NEED TO KNOW
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At 17, Alyssa Jeacoma signed off on student loans before going to college
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Each semester, she borrowed around $8,000. By the end of her college career, her loans totaled $85,000
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But recently, Jeacoma, now 26, learned that some of her loans carried a 17% interest rate. When she found this out, she burst into tears and took to sharing about it on TikTok
At 17, Alyssa Jeacoma signed off on student loans without fully understanding what she was getting into because no one ever taught her how.
She had just committed to D’Youville University in Buffalo, N.Y., where she would go on to study psychology for five and a half years. Each semester, she borrowed around $8,000, mostly through the Student Loan Marketing Association — also known as Sallie Mae — a private company that provides student loans and other financial products for education. By the end of her college career, her loans totaled $85,000.
Looking back at when she first signed up for loans, the specifics were a blur. Her parents, she says, weren’t able to help much either; they had no experience with the loan process. Instead, she followed the advice that Sallie Mae would pay for school, and she’d pay $100 a month until she graduated.
“That is literally all I knew. I didn’t know any better to ask questions because how could I?” Jeacoma tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I was 17 with no knowledge about finances.”
So when Jeacoma, now 26, recently learned that some of her loans carried a 17% interest rate, she burst into tears. Unsure who to turn to, she called her mom, who didn’t have much knowledge or any real solution to offer.
Still seeking help, she turned to TikTok.
“My hope was to get some advice, and hopefully warn people about this experience and try to prevent others from making the same mistakes I had made,” Jeacoma says.
“No one taught me a single thing about interest. I didn’t even know what it was,” she adds. “Some of my loans have a 10% interest rate. I thought that was standard across the board for all of my loans. I didn’t even know they could have different rates on different loans.”
Since posting her story, Jeacoma’s video has gone viral — racking up over 5.4 million views and more than 35,000 comments. The overwhelming attention pushed her to take control of her finances.
“I read the comments and gathered the knowledge I needed, gathered myself and made a game plan,” she says. “Financially, I am taking all the steps I can to lower my interest rates and pay off the loans that have the highest percentages. [I’m] continuing working my two jobs in order to make ends meet.”
She says the response has been a mix of support and criticism.
“I had so many people tell me they’re in the same boat and they felt for me,” she says. “I had a lot of backlash of people telling me to suck it up and stop crying, which I really felt was unfair. I never said this wasn’t my fault or my responsibility, and people painted it to look like I had been begging people to pay it for me.”
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For Jeacoma, the experience was a massive wake-up call.
“Emotionally, I will be just fine,” she says. “Professionally, I will continue in my career. I am using my degree, I am making my payments and working my way through this. Like I said in my video, I am making my payments on time, it’s just really heartbreaking to look at the amount due and see that it’s higher than what I even borrowed. I understand that’s just how the system is, but it’s such a scam and a horrible system.”
She adds doesn’t blame her parents, who came of age in a different financial world.
“Neither of them could have predicted this,” she says. “But I do think it should be more commonly spoken [about] in high schools what your options are.”
“I could’ve definitely used some education on finances, loans, mortgages,” she continues. “When I graduated high school, I didn’t even know how to write a check. To me, that is so sad and a failure of the school systems.”
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