Or so says the loan people.

For those of you who have not taken out student loans in the last year or so, allow me to enlighten you as to the new streamlined Direct Education Loan process.

Sometime before Dubya left office, it was decided that subcontracting the federal student loan programs (Stafford, Perkins, Pell) out to various financial institutions was far too complex. For the students. It would be easier if everything just came directly from Uncle Sam since he was the one providing the $$ anyways.

And no, there was not an opt-out provision for those of us who already had loans out through a carefully selected financial institution that met all of our individualized needs.

Come graduation I have loans from Undergrad (consolidated with West Coast Bank), loans from 1L year (with one east coast and one national bank – both of which were selected by Law School without my permission due to some bullshit kickback scheme), loans from 2L year (with West Coast Bank) and those from 3L (directly from Uncle Sam).

Obviously my first step when repayment was nigh, was consolidating all these fuckers into one crushing loan of doom. Which I wanted to do with West Coast Bank per my previous meticulous research into their perks. No dice. Has to be with Uncle Sam. For the streamlining.

When I consolidated the undergrad loans it took a 30 second phone call and a promise to sign some shit they would send me in the mail. Instantaneous. Magic. Foolishly I expected the process to be similar. Alas, it is not. At All. They were even really helpful with that whole bullshit kickback sketchy East Coast Bank problem. Anyways, the streamlined process so far:

1. Go to Direct Loan website. Poke around for consolidation info. Find nothing useful.
2. Call Direct Loan people.  Told to call entirely different people about it. Consolidation has it’s own department and website. To make things easier on us.
3. Go to Consolidation site.
4. Discover the Hell That Is Antiquate Web Coding on the online form. Mac people need not apply. Nor should the poor schmucks who have Vista. This bitch demands Netscape running on XP.
5. Verify every single separate loan you have, it’s ID number, holder, servicer, payment plan, interest and due date. Organize by type (Stafford, Perkins, Plus, Pell, Consolidated). Lesson from the trenches: Call one of the banks that have pre-streamlined loans out on you and ask them to pull up your financial history. They have all the info in one easy-to-verify chart or something. Because that is how they used to do that instantaneous consolidation magic. Remember to flatter the Bank. After all, they are 1000x more competent than Uncle Sam at all this shit. A flattered Bank is a cooperative Bank. A cooperative Bank means one 10 minute phone call instead of hours of painstaking research.
6. Relist loans in separate section verifying desire to consolidate.
7. Relist loans you don’t want consolidated in yet another section. Apparently the two sections are not mutually exclusive.
8. Discover online submission is still in beta.
9. Print form and send it in.
10. Learn that in order to send in the form, it has to be on the actual government issue form, not just a print out of the online version. Refill out the form and mail it in – along with a request for supplemental forms you need as Law Student.
11. Wait. For Months. For it to process.
12. Repayment Day is coming! Call Consolidation People about whythefuck this hasn’t gone through yet and whatthefuck you will be paid.
13. Learn that each type of loan is a separate issue with a separate database and separate consolidation procedures. In other words, it is literally impossible for them to simultaneously access all of your loans. Much confusion abounds. Lesson From the Trenches: The painstaking form actually means dick. It is easier for them to just consolidate everything. So they do. Even if you specifically and repeatedly for a very obvious reason want one or more loans kept out of the process. In essence, they don’t actually read your form. They consolidate everything and hope you don’t notice until it is too late. If you do notice, you are a Pain In Their Ass. Process is restarted. With less than a month to Repayment-Day, this is bad news.
14. Call separate number to receive assurance from Management that it will be take care of before R-Day.
15. R-Day is just around the corner. Consolidation people are done with you. NEVER CALL US AGAIN YOU AREN’T OUR PROBLEM ANYMORE IT’S DONE FOR CHRISSAKE. Banks disagree.
16. Return to Direct Loan site. Note that they haven’t processed the consolidation. Or the appropriate repayment plan.
17. Call Direct Loan people. They admit they haven’t processed the consolidation and tell you to call Consolidation People. Who tell you to call Direct Loan people. Lesson from the Trenches: It’s just like when mom tells you to ask dad if X is kosher and dad tells you to ask mom. Head off the conflict by anticipating the response. ‘Dad already said it’s totally and completely up to you and not to bother him again.’ Sure, they may argue about the process later, but that is after you already ordered the pizza. After much misery, Direct Loan people offer and agree to a 60 day administrative forbearance.
18. Administrative forbearance won’t be applied for 5-7 days. You still need to make that first payment. With Uncle Sam and all aforementioned banks that haven’t been informed the consolidation was completed yet because your loans are lost between the streamlined departments.
19. Direct Loan people can’t help you figure out what your first payment is supposed to be. You’ll be contacted by another COMPLETELY SEPARATE DEPARTMENT when they process your loans. Which they can’t do until after the Direct Loan people finish their shit. And yes, that’s right, they contact you. You can’t call them. Because you won’t even be in their system until the Direct Loan people process you and since we’ve already established they think your file still belongs down in Consolidation, this is not going to happen anytime soon.  You’ll know everything is fine and you are in their system when they contact you about how much you owe.  ON FUCKING MONDAY.
20. Cry. Lesson From the Trenches: Start drinking before you call. It’ll make it that much easier to get drunk while dealing with this bullshit, but has the added bonus of preventing the worst of the migraine from ever setting in.

Streamlined. Yes. Does this process not seem simplified to you? As opposed to how it used to be. Where I picked my bank and only had one number to call for all loan issues and who instan-fucking-taneously processed changes to my account status in their magic computers? And who never had difficulty telling you how much to freaking pay when it was due?

Ah yes, I can see the benefits of the streamlining. In my cell phone minutes. And stress eating. Uncle Sam is probably getting a kickback from Verizon.

UPDATE (per emails received this morning):

Department A says the payment has been bumped back to January so they have time to figure out how much to charge me. Do you know who decides how much I owe a month? The freaking IRS.

Department B says the payment WILL go into an unemployment deferment that will be backdated to the start of my unemployment – so Uncle Sam will keep subsidizing the interest.

Department C says the forbearance doesn’t cover interest, so I will actually still be paying on interest for the next couple of months. Ergo to-be-determined payment, which is still due on Monday, is based solely on the interest that has accrued, not the principal balance.