Student loan consolidation

A lot of organizations carry out exit surveys to find out various important things. In reality, an exit survey includes a number of general questions, with reference to the type of experience that an employee underwent while working in the organization. These questions can be very specific or casual. The main motive behind the exit survey assessment is to find out the actual reason for the parting. Another significant motive is to find out what type of opinion the employee has in his mind about the company. Through exit survey questionnaire, a company is also able to understand how an employee felt regarding the organization’s attitude towards work culture, work environment and employee satisfaction.

Questions asked as a part of exit surveys are mostly job specific and particularly related to work load, safety standards, accessibility of resources, orientation, benefits and pay and supervisory control. Other aspects, like management efficiency, how employees are treated, communication effectiveness, feedback mechanisms, appreciation for achievement, usefulness of the practices and policies and prospect for improvement are also addressed during exit surveys. Mostly, exit survey questions are open-ended in nature, so as to encourage additional suggestions or comments from the employees.

Other important aspects, which might be addressed in exit surveys, are the employee’s key motive for resigning, what he plans to do after resigning from the organization and what degree of satisfaction he experienced while working with the company. The questionnaire for exit survey also necessitate giving personal information, such as for how long the employee worked for the organization, how many promotions he received during his tenure and when did he received his last promotion, employee’s yearly income, sex, age, personal details regarding marital status, family, the department where he worked and past employment record.

All these information would assist the organization to draw accurate and unbiased conclusions. Nowadays, there are various companies, which offer specially made questionnaires for exit surveys for other organizations.

During a negotiation, two or more parties discuss certain mutually satisfactory conditions to resolve a certain issue. Students can also negotiate with their lenders about loans that they find difficulty in repaying. Loan negotiations cannot result in complete elimination of the loan, but the student may get a reduction in the rate of interest or longer tenure of repayment or some other such concession.

Debt negotiations are best done by a third, mutually neutral party. There are negotiating agencies that study the case of the student who has taken the loan and then discuss with the lenders, trying to get as much benefit as possible for the student. Negotiators work on behalf of both the lender and the borrower and a successful negotiation is one in which both the parties are satisfied with the agreed conditions.

Usually, when a student decides to enter into negotiations, there are already stalled payments. But the very act of entering into a negotiation indicates that the student is willing to repay some of the debt. However, a student must resort to negotiation only as a last measure. Lending agencies have no wish to enter into negotiations, as there is no logical reason for them to settle for anything less than what is due to them.

Debt negotiators do not come cheap. The biggest qualification of a debt negotiator is that they carry some clout and are experienced in matters of loan financing. Most debt negotiators charge their fees upfront, or at least 60% in advance. This is a huge setback for student borrowers who are already deep in debt and in fact, defeats the entire purpose of negotiation. Negotiators are not very transparent in their dealings and let the student debtors know only what they need to know. These are dangerous issues and there may be unsettled dues towards the negotiators even after the debt has been long settled.

Students can perform their negotiations themselves, thus eliminating the need of negotiators. A negotiating agency won’t do much more than what the students can do themselves. If there was a guarantor involved during the processing of the loan (which is now obligatory under Federal Family Education Loan Programs), then debt negotiations become simpler. Students can negotiate on any loan amount, but the decision of acceding to the negotiations lies in the hands of the lenders.

By: Max Bellamy