The Guerrilla Guide to Mastering Student Loan Debt: Everything You Should Know About Negotiating the Right Loan for You, Paying it Off, Protecting Your Financial Future (Hardcover)

by Anne Stockwell (Author)

Editorial Reviews

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 Institute

Marketers 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

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (July 18, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062734350
• ISBN-13: 978-0062734358
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #907,484 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Student Loan Warning, February 14, 2002

By A Customer

I have found myself graduated and placed in a law career that I never wanted, thanks to my family's pushing a smart but "too nice" young man into a potentially "lucrative" but intensely stressful and blood-spilling career as a lawyer. Of course the family never paid anything because they are simple lower middle class people who had a dream that their bright young son would become a smashing success. So now I have a $100,000 debt and stuck in a career that I dread (I wanted to be a damn scientist, not a LAWYER). This book is pretty good on telling you exactly how the government can wreck your life with its easy to get student loans, but it doesn't have any hands down cure. It is dated already in that a year after it was published congress took away the 7 year waiting period for a bankruptcy discharge. Now you may NEVER have your educational loans discharged, so they will chase you and harass you and try to reposess your things even when you are old and grey, all for your mistaken career choices made as a youth. For those who are sucked into the student loan system without rich parents to bail them out or pay the bills, there is not much anybody can do for you. This book SHOULD BE READ BY ANYONE WHO DOES NOT HAVE ASSETS and is thinking about taking loans to go to school. READ IT because nobody else is gonna tell you how absolutely crushing this educational debt can be to your dreams. Then you will see that NOBODY in their right mind should get into serious nondischargeable debt for what is at best an uncertain hope that you will maybe be able to get a job and pay it back through continuous work through what should be the prime years of your life. READ THIS BOOK BEFORE YOU SIGN THE PROMISSORY NOTE!!!!!!!!!!!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Saved my financial life, April 11, 2000

By	Dr. Elizabeth Gorham (Florida) - See all my reviews

I read this book right before going through the consolidation process. I have a student loan over the $100,000 mark. This book was unbelievably helpful - easy to read, clear, humorous, and hopeful. It allowed me to take control of the process and make an educated decision about repayment. I read it through in about 2 days, then re-read it several times. After I read it, I emailed it to all of my friends in graduate school (and recently graduated). It's helped all of us. It was the only thing out there that broke it down and explained it all to me while also offering practical advice. It was the only one that addressed the emotional issues around student loans as well - at least someone else out there knew how it felt! It's a great book and I highly recommend it.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Read this book BEFORE you take out student loans, May 28, 2002

By A Customer

This book really will not help you if you already have student loan debt. If you do, the advice is simple - hunker down and pay it off. If you have no student loan debt, read this book and reconsider your desire to go into debt for your education. You can get a good education on the "pay as you go" method if you do it right. Take it from someone who made all the wrong choices - don't go into debt for your education!! I don't recommend this book if you already have sutdent loan debt - focus on paying it off. Save the money you'd spend on this book and put it toward your loan payoff.