After reading the Letter of the Day - 'SLB repayment: is it mere delinquency?' - published on May 24, I thought that I would also add my 'two cents', so to speak.

I am a graduate of the University of the West Indies and had difficulty repaying my loan but thank God it has been fully repaid. Initially, I had difficulty finding a job in my field of study; second, the salary I was getting could not stretch to pay rent, buy food, pay for transportation to and from work, pay for utilities and repay the high interest student loan. I would not encourage my enemy to take a student loan. It is too difficult to repay. Find alternatives.

After repaying all of my loan, I migrated to the United States and asked for a 'statement of no objection' from the Jamaican Government and had difficulty with the Students' Loan Bureau (SLB) forwarding a letter to the ministry stating that I had repaid my loan in full. It has now been seven months and the ministry is yet to get the letter from the SLB. Yes, students are delinquent in repaying their loans but maybe they sense that the SLB is not doing its job, so they do not feel the urgent need to repay.

I got an email statement from the SLB showing my repayment and, on examining it, I found that I had overpaid the loan by $16,500. I enquired about getting a refund but I cannot get a straight answer from them. All I get is that "the email statement was not intended for you". I asked for whom it was intended but I am also yet to get an answer.

I am sure I am not the only person who has overpaid a student loan by thousands of dollars and has not been given a refund.

Why doesn't the SLB put our pictures on a centre spread in The Sunday Gleaner with the amounts overpaid below our names and the tertiary institutions we attended?

I am, etc.,

DIANNE BARTON

1000 Forest Oak Drive

Charlotte NC 28209