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It's a straight pay off, and while I appreciate the congrats it's because of privilege - I'm receiving an inheritance which is just about equal to my loan balance. I would have never been able to pay off the loans on my own accord, they would have had to be relieved after the 20? 25? Years of IBR wage slavery. Thanks for the reassurance, but I still don't trust Navient or the way the loan system is set up. Yes, I agree any errors are not malice but there are a lot of weird fees and questionable 'adjustments' that happened years ago I want to check into. A thousand dollars is a huge amount of money to me, so even if they've overcharged me 1% that's worth looking into prior to payoff. Feels good to have this weight off my shoulders. I'm definitely going to set up a college fund for my kids, no one should have to go through this. mitztronic fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Sep 29, 2016 |
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Sep 29, 2016 16:21
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You don't want to pay off the loan while you're still a wage slave (unless you're in the rare situation where property values have gone down or not changed over multiple decades), that tax deduction is too lucrative. Don't pay off them mortgages, invest the extra money instead, even though your uncle or whoever thinks it's a super important status symbol to be able to do so they are wrong and would be richer with a mortgage. *edit I'm a dumbass and didn't realize this was the student loan thread. Everyone point and laugh at how dumb
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Sep 29, 2016 17:01
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Maximum deduction for student loans is 2k and that's only for interest on loans. Crock of poo poo
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Sep 29, 2016 17:08
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mitztronic posted:It's a straight pay off, and while I appreciate the congrats it's because of privilege... There is absolutely no shame in this and the congratulations stand, although I'm sorry for the presumed loss. There is also nothing wrong with being cautious, but you shouldn't have any issues with paying off your account. If you can, and are otherwise financially stable, then do so. It won't hurt you and no, the student loan company won't fight you about it. You could even just use their website and avoid talking to a rep entirely. Make sure you get a payoff total through the website - don't just pay on principal!
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Sep 29, 2016 20:50
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So my wife and I are physicians, and we took slightly lower paying jobs at State Hospital than would have been afforded to us in private practice by years of training. We've been on IBR for 4 and 6 years respectively. We plan on staying at these jobs for at least 4-6 years. My wife has like $300,000 in loans, and I have a further $120,000. Should we just keep hitting the IBR minimums and take the YUGE payoff in 4 years? Is there any downside here? They pay off the entirety of your loan payment, not just the original principal, so I don't see any problem with keeping our payment at the IBR and staying at these state jobs until we clear our debts. It's almost like this debt doesn't really exist... I should say that this is the last year where we'll probably be qualified to have a partial financial hardship, but we've already made 48 and 72 qualifying payments respectively toward the 120 required payments at qualifying institutions. edit: So I got an answer to this question, which is that you'll get forced onto the standard, 10 year repayment the second you're shown not to have a partial financial hardship, but that once you hit 120 qualifying payments (of either IBR or SRP) you have the remainder of your balance forgiven. The justification, I guess, is that you've been shown to be paying your loan in good faith for 10 years, and the fact that you've taken a job with a more modest salary relative to your peers should be looked favorably upon by the US Government. Unless they decide to hack away this awesome benefit (PSLF). EAT FASTER!!!!!! fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Sep 30, 2016 |
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Sep 30, 2016 18:47
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The PSLF language is in the contract for federal loans so it is likely the benefit going away would only effect future people (FYGM). Hope so anyway. I'm 1 year down of 10
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Sep 30, 2016 21:57
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FYGM indeed. It's going to be nice to see $200,000 of loan just disappear after she makes payments for 4 years. Mine won't quite be that dramatic, but still, gently caress your interest you predatory cretins.
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Oct 1, 2016 22:05
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My wife and I had similar loan and qualified payment numbers. For us, private practice still came out way head of nonprofit given that you have to pay approx 5 years of standard plan payments anyways. This is especially true if you take into account the fact that you can easily refinance down to 2-3%.
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Oct 1, 2016 22:40
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potatoducks posted:My wife and I had similar loan and qualified payment numbers. For us, private practice still came out way head of nonprofit given that you have to pay approx 5 years of standard plan payments anyways. This is especially true if you take into account the fact that you can easily refinance down to 2-3%. I shouldn't make it sound like we took these jobs because of the eventual loan repayment, they just happened to be the best jobs for us. It's not a financial slam dunk; it's just a nice gesture. These academic jobs were sort of the best combination of location, practice setup, pay, benefits and work/life balance. I know a lot of people in nearby markets who have a nominal salary 25-33% higher than mine, but they work a lot higher for their money.
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Oct 1, 2016 23:37
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Is this actually legit? Should I even bother to call these dudes up? http://www.studentcompensation.com/massachusetts-college-of-art-and-design-loan-forgiveness/
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Oct 3, 2016 06:06
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OP is bare on refinancing federal loans with private loans, and I know there's recently been a lot of companies that seem to be specifically doing this. Is there a decent primer anywhere? I consolidated my student loans back in 2008 (lol) so they're stuck at 6.875% fixed for the life of the loan, but these companies are offering loans at 2.2% adjustable and 3.5% fixed. I think the risk is refinancing and then Clinton gets elected and drives a sweet deal through Congress (with no interest or etc.). Any suggestions goon hivemind? Edit: Here's what I have as far as federal loans go. I earn ~$170K a year but live California so my takehome ~$96K a year after taxes. 12/06/2010 Direct Sub Consolidation Loan Repayment $28,071.85 12/06/2010 Direct Unsub Consolidation Ln Repayment $115,087.63 I also have some private loans but in a much smaller amount (~$40K) and minimal credit card debt (~$5K). All in (on IBR) I pay ~$2,000 a month right now, which is 25% of my take home salary. Any general advice is greatly appreciated as well. beergod fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Oct 3, 2016 |
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Oct 3, 2016 07:25
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beergod posted:OP is bare on refinancing federal loans with private loans, and I know there's recently been a lot of companies that seem to be specifically doing this. Is there a decent primer anywhere? Getting the lowest advertised rate is really challenging. I started in a similar situation as you and my lowest offer has been 4.5% which I didn't think was worth giving up the benefits of a federal loan for. Also, I wouldn't hold out on Clinton/Trump doing anything but using student debt as a way to buy votes. Unfortunately the blue-hairs are more valuable as a constituency so we're more likely to see an increase in SS/medicare taxes to keep them happy.
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Oct 3, 2016 11:59
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I agree you have to be careful with the rates on the private loans. My girlfriend is a dentist making pretty good money and she couldn't even get the lowest rates. She has one refied with SOFI and the variable started at 3% 2 years ago and it is at 4.2% now. The fixed offers have only been at most 1% better which isn't too worth it to lose all your protections. If you can get the rates though...maybe it is worth it.
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Oct 3, 2016 14:30
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LemonLimeTime posted:Is this actually legit? Should I even bother to call these dudes up? I am leaning towards it being a "scam" (some sort of refinance it looks like). Some student loans are discharged if a university goes belly up or it is deemed by the government the right thing to do because they lied about job placements or something.
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Oct 3, 2016 14:33
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LemonLimeTime posted:Is this actually legit? Should I even bother to call these dudes up? Best case scenario, they make you pay them a fee to apply for an income-based repayment plan, like IBR, PAYE or REPAYE, which you can do yourself, for free, through your servicer for your federal student loans. The "forgiveness" they tout is just the loan forgiveness after 20 or 25 years of repayment under an income-based repayment plan with the forgiven amount being added to your taxable income in the year of forgiveness. These are a good option to make your payments more manageable until your income goes up. You must recertify your income annually to stay on these plans. The caveat is you might end up paying more overall since you're dragging everything out. Semi-worst case scenario (worst case is probably just straight identity theft), you pay them a fee, give them various logins and powers of attorney related to your student loans and they say they reduced your monthly payment to some amount, which you now pay to them instead of your servicer, so they can extract the fee for their services before forwarding the money. A year or two down the line, you receive notices of default regarding your student loans. It turns out they just placed your loans on forbearance and kept all those payments you've been making. Now you're left with an even bigger loan since interest was building up during that entire period and capitalized at the end of forbearance, possibly ruined credit depending on how long it takes you to realize that you have an actual payment due. I believe the ones that do this also change the contact information with your servicer so you don't get any communication from them about the actual status of your loans. Bottom line, unless you lose a couple of limbs or the school you are currently attending just got shut down in the middle of the semester for fraud, your loans will probably not be forgiven in a short amount of time. It's easy and free to apply for an income-based repayment plan for federal loans through your loan servicer. Don't give any company your student loan related log-ins or sign over any powers of attorney. Ancillary Character fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Oct 3, 2016 |
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Oct 3, 2016 16:00
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Could use some advice. I have $22,200 in DL Stafford Subsidized loans at 2.65% and $24,500 in DL Stafford Unsubsidized loans at 6.8% both through Mohella. I have not been working and am not sure when I will be working again and I've burnt through my forbearance time and my monthly payments are going to be $650. With no income I obviously can't afford that, even if I had a decent job I probably couldn't afford that. I need my payment to be no more than $300 per month probably. It looks like I have several options, REPAYE, IBR, ICR and Extended. I'm having a hard time figuring out which one has the least chance of permanently destroying my future more so than I have already done myself. Extended quotes my payment at being $300 regardless if my income on the calculator is 0 or $40k, I realize maybe I get screwed over on interest in the longrun, but knowing my payment wont be more than $300 is pretty appealing. The others quote smaller payments, but look like they have some scumbag terms after 3 years. Any help would be greatly appreciated. katkillad2 fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Oct 5, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 21:22
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katkillad2 posted:Could use some advice. I have $22,200 in DL Stafford Subsidized loans at 2.65% and $24,500 in DL Stafford Unsubsidized loans at 6.8% both through Mohella. I have not been working and am not sure when I will be working again and I've burnt through my forbearance time and my monthly payments are going to be $650. With no income I obviously can't afford that, even if I had a decent job I probably couldn't afford that. I need my payment to be no more than $300 per month probably. The Extended payment plan is exactly that, it extends your loan term, which by virtues lowers your monthly payment since your loan is being paid over a longer period of time. It's completely independent of your income and there's no forgiveness at the end because the plan is meant to pay off your loan by the end of the term. Obviously, the downside is that you end up paying more money overall. REPAYE, IBR, and ICR are income-based repayment plans and there's nothing scummy about their terms after 3 years. There's no repayment plan where the government will fully subsidize your interest forever. With the income-based repayment plans, you have to annually recertify your income so that they can calculate your payment for the coming year. That usually just means logging in and granting the DoE permission to access your tax return. Your monthly payment is calculated as a percentage of your "discretionary income." Discretionary income is pretty much your AGI less 150% of the federal poverty level. REPAYE is 10%, IBR is 15% (there's an IBR for New-Borrowers that's also 10%) and ICR is usually 20%. There are some edge cases where just the right income level and loan balance can result in the ICR payment being less than REPAYE or IBR, but we can usually safely write that off as worse than REPAYE or IBR. Since it's based off your income, if you have no income or very low income, your minimum payment can be $0. On both IBR and REPAYE, for the first 3 years of repayment any interest on your subsidized loans not satisfied by your minimum payment is paid for by the government. Your unsubsidized loans will continue to accrue any unpaid interest and your subsidized loans will start to accrue unpaid interest after 3 years on IBR. However as an added benefit of REPAYE, 50% of monthly unsatisfied interest will be paid on your unsubsidized loans right away and the same for interest that starts accruing after 3 years on your subsidized loans after the full subsidy runs out. But, REPAYE may not be the runaway best option for you. If you're married, as long as you file your tax return as Married Filing Separately, IBR does not take your spouse's loans or income into consideration when determining your minimum payment. With REPAYE, as long as you are married, regardless of filing status, your spouse's income and federal student loan balances will be part of the calculation. If you and your spouse both have similar incomes and similar loan balances, then it wouldn't really matter if you file Jointly or get on REPAYE since the calculation would take the payment derived from your household income and split it proportionally between each spouse's loans, which in this case are effectively equal. The problem arises when one spouse has few or no loans, and may not want to contribute their income towards paying the other's loans. Since the calculation is on household income and not just your income, you will effectively pay more than that 10% or 15% if you're shouldering your loan payments by yourself. The payment on the income-based plans will change with your income, so if you make more, you'll pay more. There's no way to guarantee your payment will always stay below $300 unless you make sure to decline promotions and raises to keep your income low. If you cannot afford your income-based payment once it grows above $300 due to increases in your income, a budgeting problem would be more likely to blame than the repayment plan itself. There's also loan forgiveness at the end of 20 or 25 years of payment, depending on the income-based plan you choose. (Any $0 minimum payments that is calculated count towards this)The balance of the unpaid loan, principal and interest, are forgiven and that forgiven amount is added to your taxable income in the year it is forgiven, so you pay taxes on it. Your loan balances aren't super high, so depending on what kind of salary you may come into in the future, it may save you more money to pay off the loans aggressively than waiting for forgiveness (prioritize paying off the higher interest unsubsidized loans first). EDIT: There's also no cap as to how high your payment can be calculated on REPAYE if your income gets large enough. On IBR, the minimum payment is the lesser of the calculated payment or your 10-year standard payment. Ancillary Character fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Oct 6, 2016 |
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Oct 6, 2016 00:41
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I have various loans with various lenders. Fedloan has the bulk of my loans and they are on an IBR plan that will be forgiven in 10 years under PSLF. I have some private loans around $10,000 that I need to start aggressively paying down now that I can afford to. Then I have the weird loans I want to ask about. These are FFEL subsidized and unsubsidized stafford loans (3 total) with a balance of approximately 13,000. What am I supposed to be doing with these loans? I currently pay $20 a month towards them because they qualify for income based repayment and the amount I owe on these loans is drastically lower than the rest of my IBR Loans (the ones eligible for PSLF). Should I be trying to pay these loans now? Continue paying the minimum and wait for forgiveness 25 year forgiveness? I don't even know how that would work after the larger chunk of debt is forgiven in 10 years. Consolidate with my private loans?
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Oct 6, 2016 16:44
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Nevvy Z posted:I have various loans with various lenders. Fedloan has the bulk of my loans and they are on an IBR plan that will be forgiven in 10 years under PSLF. I have some private loans around $10,000 that I need to start aggressively paying down now that I can afford to. Then I have the weird loans I want to ask about. These are FFEL subsidized and unsubsidized stafford loans (3 total) with a balance of approximately 13,000. What am I supposed to be doing with these loans? I currently pay $20 a month towards them because they qualify for income based repayment and the amount I owe on these loans is drastically lower than the rest of my IBR Loans (the ones eligible for PSLF). You should pay them off as quickly as possible, I'd think. The PSLF IBR 10 year schtick saves you quite a bit of money and allows you to just make a minimum payment on those loans. Your income will soon hit a level where the minimum payment is just the 10 year repayment, though, and thus you essentially only save a few years of loan payments (however many years you were in a qualifying institution making the low salary) going that route. The 25 year forgiveness is not a really good deal, as you'll inevitably end up paying more over the life of the loan (interest plus principle) than you would just paying it down as soon as possible. Like while we're going to try to let our IBR loans be forgiven, my wife's private student loan is like the 3rd most toxic piece of debt we own and has no forgiveness prospects the way IBR loans do, so it makes it sense to pay it down as fast as we can afford.
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Oct 6, 2016 18:42
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This was very helpful and greatly appreciated! Thank you for taking the time to help me.
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Oct 6, 2016 18:44
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Nevvy Z posted:I have various loans with various lenders. Fedloan has the bulk of my loans and they are on an IBR plan that will be forgiven in 10 years under PSLF. I have some private loans around $10,000 that I need to start aggressively paying down now that I can afford to. Then I have the weird loans I want to ask about. These are FFEL subsidized and unsubsidized stafford loans (3 total) with a balance of approximately 13,000. What am I supposed to be doing with these loans? I currently pay $20 a month towards them because they qualify for income based repayment and the amount I owe on these loans is drastically lower than the rest of my IBR Loans (the ones eligible for PSLF). You can also consider consolidating those FFEL loans into a Direct Consolidation loan, this would make those loans also eligible for PSLF. The payment clock for those loans will start from zero, so they'll be forgiven slightly later than your other loans. Probably not worthwhile to do on a somewhat low balance if your Direct loans were already close to being forgiven, but since you said "in 10 years", I assume you just started on the path to PSLF. Just don't consolidate any of the existing Direct loans as well since that would reset the forgiveness clock on them.
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Oct 7, 2016 04:17
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I'm a 30 year old guy living in New York, looking to go back to school to get certified in HVAC starting at the end of February. I filled out the FAFSA online, and it still needs to process, but it estimates I'll get around $9k in aid via Direct Federal Loans, which is good because tuition is ~$8k with books and everything. The only issue is that I have rent to pay and lights to keep on, and so I'm looking for additional funds to help do that. FAFSA recommended I fill out NY state's TAP application, but the site for that didn't list my school. Am I not eligible for TAP if my school isn't listed? Would I be eligible for a Pell grant? What else should I be doing or looking out for?
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Nov 21, 2016 22:42
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A couple of months ago I was asking about the merits and potential pitfalls of refinancing my Federal loans with a private lender. I've started doing some more research and wanted to ask if anyone has any experience with Citizen's One bank. Through Credible I received a quick offer from them for 4.5% (compared to my current average of 7%). I know there're often gotchas and surprises with what they'll ACTUALLY offer once you get further in the process, but before I pull the trigger on submitting the paperwork for a proper inquiry and taking the hit to my credit score from a hard inquiry, I wanted to know if anyone's done business with them. Thanks!
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Nov 27, 2016 21:33
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GFBeach posted:A couple of months ago I was asking about the merits and potential pitfalls of refinancing my Federal loans with a private lender. I've started doing some more research and wanted to ask if anyone has any experience with Citizen's One bank. Through Credible I received a quick offer from them for 4.5% (compared to my current average of 7%). I know there're often gotchas and surprises with what they'll ACTUALLY offer once you get further in the process, but before I pull the trigger on submitting the paperwork for a proper inquiry and taking the hit to my credit score from a hard inquiry, I wanted to know if anyone's done business with them. Thanks! Depending on your profession / major, you may have better luck with earnest or sofi. I refinanced all of my private loans (could have done federal too) with Earnest as they were like 50 bps lower than what Credible offered across all the lenders that participate, Citizens included.
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Nov 29, 2016 03:49
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I would not recommend refinancing federal loans with a private lender. There are a lot of built in protections that you will lose.
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Nov 30, 2016 03:38
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Wiggy Marie posted:I would not recommend refinancing federal loans with a private lender. There are a lot of built in protections that you will lose. Yeah but if you're stuck in a place where you're going to make payments for a long time, have steady income and anticipate you will have to pay off the entirety of the balance, you can save yourself like 4 points of interest with a re-fi.
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Nov 30, 2016 13:29
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You can certainly save money, but at the same time I saw too many people who banked on exactly what you're talking about end up losing their jobs or having emergencies and realizing that no, you can't skip payments on private loans. I also had no, this debt can't be forgiven in the event of a tragedy (not a fun call with a parent cosigner). I would suggest not refinancing because of these protections.
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Nov 30, 2016 14:19
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Wiggy Marie posted:You can certainly save money, but at the same time I saw too many people who banked on exactly what you're talking about end up losing their jobs or having emergencies and realizing that no, you can't skip payments on private loans. I also had no, this debt can't be forgiven in the event of a tragedy (not a fun call with a parent cosigner). I mean federal loans have forebearance but they won't forgive the tragedy. If you marry someone with federal student loan debt and they die, that debt haunts you.
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Nov 30, 2016 19:56
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I'm pretty sure that gets forgiven. But still, I recommend refinancing for everyone who has a stable job and the basics of personal finance down. It's just way too much money to give up if you have 6 figure debt. Get disability insurance to cover yourself. If you go into forbearance you already hosed up. Who needs that poo poo? Where's your emergency fund?
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Nov 30, 2016 20:08
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What are the odds that the federal government ends up forgiving a substantial amount of student debt due to a default crisis? That's really what's holding me back from refinancing. I'm a lawyer with a really good salary but 140K of student debt at 7.6 interest.
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Nov 30, 2016 21:29
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beergod posted:What are the odds that the federal government ends up forgiving a substantial amount of student debt due to a default crisis? That's really what's holding me back from refinancing. I'm a lawyer with a really good salary but 140K of student debt at 7.6 interest. Pay your loans.
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Nov 30, 2016 22:06
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Anyone with an opinion on the question?
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Dec 1, 2016 02:20
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Not high with Trump
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Dec 1, 2016 02:26
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It was zero or very close to zero even if Sanders had won. Money from the government doesn't come out of thin air. In short, refinance unless you qualify for PSLF.
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Dec 1, 2016 05:38
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beergod posted:What are the odds that the federal government ends up forgiving a substantial amount of student debt due to a default crisis? That's really what's holding me back from refinancing. I'm a lawyer with a really good salary but 140K of student debt at 7.6 interest. This is really dumb. Chances are not high. Certainly not worth the amount of money you would save by refinancing. And okay say pigs fly and they do offer up something. What if it's limited to 50% of your loans? Or limited to a certain dollar amount? And even if it does happen it's not happening tomorrow. Say it happens in 5 or 10 years. You'll have paid back a lot of money already, limiting how much you benefit. It's not like you can go into forbearance until the banking system collapses or you die. Everything has to go right in order for you to come out ahead here, and it's not going to. Not refinancing because of federal loan protections at least makes some sense. This doesn't.
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Dec 1, 2016 05:40
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beergod posted:Anyone with an opinion on the question? My opinion is you are being foolish. You make too much money and will have to pay them back anyways. Just get it done and save on the years of interest.
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Dec 1, 2016 06:07
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Thanks all. My FICO is 730 and I'm looking to refi about $145,293 in debt with a current fixed APR of 6.875%. What kind of rates should I be looking for? I assume I want to go Fixed in any case, right?
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Dec 1, 2016 07:28
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Just apply to multiple sites and go with whoever gives you the best number. Why do you assume fixed? Especially if you're able to pay them down quickly if interest rates go up.
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Dec 1, 2016 07:53
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Isn't Trump going to have the Fed raise rates? The election broke my brain I'm sorry I just assume the absolute worst.
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Dec 1, 2016 08:17
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Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows. If you plan on hanging onto this thing for 20 years or if increasing payments would be a big deal for you, then fixed might be better. But you said you make a ton of money right? If interest rates go through the roof, then buckle down and bang it out in a year or two. No big deal. Why insure against increasing interest rates if you don't need to? Variable versus fixed is really of secondary importance though. Just make sure that your financial life is in order, that you understand the federal benefits that you are giving up, and that you don't get fired.
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Dec 1, 2016 09:11
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