense attorney fellow had developed a drinking and drug habit along the way, consequent to his general unhappiness with his chosen profession, and which habits might have had not a little to do with his precipitous exit from the World's Stage at the tender age of thirty something or early forty something, or thereabouts.
Anyway, to return, I was all of 26 years old in 1991, and, along with the ex-girlfriend heretofore mentioned, started growing quite discontented with my lack of diverse experience in life, and with my perceived lot in life and future prospects as a teacher of English to children not much younger than myself in the grand scheme of things. After all, I would tell myself, if my students will be only a mere 10 to 15 years younger than myself, how much more will I know about life that will recommend me as an authority on anything that I could impart to them, let alone English and Literature?
I also had frivolous thoughts such as this: Great writers did not spend their entire lives within the halls of a university. Rather, they went out in the world and "Did things": Jack London for instance, or Charles Dickens, who constantly roamed the streets. Or James Dickey, who was an athlete, Bomber Pilot, Drinker, Fighter and etc. And Louis L'Amour......
And so, I discussed all this with my ex-girlfriend, who seemed to be in good agreement with my reflections upon my tender state, and she also added, much to my growing consternation, (she knew which buttons of mine to press) a dubious remark or two with respect to the other graduate students and mutual friends of ours within the English Department, along with the observation that almost to a man (or woman as the case may be) these other Grad students were not wholly unfamiliar with an outlook on life gained from the questionable perspective one may be said to gain from contemplating the infinite while also counting the very cinderblocks that form the walls of a mental institution. All done from out- of- the- weather and from the indoors of course.
Now, during these muddled conversations, the idea of my going to Law School popped up here and again, and then it popped up some more, until after a while it became a serious consideration; and before long I was sending out applications to 3 Law Schools in the area.
1. First Choice: St. John's School of Law (It's right off the LIE, couldn't be more convenient)
2. Hofstra School of Law
3. Touro, Touro, Touro (As was the Battle Cry when Pearl Harbor was attacked.
And speaking of Pearl Harbor, it always gets my hackles up to recall that something derogatory and altogether not very nice regarding America's Sultan of Swat, Babe Ruth, was uttered by one of the Zero Pilots en route to this Hawaiian turkey shoot.
________________________________
OK-Here I start adding the Scanned Documents, and whatever else I can dig up.
I'll backtrack and add more commentary and transitional narration as I go, but for tonight I want to do the scanning work for the 1992-93 academic school year.
1992-1993--I become a 1L
And so from the GAPSFAS (Graduate and Professional School Financial Aid Service) form below, I am reminded that I had started the process of applying for Law School in the Spring of 1992. I was 27 years old. Not too young, but from the perspective of my now 46 years, still very much a kid, and extremely wet behind the ears about many things, and especially the field of Law. I really did not have a clue about what I was getting myself into, had no guidance; although I had the very best of intentions.
I also recall that I had to list every school applied to, so that if one or more of them accepted me, they would have my financial aid application materials already there, and also ready for further processing. I guess the system was set up this way so as to cut down on red tape and to expedite the whole tuition funding process.
Keep in mind that this was a period (20 years ago) when Student Loan funds were handed out to Law Schools like candy, and, as far as I know, still are.
As the form shows, I had applied to St. John's, Hofstra, and Touro. I was actually reluctant to apply to Touro, but the ex-girlfriend I mentioned actually took a drive with me one day to Touro.
She was driving and parked out front. She went inside while I stayed in the passenger seat of the car and waited and, after 10 or 15 minutes she came back out with the application materials in hand, and raving about how nice the school seemed; how nice the students looked--decent and respectable and intelligent looking with nice glasses. Very "Professional" in other words, and she even used that word.
Silly as this all may sound, I felt encouraged, and was practically "sold" on Touro in the event my other two applications were rejected by St. John's and Hofstra.
Front
The Codes seen on this page, as in B,C,D,J may be interesting to some, and they are explained on the reverse side of the sheet below.
Reverse Side
Let me here state, lest I forget, that the debt did not phase me in the least. This was a period when Law School was regarded as a very good thing, no matter what the school or what the tier. It was almost universally believed (by everyone I knew at least) that a JD could only help one in life, and that Student Debt was 'Good Debt".
This was a period when Student Lending was just getting into its stride, and the 1 Trillion figure we all know of now at the "back end" or in the current day, was unimaginable in 1992.
So with this mindset I naturally had no fear in taking out Loans for the entire tuition of Law School, and even throwing my 10K in college Loans into the Pot.
The Debt would be no problem I believed, once I got out there and started working as a lawyer-preferably in-house for a corporation.
And back then, as I say, not many would have disagreed with me.
I know I keep harping on all this, but I think it is important for people to understand just how far afield the popular mindset has gone with respect to the notion of obtaining a legal education, and thereafter entrance into a supposedly lucrative and prestigious profession--one that would only command respect and admiration from family, friends, colleagues, peers and on and on.
And Here is the Promissory note on the back of my first Student Loan Application for the 92-93 School Year. The application is for one semester's tuition at Touro, and served to apply for a Stafford Loan, (covering the bulk of the tuition) and a SLS loan or "Supplemental Loan For Students" (for a lesser amount) The front has personal information, so I won't show it here. But I did request $11,500.00 on this application. I requested that payments be deferred while in school, and also that interest be capitalized during the in-school deferment. The estimated Cost of attendance filled in by the school on this application for that year was about 20 thousand.
I guess the idea was to apply for a slightly greater amount than the tuition cost, because fees would be deducted right off the bat, as I will show tomorrow with some more papers.
I guess the idea was to apply for a slightly greater amount than the tuition cost, because fees would be deducted right off the bat, as I will show tomorrow with some more papers.
Anyway, to the Promissory note, with more comments tomorrow.
Tomorrow I will finish up the documentation for the 92-93 Academic year. There is not much left.
And I will add to the body of the writing, so keep checking in--and ask questions too!
I do want to mention (in this post) my horrible academic performance the first year, and how all of the first semesters grades were not delivered until 2 weeks into the second semester, and how I almost had a nervous breakdown over that. MY tuition had to be paid in full or I could,t attend classes, yet I still did not have all of my grades, and therefore did not know where I stood academically.
It turned out I stood very badly with a 1.8 something GPA, which placed me on academic "Probation"
I always felt that if the school required that tuition be paid in full and with federally (taxpayer) backed loans if necessary, then Touro had an obligation to deliver all of the first semesters grades before the start of the second semester. Call it a duty to the Fedral Gov't and/or taxpayer.
For the 93-94 academic year I will start a new Post, since this one is getting pretty long.
I sometimes refer to Touro Law School as The Lady Marmalade, as in the song (of the same name?) As in: " We drink wine with diamonds in the glass; by the case; the meaning of: expensive taste." Or as in: "Why spend mine, when I can spend yours?"
I just Love Pink too. Such Spirit! Kind of makes an old man wish for younger days.
