Postsecondary Education Department - Juneau, Alaska

Adam Harki

First, student loans from ACPE are at higher interest rates than their federal counterparts. This is so even in light of the fact that these lower federal rates are hotly debated as being too high and as attempting to allow the federal government to profit off of students instead of assisting them in achieving their higher education goals. That debate rages on, but ACPE's rates are even worse. It used to be that if state programs existed they existed they generally offered better rates and more favorable programs than the feds. This is not the case with ACPE.

Second, I refinanced eight separate ACPE undergrad loans into one large consolidated loan with ACPE and was timely paying on it for five years before deciding to go to professional school. (As an aside, the consolidated loan was supposed to erase 1% off the top of the loan for every year it was timely paid; ACPE unilaterally cancelled that benefit after making only two years of 1% reductions. Lame.) ACPE's deferral options were practically non-existent. Even though I enrolled in a three year professional school program, ACPE offered only two six-month deferral periods. After the year of deferment ACPE held me responsible for continuing to pay even though I was again a full-time student. Federal programs allow you to defer for the entirety of your full-time professional school program.

Sp the high interest rates and inflexibility of deferral options (and the unilateral cancellation of my 1% timely payment annual benefit) makes me wish I had never gotten involved with ACPE. The legislature seriously needs to update this program to have it serve the needs students instead of preying on them.

Jake Kelley

If you care about the security of your personal information, DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THIS ORGANIZATION.

I attempted to pay my loan online and since I had forgotten my password I tried to reset it but never received an email. I decided to call and see what had happened, and proceeded to wait for about 20 minutes on hold. After that I inquired as to why I had not received my email, and was told they may have disabled my account for security reasons. GREAT. When I asked what security reasons those were, they would not tell me, and instead responded with some rehearsed nonsense about speeding up the database...

I now have grave concerns and reservations about ACPE having my personal information, but there is not a thing I can do about it.

Of course there are numerous other reasons to find fault with this predatory organization, such as high interest rates and poor customer service.

Do yourself a favor and never take a loan from these crooked people. Go out and work to pay off school, and get scholarships to pay the rest. If you must take a loan, get something from the federal government.