“I had really good professors who were for the most part really understanding, but it was too much,” she said. “It was a tumultuous time.”Ms. Summers-Polite withdrew from her classes in spring 2012 with a medical note that prevented her from receiving failing grades, but the debt had already begun to accumulate.She said she had deferred her payments as long as she could, which meant the unpaid interest was tacked on to her balance. Then she borrowed more in the summer of 2013, when she returned to take a few more classes. After that, she took a two-year break to work, which provided much-needed health insurance after she was no longer eligible …
