Our Expert Staff

Betsy Mayotte

Betsy is the President and Founder of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors (TISLA). She has been working in the student loan industry doing compliance and advocacy work for over 20 years and has helped thousands of borrowers with their student loans.

Betsy has served as a primary negotiator for several federal Title IV negotiated rulemaking sessions on topics such as the use of student loans at foreign schools, loan rehabilitation and borrower defense to repayment. In addition, Mayotte frequently conducts regulatory trainings for the higher education financing industry both in the United States and as far away as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. She is regularly quoted in the media on student loan issues including the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe.  She was recently featured in Money magazine as one of the top 50 influential Changemakers in America’s finances.  Betsy was born and raised in Lowell, MA and currently lives in Plymouth, MA.

Pat Torkildson

Pat is TISLA’s Senior Consumer Advisor and Content Editor. She graduated from University of Wisconsin Law School in 1979 and worked as a consumer financial services attorney until she retired at the end of October 2015. She worked for credit union related organizations for 22 years, a few years in private practice, and the last 10 years for Great Lakes Educational Loan Servicing, a student loan servicing company. Since moving to Massachusetts in 2016 she has joined the Massachusetts bar and done volunteer work for the Volunteer Lawyers Project.

Other Volunteers

There are a number of other experts that have contributed their time and expertise to this project. All, including Betsy and Pat, have done so for free, out of a strong belief that a resource such as TISLA is important to consumers overwhelmed by their student debt. We are overwhelmed by the generosity these people have shown with their time and dedication to making TISLA a long term success that can help consumers for many years to come. We hope we make you proud.