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Sallie Mae Not: Exposing America's Student Loan Scam

SALLIE MAE NOT is the untold story of how the US Government set up a system of greed that gutted student loan lending of consumer protections.

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi discovers Alan Collinge, author of The Student Loan Scam, a dedicated stalwart who turns from scientist to activist when he is wrongfully thrown into default by Sallie Mae. Collinge warned, in 2006 on 60 Minutes, how this same scheme continued to throw millions of students, parents and colleges over the cliff. No one paid much attention and despite today’s headlines of privilege, scandal, greed and blame, the predatory lending system designed to indenture millions, especially women and people of color, remains hiding in plain sight.

The decades-old brainchild of Albert Lord, Sallie Mae's CEO, resulted in transforming the Higher Education Act of 1965 into a privatized, for-profit, corrupt lending scheme, where borrower voices go unheard by Congress. A major borrower protest en masse is scheduled for April 4, 2022.

Sallie Mae Not (originally titled Scared To Debt) was workshopped through the Northeast Filmmakers Lab, winner of the Roy W Dean Filmmakers Grant (2021) and now the pilot to the 6-part "Scared To Debt Series" now in post-production.

  • Michael Camoin
    Director
    Inside the Blue Line, Relax, Battles of Saratoga
  • Thomas Borgers
    Producer
    60 Minutes
  • Michael Camoin
    Producer
  • Anasa Troutman
    Producer
  • Alan Collinge
    Key Cast
    "self, activist"
    60 Minutes
  • Matt Taibbi
    Key Cast
    "author, Rolling Stone reporter"
  • Ralph Nader
    Key Cast
    "self, activist"
    An Unreasonable Man
  • Catherine Austin Fitts
    Key Cast
    "self, Former Sallie Mae Board Member"
  • Thomas Borgers
    Key Cast
    "Wall Street Banker / Financial Investigator"
    60 Minutes
  • Anthony Fiorintino
    Key Cast
    "self, Student Borrower"
  • Frank Buckley
    Key Cast
    "self, Foundation Professor Scalia Law School"
  • Jon Oberg
    Key Cast
  • Michael McGuirk, Additional Photography
    Crew
  • John Bradley, Swing
    Crew
  • Michael J. Camoin, Cinematographer
    Crew
    Inside The Blue Line, Battles of Saratoga
  • Tracy Cring, Editor
    Editing
    Darcy, Hobo Heysus, Behind the Strings, Lee's 88 Keys, Girl In the Palms
  • Jon Cring, Asst Editor
    Editing
    Darcy, Hobo Heysus, Behind the Strings, Lee's 88 Keys, Girl In the Palms
  • Michael Camoin, Lead Editor
    Editors
    Inside The Blue Line, How to Make an Adirondack Packbasket
  • Tracy Cring, Editor
    Editors
    Darcy, Hobo Heysus, Behind the Strings, Lee's 88 Keys, Girl In the Palms
  • Jon Cring, Assistant Editor
    Editors
    Darcy, Hobo Heysus, Behind the Strings, Lee's 88 Keys, Girl In the Palms
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short
  • Genres:
    Investigative
  • Runtime:
    40 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    July 23, 2021
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    HD / 4K
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Whistleblowers Summit & Film Festival
    Washington DC
    July 26, 2021
    Virtual Only
    Audience Choice Award
  • Winner Roy W Dean Film Award

    United States
    From The Heart Productions
  • Morehouse College Human Rights FF - virtual
    Atlanta
    September 23, 2021
  • Angaelica Festival

    United States
    December 21, 2021
Director Biography - Michael Camoin

Filmmaker, Mike Camoin is best known for his documentary on Adirondack culture: Inside the Blue Line which screened in U.S. and Canadian television markets. Camoin is on a cinematic mission with his latest documentary, SALLIE MAE NOT: Exposing America's Student Loan Scam. Sallie Mae serves as the pilot to the docu-series Scared To Debt now in post-production.

Founder of Videos For Change Productions, Camoin created such short films as Ruler of Life, Crossing the Whitestone, and "Relax" which made its Russian premiere in 2011 where the director was the sole American invited to an intensive 8-day international producer’s lab named Generation Campus.

Videos For Change was hatched in the Rensselaer Polytechnic Incubator leading to the creation of The Battles of Saratoga, a documentary distributed to educational and home markets across the U.S.

Camoin served as UPM for the Sundance Special Jury Prize winning As You Are, location manager, We The Animals, Sundance 2018, other location credits include Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes; Alice Wu’s The Half Of It (Netflix);
Paramount’s Ninja Turtles, Battle Under Orion, Marcom Visual Creation, Inc.

Camoin has penned the original screenplay Off The Menu and has numerous projects in development including The Heart of Bona's Basketball, Building Leonard's Kastle about famed director of Honeymoon Killers and Life Or Death featuring David Kaczynski and Bill Babbitt, a story that reveals how two families turn mentally-ill brothers in to authorities with dramatically differing consequences.

Upon returning from Russia, Camoin founded Capital Cinema Cultural Exchange, Inc. which hosts the annual Northeast Filmmakers Lab. A leader in independent film in the Northeast, Camoin is co-founder of Upstate Independents Filmmakers Network, Inc., a 25 year old salon network of AIVF based in Albany, NY. He’s appeared on public radio with Alan Chartalk discussing all things independent motion pictures. Camoin successfully lobbied for the expansion of resources including the Capital Film Commission which fostered the New York State film tax rebate program.

Holding a Masters in Social Work from the State University of New York at Albany, and a Bachelor of Arts from St. Bonaventure University, as a filmmaker, Camoin studied directing, producing, fundraising and film distribution at intensive workshops over the past three decades.

Mike resides with his wife, Linda, and their two children in Upstate, NY. For more info about Videos For Change Productions visit videosforchange.com. Northeast Filmmakers Lab cinemaexchange.org

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Director Statement

5 year ago I learned about the scam student loans have become. While I don't carry student loans, my wife and I have two children in high school now entering college. We believe in a college education, however, this lending system is a corrupt scheme impacting 45 million Americans today. That scares the crap out of us as it has already indentured millions of US citizens ... for life.

Imagine, education, the "great equalizer" is now the great moral hazard -- an unequally American problem.

I now know how this lending system has either hampered or destroyed the financial lives of many creative people in the film, tv, music and other entertainment industries.

We know far too little about how the quiet privatization of student loans. More disturbing is how women and people of color are disproportionately impacted by predatory lending.

Sadly countries like the UK and others have adopted the US system of greed on the back of young people and middle class families.