Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Nodelphi
Jan 30, 2004

We are all quite capable of believing in anything as long as it's improbable.

Ham Wrangler

Tyro posted:

Man I have almost 5 more years to go on my PSLF. They also jerked me around this summer on my recertification form. They claimed the date was altered next to my HR person's signature (because his handwriting sucks) so they said I have to get HR to do a new form. Which is fun in a giant government bureaucracy. I thought about just skipping a year but I'm still doing it, because gently caress them.


Good luck y'all.

I’ve given up with PSLF. After eight years of certifications on my ninth year they sent me notice that not only did I not qualify but they were revoking the qualification for payments made during the previous four years. I had made an employment change at the time and even talked to someone on the phone to confirm I would still qualify if I took the job. What is the point of annually certifying if they can revoke that certification?

Now I need to either lawyer up and go through that expense or just suck it up and move on. I think it’s all a shell game and I’m just going to move on and pay the darn thing down.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Tyro
Nov 10, 2009

Nodelphi posted:

I’ve given up with PSLF. After eight years of certifications on my ninth year they sent me notice that not only did I not qualify but they were revoking the qualification for payments made during the previous four years. I had made an employment change at the time and even talked to someone on the phone to confirm I would still qualify if I took the job. What is the point of annually certifying if they can revoke that certification?

Now I need to either lawyer up and go through that expense or just suck it up and move on. I think it’s all a shell game and I’m just going to move on and pay the darn thing down.

Holy crap that's infuriating. I'm a federal employee so I think I'll be safe but stories like this give me pause.

Chu020
Dec 19, 2005
Only Text
Government or 501(c)3 employee or bust for PSLF.

EAT FASTER!!!!!!
Sep 21, 2002

Legendary.


:hampants::hampants::hampants:
Opposite experience, I received word last week that my request for review had been granted and my payment number on my four main loan sequences had been adjusted up to 77, with my secondary loan sequence adjusted to 67.

43 payments left, I can do this. Just need to have my wife's numbers confirmed also.

Sirotan
Oct 17, 2006

Sirotan is a seal.


Nodelphi posted:

I’ve given up with PSLF. After eight years of certifications on my ninth year they sent me notice that not only did I not qualify but they were revoking the qualification for payments made during the previous four years. I had made an employment change at the time and even talked to someone on the phone to confirm I would still qualify if I took the job. What is the point of annually certifying if they can revoke that certification?

Now I need to either lawyer up and go through that expense or just suck it up and move on. I think it’s all a shell game and I’m just going to move on and pay the darn thing down.

I take it you do not work for a 501c3? I'd be curious to know what kind of company it is, if you're willing to share.

Nodelphi
Jan 30, 2004

We are all quite capable of believing in anything as long as it's improbable.

Ham Wrangler

Sirotan posted:

I take it you do not work for a 501c3? I'd be curious to know what kind of company it is, if you're willing to share.

I do work for a 501c3. Two of them in fact. I was assured that as long as I worked an aggregate number of hours per week to qualify as full time that all was well and indeed for four years it seemed to be fine. Now either the rules changed or they’ve decided to change the way they treat the aggregate .

The frustrating thing is I don’t even much like working two jobs and I wouldn’t have done it if they gave me any indication that it would jeopardize forgiveness.

I decided to go ahead and appeal it so here’s hoping but stuff like this really grinds you down.

EAT FASTER!!!!!!
Sep 21, 2002

Legendary.


:hampants::hampants::hampants:
Oof, a setback has emerged.

My loans are all eligible for PSLF and ordered appropriately with between 67-75 payments made.

We thought my wife's loans were in the same boat. I've been bugging her for a while to make sure everything was straightened out, but today for the first time she found out that the majority of her balance (like I'm not kidding, $300K) are in FFEL loans and not forgiveable under PSLF.

Because my repayment plans are joint income dependent and joint (federal) balance weighted, and because I've got 4 years until forgiveness, should we just tread water on her loans and save until mine clear and then pay them down aggressively?

Should we consolidate? (FedLoans will consolidate the loans but at a weighted average interest rate, no real advantage).

I'm kind of at a loss here, this was devastating news.

Sub Rosa
Jun 9, 2010




EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:

Should we consolidate? (FedLoans will consolidate the loans but at a weighted average interest rate, no real advantage).
I think FFEL loans are PSLF eligible after consolidation, but of course only payments made after the consolidation count.

Chu020
Dec 19, 2005
Only Text

EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:

Oof, a setback has emerged.

Fuuuuck dude, that sucks. This is the answer to about half the people that got turned down for PSLF 10/2017. First question is if you consolidate under FedLoans now would you be able to get her payments pegged to the original 10 yr standard payment when she first went into repayment, or if the 'permanent standard' payment becomes the 10 yr payments at the time of consolidation. Second question is, do you currently have a partial financial hardship (PFH) that's reducing the payments on yours and her loans currently. If not (i.e. you're pegged to the permanent standard payment under IBR or PAYE), then what happens with her loans won't affect your payments. But if you are currently getting reduced payments, then you'd have to take that into account as well. The scenarios to compare would be:
- Keep making min payments under IBR or PAYE for 4 years on both, then refinance hers and pay off over 3-5 years (only relevant if you currently have a PFH, otherwise it'd just be comparing the next 2 scenarios)
- Consolidate hers with Fedloans, make min payments on yours for 4 years in addition to 10 yrs of min payments on hers under PAYE/IBR (once it drops to just her loans after 4 years, if you currently have a PFH she'd probably no longer qualify when yours get forgiven and would take that increase in her payments into account)
- Refinance hers privately, figure out what a reasonable quick payoff schedule is and how much you'd pay, add to that your payments under your IDR plan for another 4 years (again, whether your payments change depends on PFH or not)

There are times where the numbers work out that, even if you didn't make any payments during residency, you still save by going for PSLF and making payments for 10 years instead of refinancing and paying off over 3-5 years. So there's not a clear answer without running the numbers for each scenario.

EAT FASTER!!!!!!
Sep 21, 2002

Legendary.


:hampants::hampants::hampants:

Chu020 posted:

Fuuuuck dude, that sucks. This is the answer to about half the people that got turned down for PSLF 10/2017. First question is if you consolidate under FedLoans now would you be able to get her payments pegged to the original 10 yr standard payment when she first went into repayment, or if the 'permanent standard' payment becomes the 10 yr payments at the time of consolidation. Second question is, do you currently have a partial financial hardship (PFH) that's reducing the payments on yours and her loans currently. If not (i.e. you're pegged to the permanent standard payment under IBR or PAYE), then what happens with her loans won't affect your payments. But if you are currently getting reduced payments, then you'd have to take that into account as well. The scenarios to compare would be:
- Keep making min payments under IBR or PAYE for 4 years on both, then refinance hers and pay off over 3-5 years (only relevant if you currently have a PFH, otherwise it'd just be comparing the next 2 scenarios)
- Consolidate hers with Fedloans, make min payments on yours for 4 years in addition to 10 yrs of min payments on hers under PAYE/IBR (once it drops to just her loans after 4 years, if you currently have a PFH she'd probably no longer qualify when yours get forgiven and would take that increase in her payments into account)
- Refinance hers privately, figure out what a reasonable quick payoff schedule is and how much you'd pay, add to that your payments under your IDR plan for another 4 years (again, whether your payments change depends on PFH or not)

There are times where the numbers work out that, even if you didn't make any payments during residency, you still save by going for PSLF and making payments for 10 years instead of refinancing and paying off over 3-5 years. So there's not a clear answer without running the numbers for each scenario.

I appreciate the insight and the sentiment.

It's hard to be too mad given that these are champagne problems.

First question I'll have to ask her to investigate, I'm pretty sure it's the permanent standard payment.

With her loans and my loans both factored my REPAYE payment does qualify as a PFH (and hers has some IBR version). I imagine the numbers that will make the most sense are doing a FedLoans consolidation for her loans and then making minimum payments for the next four years (until I'm forgiven) and then reevaluating at that time. I'll still run the numbers for each of the three scenarios you suggest.

The good news is our savings rate to this point has been crazy high, and we have enough cash every month to pay down at pretty accelerated pace if we really buckle down, but I want to see how the math bears out for flavors of forgiveness.

Chu020
Dec 19, 2005
Only Text
If you're currently under REPAYE because you have a financial hardship, then if you do decide to go with the 3rd option (refinance hers privately now), then you'd want to switch to PAYE (if your loans are all after 10/07) or IBR before your yearly IDR-reapplication occurs, because PAYE and IBR will peg your maximum payment to the 'permanent standard' payment, whereas with REPAYE it'll probably be higher.

EAT FASTER!!!!!!
Sep 21, 2002

Legendary.


:hampants::hampants::hampants:

Chu020 posted:

If you're currently under REPAYE because you have a financial hardship, then if you do decide to go with the 3rd option (refinance hers privately now), then you'd want to switch to PAYE (if your loans are all after 10/07) or IBR before your yearly IDR-reapplication occurs, because PAYE and IBR will peg your maximum payment to the 'permanent standard' payment, whereas with REPAYE it'll probably be higher.

Isn't there text in the reapplication that forces them to switch you to whatever payment will be lowest?

Also I think the least likely option is doing a private refinance, but it's still worth considering, thanks.

stump collector
May 28, 2007
I have a loan that's been with collections for a while, and they have mentioned consolidation of all of my federal loans as an option. Is this a scam? I haven't found many good resources online for consolidation of loans. Also, can anyone summarize the pros/cons of refinancing through a company like sofi for example?

Dik Hz
Feb 22, 2004

Fun with Science

stump collector posted:

I have a loan that's been with collections for a while, and they have mentioned consolidation of all of my federal loans as an option. Is this a scam? I haven't found many good resources online for consolidation of loans. Also, can anyone summarize the pros/cons of refinancing through a company like sofi for example?
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/default/get-out

You essentially have two options. I successfully went through the student loan rehabilitation process after I defaulted due to burn-out almost a decade ago. It was pretty painless, but the third party collections company that the rehabilitation went through was amateurish, at best. They also indicated that 85%+ of people who start rehabilitation don't complete it. It completely fell off my credit when I disputed the defaults through the credit agencies after completing the program.

The consolidation of defaulted loans option wasn't available back then, so I can't comment on that.

Absolutely don't consolidate by refinancing through a private company. Your credit sucks right now, so your rate will be abysmal. And you'll lose the protections that federal student loans provide over private notes.

Sub Rosa
Jun 9, 2010




I went through the consolidation process, defaulted on it, then did the rehabilitation process, and then finally got them all discharged due to disability.

I would agree don't consolidate with a private lender unless you are 100% sure you are saving money and will never need the many protections you receive for federal loans.

Rehabilitation is also a one time thing, if you default again after doing rehabilitation, you can't get them out of default using that process again. That said, rehabilitation is much more powerful a tool in terms of helping your credit, because once it all goes through, all those tradelines have all their derogatory marks removed. But in consolidation, you get a new fine tradeline, but all the old defaulted loans will remain as negative tradelines. My last two negatives, two 90 day lates, are from the loans I consolidated, and will fall off in February. If I had done the rehabilitation process in the first place, my credit would have been clean much faster... expect for the whole I defaulted again.

So really first step is figuring out if you have fixed whatever led you to be, like I am, someone who let their loans reach that step, and got a handle on that. For me it wasn't money so much as being bad with doing the yearly income verification for my income based repayments. Those 90 day late payments on my credit report would have been payments of $0 if I had stayed on top of my paperwork.

basicblack
Oct 9, 2004

That basic little black dress.


Long time lurker, first time poster here.

Is anyone else noticing delays in DL sub/unsub posting this semester? I have a lot of students who still have "delinquent bursars accounts" because they are waiting on federal student loan monies, and its cramping registration (can't reg if you owe this place even a penny). I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't a broader issue going on. And since I don't work across the hall from SFA anymore, I can't yell across the hall to ask.

PyRosflam
Aug 11, 2007
The good, The bad, Im the one with the gun.

basicblack posted:

Long time lurker, first time poster here.

Is anyone else noticing delays in DL sub/unsub posting this semester? I have a lot of students who still have "delinquent bursars accounts" because they are waiting on federal student loan monies, and its cramping registration (can't reg if you owe this place even a penny). I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't a broader issue going on. And since I don't work across the hall from SFA anymore, I can't yell across the hall to ask.

I ended up putting the tuition on a credit card for this very reason. The letter says the money is due, but issuing the funds is really late.

The Slack Lagoon
Jun 17, 2008



Just submitted IBR for PSLF eligible loans and can't help but feel that somehow DeVos is going to gently caress me over. Wife and I MFS for the sole purpose of IBR payments but they still ask for both our income info.

47/120 payments certified though. Missed a month due to a job change and even though the payment was made while still at the old job, since the payment due date was in between jobs it doesn't count.

Sirotan
Oct 17, 2006

Sirotan is a seal.


The Slack Lagoon posted:

47/120 payments certified though. Missed a month due to a job change and even though the payment was made while still at the old job, since the payment due date was in between jobs it doesn't count.

I feel you on this one. I switched jobs and wanted to have a week off in between. Payment due date fell in that week and now my loan forgiveness is pushed back a month. :argh:

Residency Evil
Jul 28, 2003

4/5 godo... Schumi
Ugh.

Looks like I got my first IBR payment calculation denial email after re-certifying our income with myfedloans. I was thinking this might happen, as this is the first time after getting married/doing taxes/using that information for the IBR payment calculation. We no longer qualify as a partial financial hardship, however it’s my understanding that our payments should be capped at the standard 10 year repayment level.

I’m going to give myfedloans a call, but has anyone dealt with this before? Any suggestions (other than go in to private practice)? I want to stay with IBR as the repayment plan rather than REPAYE.

EAT FASTER!!!!!!
Sep 21, 2002

Legendary.


:hampants::hampants::hampants:

Residency Evil posted:

I want to stay with IBR as the repayment plan rather than REPAYE.

The only way you're going to qualify for a PFH is under REPAYE, and why don't you want to switch to it? All your previous qualifying payments still count?

Also I'm leaving academics and going to private practice, lol.

Chu020
Dec 19, 2005
Only Text

EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:

The only way you're going to qualify for a PFH is under REPAYE, and why don't you want to switch to it? All your previous qualifying payments still count?

Also I'm leaving academics and going to private practice, lol.

10% of discretionary income for RE is almost certainly more than the original 10-yr payment. That's the situation we found ourselves in, even with both our loans being taken into account, which won't be the case for him because he's refinanced his spouse's privately.

Don't worry about it, the payment will still be capped under IBR to the original 10-yr payment even though they're saying you no longer have a partial financial hardship. It gets called the 'INR Permanent Standard' payment for reference. We've been on that for the last 2 years and they definitely still count toward PSLF, they just cost more.

Residency Evil
Jul 28, 2003

4/5 godo... Schumi

EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:

The only way you're going to qualify for a PFH is under REPAYE, and why don't you want to switch to it? All your previous qualifying payments still count?

Also I'm leaving academics and going to private practice, lol.

Chu020 posted:

10% of discretionary income for RE is almost certainly more than the original 10-yr payment. That's the situation we found ourselves in, even with both our loans being taken into account, which won't be the case for him because he's refinanced his spouse's privately.

Don't worry about it, the payment will still be capped under IBR to the original 10-yr payment even though they're saying you no longer have a partial financial hardship. It gets called the 'INR Permanent Standard' payment for reference. We've been on that for the last 2 years and they definitely still count toward PSLF, they just cost more.

Yeah it’s this. Last year was before we got married and with partial residency income from a few years back, but this year is the first one with “real” numbers. The original 10 year standard repayment plan is the cheapest with the best option for forgiveness. I just spent an hour talking to three separate reps who were all confused. The last one claimed I will switch over to the “IBR permanent standard” plan automatically. Is that the case?

Residency Evil fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Nov 13, 2019

Chu020
Dec 19, 2005
Only Text
Yes, once you're declined and don't choose a different plan you qualify for, you switch over to the permanent standard payment automatically. If you look at the message you get every year that tells you to reapply for an IDR plan, it tells you what your payment will go to if you don't reapply. That amount is the permanent standard payment amount.

And yes, the reps at FedLoans are completely useless about this, had the same experience when I called to try to confirm all this.

alnilam
Nov 10, 2009

How does the chronology work between changes like getting a raise, or changing tax filing status, vs a PAYE income based payment amount?

Like for example:
I recertify PAYE every year in October
I get a new job or a huge raise today in December
I don't file taxes until April 2020
I don't recertify again (using tax filing info from April 2020) until October 2020

When in this timeline does my PAYE payment change? My guess is not until October 2020 but that seems... lucky. If I wait until October 2020, do I get in trouble for having gotten away with low payments for 10 whole months?

Similar question for if we decide to change from Married Filing Separately to Jointly :rznv:
We file in April 2020 for the tax year 2019. This sorta means retroactively our payments should have been higher all of 2019, but the IRS doesn't know until April, and Fed Loan doesn't find out until October 2020. So what then? Do we still "get away" with the lower payments all the way until October 2020?

Sirotan
Oct 17, 2006

Sirotan is a seal.


alnilam posted:

If I wait until October 2020, do I get in trouble for having gotten away with low payments for 10 whole months?

Nope!

alnilam posted:

Do we still "get away" with the lower payments all the way until October 2020?

Yep!

The Slack Lagoon
Jun 17, 2008



I'm in a similar situation - IDR is certified in November using the previous year's taxes so we just certified for 2020 payments in 2019 based on 2018's tax return.

alnilam
Nov 10, 2009

Sirotan posted:

Nope!


Yep!

:peanut: :homebrew: thanks!

Residency Evil
Jul 28, 2003

4/5 godo... Schumi

It's a student loan Christmas miracle!

literally this big
Jan 10, 2007



Here comes
the Squirtle Squad!
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the SECURE Act and it's effect on 529 plans. The $10k limit doesn't really make sense (since the average student debt out of college is around $40k), but it's effect on how to pay back a loan seems pretty significant.

whodatwhere
Aug 24, 2013

I have some questions on my current debt situation.

My wife has a large amount of medical school debt ~290k. She is currently in her residency i.e. makes significantly less than her eventual full Dr salary. I am a scientist currently in a postdoc, so also making less than my eventual full salary, though not nearly as much less as her.

We are currently in the PAYE repayment, with PFH (married filing separately).
Am I understanding PFH correctly?: It is based on her AGI alone since we're filing separately? So, based on a 10 yr standard repayment her payment would be ~$2900. Does that mean she would need a salary of ~$380k before she's out of PFH? Does it get recalculated at the annual recertification?

How does PAYE forgiveness work? After 20years of payments remaining balance is forgiven? What if we our income makes us ineligible for PAYE at some point in the future? Are we still technically in PAYE but making 10yr standard equivalent payments, or more? Is the general consensus that the forgiveness will actually happen or is it a gamble? Since our combined incomes will be so high in about 4years, we're trying to decide between forgiveness (not pslf) or just hammering it down asap. Thoughts?

Thanks for any info!

Residency Evil
Jul 28, 2003

4/5 godo... Schumi

whodatwhere posted:

I have some questions on my current debt situation.

My wife has a large amount of medical school debt ~290k. She is currently in her residency i.e. makes significantly less than her eventual full Dr salary. I am a scientist currently in a postdoc, so also making less than my eventual full salary, though not nearly as much less as her.

We are currently in the PAYE repayment, with PFH (married filing separately).
Am I understanding PFH correctly?: It is based on her AGI alone since we're filing separately? So, based on a 10 yr standard repayment her payment would be ~$2900. Does that mean she would need a salary of ~$380k before she's out of PFH? Does it get recalculated at the annual recertification?

How does PAYE forgiveness work? After 20years of payments remaining balance is forgiven? What if we our income makes us ineligible for PAYE at some point in the future? Are we still technically in PAYE but making 10yr standard equivalent payments, or more? Is the general consensus that the forgiveness will actually happen or is it a gamble? Since our combined incomes will be so high in about 4years, we're trying to decide between forgiveness (not pslf) or just hammering it down asap. Thoughts?

Thanks for any info!

1. Yes, but I would double check that married filing separately makes sense for you guys. The tax system is set up to discourage MFS, and it's likely that the benefit of a slightly lower repayment will be outweighed by missing out on the tax incentives.
2. Yes, it gets recalculated at the annual recertification each year, and is based on the previous year's tax return.
3. There are several forgiveness programs. There's "regular" forgiveness as well as Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). Make sure you read up on the requirements fo reach carefully.

Essentially, PSLF requires that you:
1. Work for an eligible non-profit (likely a 501c3)
2. Are under an income based repayment plan
3. Make 120 payments under an income contingent plan

"Regular" forgiveness (IBR forgiveness) requires that you:
1. Are under an income based repayment plan
2. Make 20 years of payments

Each of the plans are different in how much their payments are each month. Importantly for you, REPAYE is NOT income capped, while IBR (and I believe PAYE) are. Also, you are only eligible for an income driven repayment plan if you have a partial financial hardship. The "game," if you can call it that, is best played when you're under REPAYE/the plan that gives you the lowest monthly repayment during your wife's residency. Then, in the year that you still have a PFH, switch to an income capped repayment plan while you're eligible to do so. THEN, when you/your wife are earning too much to qualify for a hardship, your payments are capped at the 10 year repayment max.

This works best if your wife is working for a 501c3/non-profit and can get her loans forgiven at 10 years. Obviously, if you're on a 10 year repayment plan and you're paying the max, the loans are going to end up paid off in 20 years. If your wife ends up working for a private practice/non 501c3, it probably makes the most sense for you guys to refinance with a lender at the currently very favorable rates, pay the loans off, and bag the idea of forgiveness.

My wife and I are in a similar position. She played the game "wrong" before we got married and didn't end up under an eligible plan, so we refinanced her loans and paid them off aggressively. I'm played the game "right" and made payments during residency, took a job at a 501c3, and am on track to get some (not all) of my loans forgiven.

FWIW, even by playing the game "right" you're still likely going to end up coming out behind with respect to your earning potential by taking a 501c3 job, except for maybe some edge cases with extremely high student loan balances and relatively low paying specialties.

Chu020
Dec 19, 2005
Only Text
If you're going the married filing separately route, then yes, only her income is counted toward payments on her loans. Whether this is the right thing to do or not depends on a lot of things, and unfortunately the only way to know for sure is basically to run your taxes filing jointly vs separately and see if the payment decrease is worth the loss of various deductions for filing separately. That being said, the main reason to drop your PAYE payments as low as possible is if you're going for a particular forgiveness program, because otherwise you should be trying to out as much toward loans as you can assuming they're at 6.8% like most are these days.

For the purposes of either IDR forgiveness or PSLF, any PAYE payment counts toward the 10 or 20 year timeframe. When you no longer have a partial financial hardship, you're basically pinned to the original 10 year standard payment amount before the loans started accruing interest, but payments are still considered to be under an IDR plan and still would count toward PSLF or IDR forgiveness.

As a physician, it's possible that even if she isn't intending on specifically working for an academic practice, she may still end up being a 501(c)3 employee, so I wouldn't discount PSLF entirely. However, if she takes a job that isn't eligible for PSLF, then I would just pay off the loans as quickly as possible for a few reasons. First, if you no longer qualify for a PFH, then there's actually a reasonable chance you'll end up paying off a large chunk of the loans before you hit the 20 year mark using the original 10 year monthly payment. Also, remember that IDR forgiveness is taxable, so whatever is forgiven is added to your taxable income for that year and you end up paying it at your marginal rate or higher at the time. It's incredibly unlikely that paying that and loan payments over 20 years would save you money compared to refinancing and paying them off over 5 years or so unless you actually still had a PFH and a significant discount on your monthly payment during that period.

Physicians should almost never be aiming for IDR-based forgiveness and the main decision is either PSLF or refinancing and paying off ASAP. The rare exception would be if your student loans are on the order of 3-4x or more your attending salary, in which case you may need to run the numbers to see which scenario works out better for you.

whodatwhere
Aug 24, 2013

Awesome! Thank you both, very helpful.

Sounds like we have a couple things to do: run some different tax scenarios (MFS/J, fellowship years salary, etc). Try to seriously predict where she wants to end up to decide PSLF or not. Hopefully she has some idea of 501c3 vs private salaries for her eventual specialty that can help also calculate costs vs benefits.

Not aiming for IDR forgiveness has sort of been my feeling as well, but I need to run some numbers.

Thanks again!

Dik Hz
Feb 22, 2004

Fun with Science

whodatwhere posted:

I have some questions on my current debt situation.

My wife has a large amount of medical school debt ~290k. She is currently in her residency i.e. makes significantly less than her eventual full Dr salary. I am a scientist currently in a postdoc, so also making less than my eventual full salary, though not nearly as much less as her.

We are currently in the PAYE repayment, with PFH (married filing separately).
Am I understanding PFH correctly?: It is based on her AGI alone since we're filing separately? So, based on a 10 yr standard repayment her payment would be ~$2900. Does that mean she would need a salary of ~$380k before she's out of PFH? Does it get recalculated at the annual recertification?

How does PAYE forgiveness work? After 20years of payments remaining balance is forgiven? What if we our income makes us ineligible for PAYE at some point in the future? Are we still technically in PAYE but making 10yr standard equivalent payments, or more? Is the general consensus that the forgiveness will actually happen or is it a gamble? Since our combined incomes will be so high in about 4years, we're trying to decide between forgiveness (not pslf) or just hammering it down asap. Thoughts?

Thanks for any info!
I don't want to sound flippant, but if your wife has $290k in student loan debt and qualifies for PAYE forgiveness, she has massively failed as a doctor. Ignore the payoff and help her find the highest paying job possible. That'll do much more than trying to game the PAYE program.

Live on your salary + $50k and put the rest into the student loan. In a couple years you'll be clear and not have to worry about it.

whodatwhere
Aug 24, 2013

Dik Hz posted:

I don't want to sound flippant, but if your wife has $290k in student loan debt and qualifies for PAYE forgiveness, she has massively failed as a doctor. Ignore the payoff and help her find the highest paying job possible. That'll do much more than trying to game the PAYE program.

Live on your salary + $50k and put the rest into the student loan. In a couple years you'll be clear and not have to worry about it.

Hmm, clearly you don't know the path to becoming a med Dr. She's a resident. No massive fail, that's just the system. I mean there are ways to get through med school with less debt and hospital programs that will pay debt for years of service after residency etc, but her current (lack of) salary has nothing to do with a "massive fail"

whodatwhere fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Dec 30, 2019

Amara
Jun 4, 2009

Dik Hz posted:

I don't want to sound flippant, but if your wife has $290k in student loan debt and qualifies for PAYE forgiveness, she has massively failed as a doctor. Ignore the payoff and help her find the highest paying job possible. That'll do much more than trying to game the PAYE program.

Live on your salary + $50k and put the rest into the student loan. In a couple years you'll be clear and not have to worry about it.

Lol given that you clearly know nothing about doctor training did it occur to you to at least Google "residency" before making this post?

Dik Hz
Feb 22, 2004

Fun with Science

Amara posted:

Lol given that you clearly know nothing about doctor training did it occur to you to at least Google "residency" before making this post?

whodatwhere posted:

Hmm, clearly you don't know the path to becoming a med Dr. She's a resident. No massive fail, that's just the system. I mean there are ways to get through med school with less debt and hospital programs that will pay debt for years of service after residency etc, but her current (lack of) salary has nothing to do with a "massive fail"
Y'all need to RCP. Forgiveness happens after 20 years of payments. If you're having debt discharged through PAYE forgiveness 20 years after graduating med school, then yes it is a massive failure. If you take the forgiveness off the table, it doesn't make any sense to run up the loans if you're going to pay off all the interest anyway.

And, like I said, if you live on your salary plus the first $50k of your wife's salary until the loan is gone. Residents earn $60-70k, right? So you'll be keeping up with interest, and when she makes doctor money, you keep doing the "your salary + $50k" thing and pay off the loan in the first couple years of her first full-doctor job.

Dik Hz fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Jan 3, 2020

Amara
Jun 4, 2009
I feel like you still didn't read the posts above you from doctors with similar loan burden who are navigating this loan system.

Salient points:
- Repayment is only 10 years with public service forgiveness, and residency almost always counts as a non profit. If your residency and fellowship are 6 years (a very standard number) then you only have to find 4 years of nonprofit work (usually a prestigious university hospital job) after residency for forgiveness.
- Several of the income based repayment plans cap payments at the regular 10-year repayment rate. So you spend 6 years paying an income-based repayment on your 60k resident salary and then the next 4 years you pay no more than the 10-year regular loan payments. Then your loans are forgiven.
- Other doctors on this forum have literally done this.
- These same doctors also brought up that the 20 year plan probably wasn't worth it, and OP already agreed.

"I don't want to sound flippant, but if your wife has $290k in student loan debt and qualifies for PAYE forgiveness, she has massively failed as a doctor."

This was super inflammatory, and OP was already in agreement that the 20 year plan wasn't reasonable and was trying to figure out 10-year pslf instead.

Amara fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Jan 4, 2020

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Dik Hz
Feb 22, 2004

Fun with Science

Amara posted:

I feel like you still didn't read the posts above you from doctors with similar loan burden who are navigating this loan system.

Salient points:
- Repayment is only 10 years with public service forgiveness, and residency almost always counts as a non profit. If your residency and fellowship are 6 years (a very standard number) then you only have to find 4 years of nonprofit work (usually a prestigious university hospital job) after residency for forgiveness.
- Several of the income based repayment plans cap payments at the regular 10-year repayment rate. So you spend 6 years paying an income-based repayment on your 60k resident salary and then the next 4 years you pay no more than the 10-year regular loan payments. Then your loans are forgiven.
- Other doctors on this forum have literally done this.
- These same doctors also brought up that the 20 year plan probably wasn't worth it, and OP already agreed.

"I don't want to sound flippant, but if your wife has $290k in student loan debt and qualifies for PAYE forgiveness, she has massively failed as a doctor."

This was super inflammatory, and OP was already in agreement that the 20 year plan wasn't reasonable and was trying to figure out 10-year pslf instead.
It's almost as if I was responding to the post I quoted.......

Y'all jumped on me thinking I was talking about qualifying for PAYE payments despite clearly saying PAYE forgiveness. Was any of my advice wrong or bad? Or did you reflexively assume I know nothing because your misreading of my post made you feel bad?

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply