I borrowed $44,000 from VSAC, I've paid back $55,000 and still owe $30,000. In a world where interest rates are near zero, this is unconscionable. No student assistance here, only VSAC making money hand over fist. read more

I had all my student loans back in the day through VSAC. VSAC is a wonderful org that is professional and has certainly helped me out when I needed it. Now that I have a degree, and it is paid off. I now am thankful off all the good that they do for the students of VT and beyond. read more

VSAC does not even deserve the one star I was obliged to give it so that I could write this review. FAFSA is fine, I've been to college in 3 states. FAFSA worked great. I have a J.D. now and half a million to repay. My Federal loans are fine, and the loans I took through a private organization are fine. However, VSAC is giving me a lot of trouble in the repayment period. They are incompetent, disorganized and provide terrible service on the back end of your loan. Apply to the federal government directly if you can. There is no reason to pay these thieving loan brokers a dime. Remember loan brokers... ya the ones that destroyed our economy 5 years ago. Well, that is exactly what VSAC is, a loan brokerage firm. Yes, that's all they are. That's the whole story. Vote against VSAC, and definitely don't borrow money through them. Notice below, how someone from VSAC reviewed and gave them 5 stars. Notice how the reviews from students don't look the same. This is what's wrong. They think they are god's gift to students and have no idea what they are doing. I was so excited when I thought Obama was going to X the program. Unfortunately, they remain, and will continue to steal your money while padding the CEO's pockets. He makes about a quarter of a million dollars every year. http://vtdigger.org/2010/02/01/false-moves-led-vsac-to-brink-of-insolvency/ They lobby too. To get more money from the tax payers. Hmmm, its like the government lobbying for more money for the its own programs. Ya, I know that is normal, but doesn't it bother you just a little? read more

A sub standard cosmetology school (formally Powder Spring Beauty School, but now D'Most Beauty and Body Institute) took out a student loan in my name. In trying to get a resolution to this problem, VSAC was no help in providing needed information, to dispute this fraudulent loan. read more

I went to get a mortgage and was told to write a letter to VSAC because of four missed payment from 2018. I sent the letter to ask for a goodwill adjustment as I have been paying consistently since including throughout the pandemic where most students probably stopped paying back their loans. I was called and explained that they do not do goodwill adjustments. It is the only thing holding me back from getting this mortgage at a decent rate. Thank you for screwing over single parents trying to not pay over $1000 per bedroom for rent in Denver. Never get a loan from VSAC, typically you'll do this as a young kid (18-25) and you won't be thinking about how your life goes through changes and without any kind of assistance to look back at things. I'm talking about FOUR payments from 2018 but as it's a policy, I understand their hands are tied but it's a policy that has completely stopped my daughter and I to purchase a home. There was no point in calling me in the middle of the day to tell me, we got your letter but sorry we won't be helping you except to update my address. read more

I have had nothing but trouble with VSAC. I wish I had known what my life would be like after graduation before using the VT Student Advantage loan to pay for college. I graduated on May 22nd, and made my first payment a few days later. While it might not strike you as particularly valid, a friend with the same loan had a 6-month grace period. That is inconsistency at its finest - VSAC at its finest. I have never been able to speak to a customer representative in-person, waited weeks for email responses and service fee charges for online payments are astronomical. I have nothing but regret and many years of dealing with this. read more

Horrible customer service, rude ! Hounding phone calls. Made a payment ,it posted on our account the day before and they still called looking for said and then started hounding me for the next payment that wasn't even due yet ... read more

I went to UVM for four years and no one I knew ever had a good experience with VSAC. To begin with, they're only open between 8 and 4:30 so if you work normal hours, you're screwed. Second, they wouldn't give my friend's husband a military deployment deferment even though he was in Afghanistan because he couldn't go to their office to prove he was going to Afghanistan. When she applied for an economic hardship deferment, they told her she didn't qualify because she only worked part-time but failed to tell her she would then qualify for an unemployment deferment. Lastly, their website didn't work for 2 weeks. I sent them an email after a week telling them that I wanted to pay and that they should stop calling me five times a day because once their website worked, I'd pay it online. I finally received a response a week later which was rude and basically said "Well the website's working now, pay up." I dream of the day when I am rid of VSAC. read more

I highly recommend not using VSAC. The options available to you under federal student loans are not available here. Their interest rates are ridiculous for education loans when you're unemployed and can not pay for a few months, they are unreasonable. I have paid for 12 years minus 6 months of unemployment. I have paid over $43k towards an initial principal of $67k. I now have a $69k principal. They are loan sharks. read more

I honestly don't understand the negative reviews. I've unfortunately dealt with unemployment multiple times since graduating and VSAC has been a blessing every time. They have worked with me and never defaulted my loan, even way back when I first graduated and didn't pay for a VERY long time. Overall every experience I've had with them has been amazing and their employees are incredibly nice to speak with. I'm very grateful I grew up in Vermont and had the ability to use vsac and not have to use the big loan companies. I'm pretty certain I would be in major financial trouble at this point had I had to. Thank you, VSAC, for always helping and being completely understanding of my various situations. read more

Unfortunately, VSAC is one of the only loan providers for education loans in VT which is a shame. I have been paying a loan through VSAC for the last 5 years and up until now have never had many issues with them. I have paid my loans on time every month for the last 5 years. Two months ago I was late for one payment and when I called to make sure everything would be ok, the woman I spoke with on the phone, who by the way was extremely rude, assured me that as long as I paid it as soon as possible, I would be all set. Well, this past weekend I received a letter from VSAC explaining that because I had been late on ONE payment, in the past 5 years, I was no longer eligible to receive the 1% interest rate reduction and there was nothing I could do about it. I can never get it back, I could not complain, nothing. So, it's really great to know that someone working extremely hard to pay off their education loans is so heavily penalized for ONE late payment. I would never recommend anyone in Vermont get a loan through VSAC. read more

I've had nothing but trouble with them. Their website is terrible, their hours are impossible for anyone who works regular hours and cannot make personal calls from work, and I've never spoken to a nice person. I called once to see if I could lower my payments and the man was so mean I actually hung up and cried. It's terrible that this is the only option in VT. Thankfully I consolidated my loans--almost 100% because it meant no longer dealing with VSAC. Good riddance. read more

Archaic website and good luck getting ahold of them on the phone. They have a phone tree that makes it impossible to actually speak with a customer representative. read more

Their website is the biggest piece of crap site I have ever tried to navigate. I'm competent and proficient with computers but this is just awful. Everything keeps telling me to click Loan Info/Make a Payment. Well where the hell is that f***ing link?! VSAC is awful, I would never go through them again. read more

They are a horrible company which regularly gives false or misleading information. They talk down to people and never admit the mistakes that they make. One day I was told that I was in forbearance for 3 months then the next day told that I owed a payment immediately. Asked to speak to a supervisor told they are in a meeting & then representative would not provide a name for any of them. I wish my loans were still with US Dept of Education. read more

After graduate school I consolidated all of my loans with VSAC. From day one (which was years ago, now), they provided the best customer service of any company I have worked with. They have allowed me to choose the best payment plans suited for me and my income, have allowed me to have a forbearance due to hardship and have always been kind via the telephone. Only English speaking customer service reps which makes things sooo much easier! Very glad I found them! read more

I used VSAC for my student loans as well for my daughters student loans, I make payments each month using the web site, with no issues, I've never had anyone be rude to me on the phone or in person, I've had to use a deferment in the past and found that they required certain things from me in order to process the paper work. This is no different then any lender, pay your loans on time, provide the information requested when asked, and be smart enough to know that all web sites have issues once in a while, no such thing as perfect. read more

I have a student loan with VSAC that will never be paid off as far as I can see. Even though I have been making the monthly payments religiously for almost two years the payments I have submitted just cover the interest they are charging me. I have written & spoken to them without any resolution. The extent of the resolution I received with my latest call was that the representative stated that there should be something that could be done on their end to position my payments to pay down the balance-nothing was done. I owe the same amount as of a year ago as I do today, even though I've paid almost $4,800 over the year. Is this predatory? Do I have any legal standing? What can I do about the situation? HELP! read more

Like many others who have reviewed this company, I wish I could give them 0 stars. This makes me very sad as I am from Vermont and usually take great pride in supporting Vermont based companies. VSAC has been nothing but trouble since I first started working with them about 6 years ago. While I was still in school I constantly had issues with VSAC actually disbursing my loans to my University. Every semester I would receive an email from my University stating that I had a balance on my account and would not be able to attend classes if it was not paid off. I would then call accounting and ask where the VSAC check was and they would say they never received it. This then led to me making multiple hour long phone calls to VSAC to try to get it sorted out. They would always respond with utter confusion about where my check was and frequently seems to not be able to locate any information about when it was/would be sent or where it was sent. Eventually, after getting on their case every day for up to a week and sometimes longer, they would send the check. Upon graduation, I was faced with a monthly bill of $950. Despite them constantly telling me when I was taking out the loans that they would work with me once I entered repayment to ensure I was able to make payments without defaulting on my loans, they were entirely unhelpful when I called them to try to work out a plan. I was struggling to make ends meat with this monthly payment and when I called to try to consolidate my 5 loans with them into one loan so that I could maybe extend my loan term or decrease the interest rate, the woman I spoke with was extremely rude to me. She treated me as if I were an idiot and met my attempt to find a solution by ridiculing me for even asking. After multiple calls and multiple VSAC employees telling me that I just didn't have any options, I finally got a hold of one woman who said that I could pay interest only for up to 6 months while I looked for a job. The fact that it took me multiple phone calls to get to this solution is crazy. I have now been making full payments on my loans for 2 years and have hardly made a dent due to my extremely high interest rates (Some as high at 8.5%). I decided to consolidate my loans with a new vendor that offers student loan consolidation for private loans (something that is very hard to come by). Through the application process they request the most recent statement from my current loan company. As my next statement will not come in the mail for close to three weeks, I decided to access my statement online so that I could complete the application process as soon as possible. Imagine my surprise when I sign onto my VSAC account only to discover that they actually do not provide statements through their website. You have to access your statements through a third party website that makes you wait a month from when you sign up before you can view your statement. I called VSAC to try to get them to grant me access to my statement, which they were unable to do (no surprise here). Over the course of this conversation it came up that I was trying to consolidate with another company, to which the woman who I was speaking with tried to inform me was not a possibility due to the type of loans I have. This is a lie and I am outraged that they are trying to force me to stay with them by giving me false information about my options. Thankfully I have done my research already so I know my options. They stand to lose a great amount of money from interest if I chose to consolidate my loans with another company so I understand they don't want to lose my business. But lying to keep my business is so inappropriate and I can't believe they are still allowed to operate when they run their business in this manner. read more