BANGOR, Maine — When Jane C. Forrester Winne’s federal student loans were dismissed after she became disabled because of complications from diabetes in 2011, she believed all the money she borrowed between 1980 and 2008 to attend the University of Maine had been accounted for and that she was free and clear of debt.

Three years later, Forrester Winne, 64, of Orono began getting letters and phone calls from collection agencies for private loans from which she maintains neither she nor the university ever received money.

Last year, two student loan collection entities sued the nontraditional student in Penobscot County Superior Court over the private loans. Both lawsuits were dismissed, but the collection calls continued, she said Tuesday in her modest Orono kitchen.

“It has been haunting, overwhelming, draining and has taken so many years of my life force away from me,” Forrester Winne said of how the efforts to collect a debt she doesn’t believe she owes and does not have the means to pay have affected her.

Since she began taking classes at the university in 1983, Forrester Winne has earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees and completed all her course work toward a Ph.D. in systems theory as it relates to the ability of societies to adapt in order to survive climatic changes.

Earlier this month, Forrester Winne, now legally blind and confined to a wheelchair, sued nine out-of-state entities, including banks, collection agencies and a Massachusetts law firm, alleging they have violated the federal and state Fair Debt Collection Practices acts and Truth in Lending laws. The 27-page complaint dated May 2 asks U.S. District Judge George Singal to issue an injunction ordering the defendants to stop calling and mailing Forrester Winne in an effort to collect a debt to which they are not entitled.

Forrester Winne’s attorney, Cynthia Dill of Portland, is seeking class action status for the lawsuit. Dill estimated in the complaint that the two separate student loan trusts that sued Forrester Winne last year claimed to have issued private loans to 686 Maine students totaling nearly $7 million in 2004 and 2005, the same years the trusts claimed Forrester Winne received loans. The lawsuits, which were dismissed after Dill threatened to counter sue, claimed Forrester Winne borrowed $20,000 each year but that by 2015 the total owed was nearly $80,000 because of accrued interest, the lawyer said Friday.

“I think that students completed paperwork not knowing some loans were private and some public,” Dill said Tuesday. “In this case, my client may have completed the paperwork but did not get loan proceeds and neither did the universtiy on her behalf.”

Forrester Winne said she filled out paperwork for loans at the financial aid office at the university never knowing whether the money that paid her tuition was from federal or private sources.

Private loans account for an estimated 7 to 10 percent of the $1.27 trillion student debt that was outstanding last year, but private borrowing is on the rise, according to a New York Times story published in September.

Unlike other debts, neither federal nor private loans can be forgiven through the bankruptcy process, according to Dill. Federal loans can be dismissed if the borrower dies or becomes permanently disabled, as Forrester Winne did.

Complicating the matter, according to Dill, is how bad and uncollectable student debt was bundled and resold in a manner similar to the actions that led to the home mortgage crisis.

“That’s the reason there are so many defendants in Forrester Winne’s case,” the attorney said.

Erin Reczek, an attorney associated with one of the defendants, Abrahamsen Ratchford, the law firm with an office in Amesbury, Massachusetts that sued Forrester Winne in Bangor District Court last year, declined Friday to comment on the federal lawsuit as her firm has not received it yet.

Efforts to determine who is representing the other defendants were unsuccessful Friday. Attorneys have not yet entered their appearances because the complaint has not been served, according to information posted on the court’s electronic case filing system.

Similar lawsuits filed this year against the same defendants Forrester Winne has sued are pending in federal court in South Carolina, California, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Florida, according to the results of a search using the Public Access to Court Electronic Records system.

Last year, President Barack Obama advocated for and won changes in the way federal student loans that are in default are collected, allowing more students to access loan rehabilitation programs overseen by the U. S. Department of Education, according to Diana Nichols, president of Gold Key Consulting, who wrote an article published on CNBC’s website last year. Nichols said that 70 percent of college graduates, like Forrester Winne, paid their tuition with student loans.

“I always thought I would get to a point where I would be able to pay these back and it wouldn’t be a hindrance,” Forrester Winne said Tuesday.

Forrester Winne grew up in Washington County, dropped out of high school and often worked three jobs, including digging clams, tipping for wreath companies and waitressing. As she became involved in environmental issues, Forrester Winne realized she needed an education to be able to understand and discuss them.

“The American public aspires to education, not just to get a well-paying job but to have knowledge, to enliven their minds and to be effective in helping to find solutions and ways to solve the problems that we are having, now especially,” Forrester Winne said Tuesday. “I think that the lure of education is strong.

“Students in this country, like me, are constantly under the oppression of trying to figure out how to pay our student loans, which we would [willingly] do,” she said. “A lot of them these days, including me, are just wondering where does this all go now after the financial crisis and everything else.”

In addition to Abrahamsen Ratchford, the defendants in the lawsuit are National Collegiate Student Loan Trust 2005-1, National Collegiate Student Loan Trust 2005-3, U.S. Bank National Association, Transworld Systems, Inc., VCG Securities Inc., PNC Bank, Charter One Bank and Turnstile Capital Management.