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My wife just got her PhD degree in Pharmacology. She is working on taking the test that would qualify her for residency, because she doesn't really want to do research-based work anymore. She mentioned to me last night that she thinks she should just stop dicking around and get a Physician's Assistant degree because that is what every employer is looking for now. She is currently unemployed and has been looking for work for three months or so, limiting herself to Gainesville where we currently live. She has a green card and has an interview for a volunteer job on Friday; she's hoping to start making more connections. She is hoping that a lot of her credits from China (where she is from) will transfer over, but ultimately this PA degree could end up costing us close to $100,000 in debt if a lot of her credits don't transfer over. We currently have no debt at all and $50,000 or so saved up in various mutual funds. I only make $30,000 per year working one full-time job. I might get incremental promotions, but in the near future I don't think that number will go up much. She is convinced that if she gets a PA degree she will jump right into an $70,000/year or more job right away and the debt will therefore not be much of an issue. I have looked it up and the PA degree seems like a good investment, but I hate the idea of taking on so much debt when she already has a loving PhD Degree that she managed to get debt-free. My job qualifies me for getting a free Master's Degree at UF (though at a glacial pace), which I am going to do while she does this, so being nailed down working while she takes on debt for a possible high income in a few years doesn't seem like the worst idea in the world. Anyone have experience with a similar situation?
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Aug 29, 2013 20:10
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Well, is the residency what she would need to do clinical pharmacy work? If so, then she should probably just do that. Pharmacists make about ~100k/yr, according to GlassDoor and in reference to a CVS Pharmacy (retail). E: VVVVV So the residency thing is actually U.S. residency status? I didn't understand, my apologies. Wickerman fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Aug 30, 2013 |
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Aug 30, 2013 01:12
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Pharmacy is not the same as pharmacology.
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Aug 30, 2013 01:20
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Sorry to be clear I meant hospital residency. She also happens to be a permanent resident since she has a green card (very confusing term overlap here!)
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Aug 30, 2013 04:14
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systran posted:My wife just got her PhD degree in Pharmacology. She is working on taking the test that would qualify her for residency, because she doesn't really want to do research-based work anymore. She mentioned to me last night that she thinks she should just stop dicking around and get a Physician's Assistant degree because that is what every employer is looking for now. My wife went through getting a degree recently for a similar reason, so it's just a matter of risking the loans and education vs getting the job (aka will the education pay off). I don't know that field at all, but if it seems likely to happen that's a good income level to start at even with that amount of loans. If she does it, I would say she should go full time and get it done as quickly as possible.
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Aug 30, 2013 12:23
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systran posted:Wife getting PA degree I don't have much to add to the advice already given. If you guys think this is both worthwhile and will pay off, then she should go full-time to be done ASAP. Good luck to both of you!
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Sep 2, 2013 05:32
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I have $12,750 in direct Stafford subsidized and $12,039 in Stafford subsidized loans originated between July 2007 and June 2010 during grad school. I'm now in repayment because I'm taking less than half-time load, but I'm actually still finishing my PhD - I'm not longer getting a stipend so there's no point to taking more credits than necessary to maintain student status. My loans are serviced in part by Sallie Mae (2 loans) and in part by Great Lakes (2 loans). My questions are: 1) Can I get some kind of deferment because I currently don't have income/am a student, even if not full-time? 2) The interest rates for all 4 loans is 6.8%. Surely there's something I can do about this. Josh Lyman fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Sep 6, 2013 |
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Sep 6, 2013 13:54
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Josh Lyman posted:2) The interest rates for all 4 loans is 6.8%. Surely there's something I can do about this. You're pretty much stuck with your interest rate as the interest rate for grad student loans has been fixed at 6.8% for awhile and none of that recent student loan stuff has any effect on it. Loan consolidation through the government uses a weighted average of your loans' interest rates, so that won't change anything; you'd only see a lower payment if each of your loans were low enough that the amount you needed to pay per month over 10 years to pay off each loan was lower than the legally required minimum payment amount. You'd have to find a private lender who could consolidate your loans at a lower rate, but then you run into all of the problems of private loans.
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Sep 6, 2013 18:15
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Josh Lyman posted:I have $12,750 in direct Stafford subsidized and $12,039 in Stafford subsidized loans originated between July 2007 and June 2010 during grad school. I'm now in repayment because I'm taking less than half-time load, but I'm actually still finishing my PhD - I'm not longer getting a stipend so there's no point to taking more credits than necessary to maintain student status. My loans are serviced in part by Sallie Mae (2 loans) and in part by Great Lakes (2 loans). As Ancillary Character said, the 6.8% is fixed. You can try to consolidate with a private lender, but due to the repayment schedule differences I would highly, highly recommend against it. As for your schooling - are you certain you don't count as at least half-time while working on your PhD? I've seen programs go either way, so it's something to double check. If you don't, there's an in-school forbearance you can use instead, so long as you're considered enrolled at the university and can get documentation saying that.
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Sep 7, 2013 00:17
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Ancillary Character posted:You'd have to find a private lender who could consolidate your loans at a lower rate, but then you run into all of the problems of private loans.  Wiggy Marie posted:As Ancillary Character said, the 6.8% is fixed. You can try to consolidate with a private lender, but due to the repayment schedule differences I would highly, highly recommend against it. edit: On second thought, there's not much interest reduction on a $25,000 principal. Josh Lyman fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Sep 14, 2013 |
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Sep 14, 2013 14:34
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Josh Lyman posted:What kinds of problems? Private loans are the devil. I know that the interest rates aren't great on older fixed rater federal loans right now, but the repayment options available to you more than make up for that. Yes, reconsolidation to a lower rate with a private loan is an option. I recommend against it because of the above reason. However, if you really want to do it, it's of course your finances, but I would recommend reading back a few pages to see the people talking about literally staying up at nights worrying about their private loans. They are no joke, and best avoided as much as possible.
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Sep 15, 2013 04:49
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Help. So good ole' Sallie Mae send me an e-mail with my statement. Okay, cool. And ever since my loans were sent over to SM, I activated auto-debit, and it's been going fine the last few months - it's set to pay a few days before the payment is due, so it's processed in time, etc. Except this time, it's telling me that my payment is late. It's telling me that there wasn't even anything in processing, yet attempting to pay it tells me that such would be IN ADDITION to my auto-pay amount. And of course, Customer Service isn't available until tomorrow. What does this mean and what can I do? It's apparently considering me in delinquency (by one day..) and I'm not 100% how/if that will affect me.
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Sep 15, 2013 20:13
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C7ty1 posted:Help. This happened over the weekend? Their auto-pay system is unable to process payments during the weekend, so if you happened to have something due on Saturday/Sunday, it will appear overdue until Monday. It's kinda stupid, but this happened to me and they assured me over the phone there would be no consequences (and indeed, I didn't have any problems).
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Sep 15, 2013 21:11
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devicenull posted:This happened over the weekend? Their auto-pay system is unable to process payments during the weekend, so if you happened to have something due on Saturday/Sunday, it will appear overdue until Monday. It's kinda stupid, but this happened to me and they assured me over the phone there would be no consequences (and indeed, I didn't have any problems). This is the truth. The system doesn't understand weekends so it says OMG LATE PAYMENT, but it's just the fact that nothing works on Saturday/Sunday and holidays. You'll be fine once the payment goes through tomorrow/Tuesday.
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Sep 16, 2013 01:11
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Does it makes sense for me to consolidate my loans at all? I have no trouble paying them off now and usually pay more than what's due each month. Consolidating would reduce my monthly payment but would that make me pay it off faster?
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Sep 16, 2013 16:13
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It would reduce the payment, but if you can afford it I'd leave them as they are. The reason I say that is the interest rates. You see how your higher balances are on lower rates? If you consolidate, it's a weighted average of everything, so you'll drop the 6.8% on the lower balances while raising the 3.4, 4.5 and 5.6 up to a higher rate. You'd end up paying more in interest. Boo hiss! If you need to decrease your monthly payments in the future, I would suggest calling your servicer and asking about other repayment options (such as IBR) before turning to consolidation.
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Sep 16, 2013 18:52
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tyang209 posted:Does it makes sense for me to consolidate my loans at all?
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Sep 17, 2013 23:25
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I'm seeing a lot more private student loans suing borrowers who are in default. The good news is that so far the settlement options have been at 0% interest. If your worrying at night about your private loans, a strategic default might help. It's risky but if you can't pay, you can't pay. Edit: you should also consider your state exemption list. In Tejas, it's not easy for them to garnish wages (if it's possible at all).
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Sep 17, 2013 23:30
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Roger_Mudd posted:I'm seeing a lot more private student loans suing borrowers who are in default. Read my posts on this subject. You can do a lot better than just 0% interest for the privates. You're only kinda boned if there's a cosigner. It's entirely possible to pay far less than even the original principle. No interest, no collection fees, no penalties, minus all previous payments, and then you start at a percentage of that figure. Any deal struck must be ironclad, their boilerplate settlement agreement forms are full of nasty one-sided things, you'll want someone with legal experience to go over it and demand revisions. The final mutually agreed upon settlement must be signed by someone with authority at the student loan company (not the collection agency), and you'll want it notarized. Immediately following the transfer of the settlement, and immediately prior to the issuance of receipt and cancellation of debt, you'll also be needing to fully document your assets and liabilities. They will tack on a massive amount to the claimed loss on their end, and issuing you a 1099c. If you are able to document your insolvency, you are golden, no tax liability. Following settlement, never cash any checks from them, never deal with them again for any reason. It's in their interest to have their lawyers comb over these contracts to find any potential loophole to allow for them to reinstate the debts. Source for this: my own experiences dealing with SLM.
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Sep 18, 2013 02:57
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tyang209 posted:Does it makes sense for me to consolidate my loans at all? For the sake of convenience, consolidating the unsubs @6.8% into a single loan might not be a bad idea, but you'll want to run the numbers. Either way, knock them out ASAP, it's only $5500 of them. All your rates seem to be fixed though, so it's not like they are gonna go anywhere. The main point of consolidation is to lock in low rates on variable loans. As everything is fixed already, you're not really giving yourself much benefit other than simple convenience. Any overpayments should be able to be directed towards specific loans if you get in touch with the servicer.
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Sep 18, 2013 03:26
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quote::spam: Bulk emails from CustomerService@salliemae.com, and emails to that address are unmonitored. 
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Sep 18, 2013 22:39
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How do borrowing limits work if it takes you more than 5 years to graduate? I earned 66 credits over 8 semesters from 2003-2007, taking 1-2 thousand dollar federal loans for 5 or 6 of the semesters for a total of 9k. So I am no where near the aggregate limit but if I go back I will be entering my 5th or 6th year, am I cut off already or about to be?
borodino fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Sep 18, 2013 |
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Sep 18, 2013 23:24
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Josh Lyman posted:I have $12,750 in direct Stafford subsidized and $12,039 in Stafford subsidized loans originated between July 2007 and June 2010 during grad school. I'm now in repayment because I'm taking less than half-time load, but I'm actually still finishing my PhD - I'm not longer getting a stipend so there's no point to taking more credits than necessary to maintain student status. My loans are serviced in part by Sallie Mae (2 loans) and in part by Great Lakes (2 loans). My other loan is currently in a grace period and goes into repayment in February, so they said to call back when that happens to put that one in forebearance as well.
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Sep 19, 2013 01:29
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I have a bunch of loans from Sallie Mae at 6.8% interest spanning the past 4 years. This year, interest fell to 5.4%. Can I use money from this year's loan to pay off interest/principal from the older, higher interest rate loans? I can take out about 10k besides tuition, which would be a huge chunk of my old loans at the higher interest rate. I know I'd bite a 1% disbursement fee, but in the long run it would be great to have more loans out at the lower percentage. SallieMae's site looks like you can choose which principal you can apply your money to, but I'd like to know before I take out extra loans that I don't need. Thanks
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Sep 25, 2013 20:12
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borodino posted:How do borrowing limits work if it takes you more than 5 years to graduate? I earned 66 credits over 8 semesters from 2003-2007, taking 1-2 thousand dollar federal loans for 5 or 6 of the semesters for a total of 9k. So I am no where near the aggregate limit but if I go back I will be entering my 5th or 6th year, am I cut off already or about to be? Agg limits are per student, not per year (which is very confusing, I know!). You should be fine to take out more. What changes is the amount you're eligible for every year, but as i discovered by going back, once you're in the 5 year + range they don't bother with the annual limits. Hopefully your school is the same! Josh Lyman posted:Update: I called Sallie Mae and they had no problem giving me a 12 month forebearance on my loan in repayment, presumably because interest is still being capitalized. Does it make sense to make interest payments during this period? Awesome! I'm glad it worked out for you! MaakHatt posted:I have a bunch of loans from Sallie Mae at 6.8% interest spanning the past 4 years. You absolutely can, you'd just want to make sure to wait a few months before making the payment. Any payments made within 180 days of a disbursement is processed as a returned disbursement. My servicer site tells me that when I try to make payments, hopefully SLMA's does too! Everyone, I am sorry about the delays. If the thread goes a few days without a response from me, please PM me to remind me! I tend to check on replies, think to myself "I'll reply when I get home," and then forget. Please monitor me! 
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Sep 26, 2013 11:44
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Hello! I am just wondering what the general experience has been on changing the due date of a loan payment. I only have two loans and they are with Fedloan Servicing, and from a cursory Google search of their customer service it ranges from 'meh' to 'arrrgh'. I called last week to reschedule my payments (I'm employed, my payments are only $150 combined and I can afford that perfectly fine, it's lining them up with payday that's the problem) but the due date on my account hasn't changed. The girl on the other end was insisting I could be late up to thirty days, but even though they're federal loans I've heard too many horror stories about student loans in general to not be paranoid, and I don't want my credit score or anything to take a hit.
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Sep 30, 2013 14:14
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Never mind, I went ahead and cancelled the loan deferment. Medikit fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Oct 3, 2013 |
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Oct 2, 2013 19:43
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Medikit posted:Never mind, I went ahead and cancelled the loan deferment. Sorry I took a while to get back, but this is what I would've recommended if you just wanted to keep repaying with the interest rate reduction in place. Reverend Cheddar posted:Hello! I am just wondering what the general experience has been on changing the due date of a loan payment. I only have two loans and they are with Fedloan Servicing, and from a cursory Google search of their customer service it ranges from 'meh' to 'arrrgh'. I called last week to reschedule my payments (I'm employed, my payments are only $150 combined and I can afford that perfectly fine, it's lining them up with payday that's the problem) but the due date on my account hasn't changed. The girl on the other end was insisting I could be late up to thirty days, but even though they're federal loans I've heard too many horror stories about student loans in general to not be paranoid, and I don't want my credit score or anything to take a hit. Normally it can take 1-2 billing cycles just because of the timing, but beyond that I'm not sure what other issues there could be. Hopefully it'll be straightened out soon. As for late fees etc., just keep an eye on your account online and make separate payments if needed until it's all fixed.
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Oct 3, 2013 20:35
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I just wanted to thank this thread for good ideas and plans for keeping me on track to pay off my wife and my student loans. I feel pretty good (all things considered) with the milestone we reached last night. 2 years ago, when she finished her masters, we owed $103,000 and we dipped below $75,000 last night. $28,000 in 2 years, plus about $12,000 in interest even with my wife laid off for 6 months after we moved across the country for better work. If our bonuses stay on track in the next 2 years we plan to have it all paid off by the end of 2016. Far away but very close. My advice to everyone is don't do what we did. (Even though the money we make now will make it worth it long term, way to big of a gamble though...)
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Oct 3, 2013 22:39
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Awesome! Congratulations, sounds like you have a good plan.
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Oct 4, 2013 18:55
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Last year I had to take out an 11% interest Sallie Mae private loan for school. Our savings were pretty abysmal at the time and I was not awarded any direct loans or scholarships. This year since enrolling in the Ed program I have been given the option of taking out some direct loans at an interest rate closer to 3%. My wife has been working a great job that has let us pack away enough in savings to comfortably pay for my first semester. My question is, should I try to take out more than needed using the direct loans (which is a mixture of Sub and unsub) so that we can use some of that loan money to pay off a good chunk of the 11% interest Sallie Mae loan? The Sallie Mae loan is like an axe hanging over my head and I want to try to neuter it as much as possible. We could pay for my second semester out of pocket, but it would wipe out most of our savings and we are trying to save for a house and start a family within the next few years. Any help or advice would be appreciated.
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Oct 5, 2013 16:43
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NinjaPete posted:Last year I had to take out an 11% interest Sallie Mae private loan for school. Our savings were pretty abysmal at the time and I was not awarded any direct loans or scholarships. This year since enrolling in the Ed program I have been given the option of taking out some direct loans at an interest rate closer to 3%. My wife has been working a great job that has let us pack away enough in savings to comfortably pay for my first semester. How much is the 11% loan, and yes.
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Oct 6, 2013 00:05
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NinjaPete posted:Last year I had to take out an 11% interest Sallie Mae private loan for school. Our savings were pretty abysmal at the time and I was not awarded any direct loans or scholarships. This year since enrolling in the Ed program I have been given the option of taking out some direct loans at an interest rate closer to 3%. My wife has been working a great job that has let us pack away enough in savings to comfortably pay for my first semester. Yes, you should do exactly that if you can. Paying off private loans with federal loans puts you in a better position, repayment-wise, by miles and miles. As for paying out of pocket: I highly recommend it if possible, but your future is certainly a concern too. It might be good to budget what you need for the things you want to plan for, stow that amount into a savings you won't touch, and then use the rest to pay out of pocket with a little help from loans.
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Oct 6, 2013 02:53
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Thanks for the advice! The private loan is 12k. At least half of that would be taken care of by the direct loans. Again, thanks!
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Oct 6, 2013 22:34
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Hi, Graduated in May 2013. Do I apply for consolidation now? I have about 2 months until repayment begins. I have about $47k in private with Wells Fargo and about $40k in federal. How do I consolidate the private? I was looking at their site and it looks like I need to apply online and maybe even get a cosigner again? Does that mean the original cosigners will go away? It looks like with a loan calculator i'm looking at a minimum of $700 payments over 25 years per month, which is simply not possible for me. Is there someone I can talk to about this?
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Oct 7, 2013 08:53
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ONEMANWOLFPACK posted:Hi, For the federal loans, you should call the servicer(s) and talk to them about IBR or a deferment/forbearance. There's a large chance that IBR will allow your payments to be $0, so let them go through this qualification before turning to deferment/forbearance. For the private loans, yes the old cosigners would be released with the consolidation. Unfortunately private loans are less forgiving with repayment terms. I would suggest consolidating them, then keeping your federal loan payments as low as possible while you bomb the heck out of the private loans. You want that balance gone ASAP.
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Oct 7, 2013 12:17
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I just got off the phone with Sallie Mae, but I'm more confused than I was beforehand. I recently converted all my loans (Federal Stafford Loan and DOE Loans) to automatic debit. I am a bit concerned, however, to find out that I am unable to change my payment date so that it is earlier than my due date each month. For example, payments on my two baskets of loans are due by the 20th and 2nd of each month. The default, unchangeable payment schedule for automatic debit is on the 20th and 2nd as well. Ideally, I would want to pay each loan not at the absolute end of the billing period but rather at the absolute beginning, to avoid more interest accruing on my principal the whole month. Right?? Given that there's no way to change it, am I better off cancelling automatic debit, paying immediately at the beginning of each pay period and losing my .25 percent interest rate deduction? Or am I misunderstanding how interest accrues on my loans altogether?
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Oct 8, 2013 02:00
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I wanna say it's not going to make any sort of significant difference if it does work like you think. Just keep the auto debit on and don't worry about it. If you want to minimize interest paid you'll be far better served by heaping on additional payments on the principal every month.
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Oct 8, 2013 02:29
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You basically would be a payment ahead almost. It will not make any difference because you are still having interest accrue during the month. Like hogs said paying extra is the only way to make a dent. (On my wifes Sallie Mae loans I owe about $350 a month. I pay $600 and then once I see how much we have saved for the month I make another payment if I can afford it.)
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Oct 8, 2013 03:29
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I know the conventional wisdom for dealing with student loans is to focus on paying down private loan first, then federal loans. However, my private loans are consolidated with 5% and I owe about $11k. My federal loans are also consolidated, but at around 7.5% and I owe about $150k. I'm on IBR (thankfully) but I'm concerned that minimum payments on IBR aren't even keeping up with interest. For the next few months, I'm focusing on paying down a few other debts, but when I'm done I will only owe student loans and my car loan (15k at about 3.5% interest). Given all that, am I better off knocking out the private loans or trying to keep the balance on my fed loans from ballooning?
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Oct 8, 2013 03:36
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