Student Loan Defaults

If you have defaulted on your student loan, you will likely to have to repay this debt and your credit will be ruined. This will put you in a difficult position.

When your student loan is in default, the government can garnish your wages, your social security benefits and more. Your account is sent to collection agencies and various collection efforts begin.


These debts can be collected upon for life! However you can only have a negative mark on your credit report for a maximum of seven years. This is according to a law that Congress created called the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

If you have a defaulted student loan on your report, more often than not you will be turned away for a new line of credit. You are likely to have to pay interest rates of roughly 25% and place large down payments just to be approved.

However there is hope you can remove this mark from your report and with some luck you may be able to remove the debt entirely. In order to do this you should dispute the collection marks on your report.

You should send a dispute letter to each bureau; in your letter provide an explanation as to why the mark is not accurate. For example; it has been reported for seven years already, not my account, account is paid in full and so on.

This is the most difficult item to negotiate on a credit report and thus we suggest that you should hire a credit repair service to dispute it on your behalf. The benefit is you will have a licensed attorney fighting for you and there are continuously new laws passed by congress to help protect consumers.

Hiring an expert can be done at very reasonable rates and, compared to the high cost of a low credit score, is a good idea. We feel it is worth the money since your credit score impacts every aspect of your life.

Please be aware that a private loan, such as one with Sallie Mae, will be difficult to remove but easier than a federal loan. A loan from the government, such as a Stafford loan or the Perkins loan, will be much harder to remove from your report.

The creator of the negative mark will be contacted by the bureaus and asked to verify the debt, including that the account is yours, the balance of the account, and that the dates are correct. This will take place as soon as the bureaus receive your dispute letter.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act states that any unverifiable mark on your credit report must be removed. Therefore, if the account can not be verified, the negative mark must be removed from your credit report.

If this mark is in error then send any documentation that you have with your dispute letter to prove it is in error. The bureaus make errors all the time and so do the lenders, but your credit is the one that will suffer. It is estimated that 1 in every 4 people have an error on the report that is costing them money in higher interest rates.

In conclusion, defaulted student loans are removed every day from credit reports. If you have this, it does not mean you will have a low credit score for the rest of your life. We suggest you dispute this mark with the credit bureaus.

By: Josh Hlizen

Check out the Related Article : Student Loan Consolidation