From Library Journal
Stockwell, an investigative journalist (Esquire, Rolling Stone), intends her work for those who are having trouble repaying their student loans, which now average $20,000 for the undergraduate years and about $23,000 more at the Ph.D. level. Three main sections explain how students get into debt; how the loans work; and how to live with (but not get out of) debt. Choosing bankruptcy to avoid repaying (as did some of these ex-students' older brothers and sisters) is no longer possible, but chapter 7 or 13 helps ease the repayment schedule, as she explains. Stockwell also advises how to apply for deferments and forebearances and the basics of credit in general. One telling sentence?"It's not complicated to pay your student loan debt; you have to make and set aside more money, or live on less"?is good enough advice to pay the cost of this book.?Alexander Wenner, Indiana Univ. Lib., Bloomington
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"An essential tool for people trying to get back on the path to a sound financial future. Stockwell's book should be read by every parent and student before applying for any college application or student loan because
The Guerrilla Guide goes one step beyond the other "how-to" books by supplying different philosophies for living with your student loan and sound strategies for getting your life back on track. If you are tired of making up lies to get that collection agency off your back, this is the book to read." --
Cheryl Dunye, writer/director of The Watermelon Woman writer/director of The Watermelon Woman writer/director of The Watermelon Woman writer/director of The Watermelon Woman"An extremely clear, humane, and practical guide...If you're off to campus, or dealing with the financial aftermath of higher education, read this and save yourself many sleepless nights." --
Anne Matthews, author of Bright College Years: Inside the American CampusToday"Should be required reading for anyoneespecially a graduate/professional studentwho is thinking about borrowing to go to school. Even those now repaying their loans should read Anne Stockwell's book. Easy to read and easy to understand,
The Guerrilla Guide will keep many students out of hot water over their student loans." --
Kevin Boyer, Executive Director, National Association of Graduate-Professional Students, Inc."This is
must reading for all high school seniors and their families and should be read again by all college students while in their last year of school." --
Ernest T. Freeman, President, Educational Resources InstituteMarketers who want help in talking to Generation X'ers should look at
The Guerrilla Guide to Mastering Student Loan Debt, by Anne Stockwell.
Written by a Boomer, this excellent guide is unhyped and nonjudgmental. It is also written with enough clarity and style to lure even the most print-averse young person. Ms. Stockwell, a journalist who financed her own education with loans, unjumbles with ease the confusing acronyms and arcane rules of lenders. She even sneaks in the political view that student borrowers -- mostly X'ers who have racked up $100 billion in debt since 1990 -- should get a better deal.
But the preaching stops there.
Everything else in this information-rich book is practical and unusually accessible. And everything else includes, well, everything -- even an entertaining section on how lenders track down deadbeats.
Students entering college this fall will find much that is useful in this book. So will their Boomer parents; it's a mini-expert's drea. So, of course, will their grandparents, who may, after all, wind up footing the bills. -- By Deborah Stead, The New York Times, 9/7/97
