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Am I absolutely insane for considering taking out $100K+ in Stafford and gradPLUS loans to pay for my MBA? I plan on working in a "public service" job and using income based repayment to cap the monthly payments, and making the minimum payments only, because the government will pay the balance after 10 years. Is there anything here I am missing? It seems pretty foolproof to me based on the info and calculator at finaid.org. There is really no way for me to attend this program without a massive amount of debt (high 5 figures minimum, low 6 figures more likely) on graduation unless I get a private fellowship/grant which is very unlikely.
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May 17, 2010 00:31
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antwizzle posted:As long as they are all federal loans which qualify for IBR and loan forgiveness, you're good. I know it seems too good to be true, but I have a couple of friends lucky enough to land a job out of grad school riding the IBR train, and it really does work. Good points. No debt now other than my mortgage. Have not started school yet. I was under the impression that the "public service" qualifier was very broadly written, am I mistaken? I'm currently a police officer, I can't imagine any kind of law enforcement job not counting as public service. And yes I'm aware of the possibility of the federal government screwing me by repealing the law, but I'm hoping if they do that, they will at least have the decency to grandfather in the current participants... ninja edit: Just read a paper by a Georgetown law professor about this very subject. http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/fwps_papers/38/
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May 17, 2010 03:40
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Holy crap so according to finaid.org's calculator my EFC will be in the ballpark of $15,000! That's more than my assets, how can they possibly expect me to contribute more than I have? I assume I can talk to the financial aid office and get that reduced? I haven't even filed FAFSA yet I guess I need to do so ASAP? edit Ha Fafsa says $18,000. Tyro fucked around with this message at 13:42 on May 19, 2010 |
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May 19, 2010 13:30
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Why did you do that instead of using last year's AGI? I am about to enter repayment with a $0 payment by doing that...
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Sep 20, 2012 03:00
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baquerd posted:Just realize it is overwhelmingly likely you will be paying 15% of your income minus the poverty line for 25 years. To realistically pay the entire loan back before that time you're going to need to be making six figures for decades on end, because unless you happen to land that amount within the first three years right out of school, the interest is going to absolutely kill you. And your spouse's income if you ever get married! 
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Mar 3, 2013 22:11
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I'm also IBR/PSLF looking to transfer to PAYE/PSLF once my annual form submission comes around. My income is variable year to year. The only thing I haven't looked into yet, in IBR let's say I have a really good year and make a lot of money, I stay "in IBR" and eligible for PSLF, but the next 12 payments turn into what they would have been under a normal 10-year repayment program. The following year, I don't make as much, and it drops back to the standard IBR calculation. Or, my understanding is that if I marry someone who makes a good salary and the joint AGI maxes the payment back out, those payments also still count towards PSLF. It appears PAYE operates in the same way?
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Jun 10, 2014 22:20
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So I am about to switch from IBR to PAYE. The loan servicer is saying I need to make one "IBR exit" payment in between, which should be close to or equal to my "standard 10 year" repayment. They say it's not a penalty or anything, that it counts as a monthly payment, but that it's required to do the switch, they can't just go from one to the other. Has anyone else run into this? Is this correct? I don't mind making the payment but of course if I can avoid it I would like to since I did not budget for it.
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Aug 18, 2014 12:58
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Kellsterik posted:Looking at the installment plan, it will definitely help, but the best i'll be able to do is $1500 when I sign up and $1500 on October 1. That's possible if I count pennies, but i'd be cutting it dangerously close. If there's a not completely awful option for sub-$1000 loans, i'd like to hear it out. What about a personal line of credit or an unsecured personal loan from your bank. I used to have a LOC from my bank that was something like $1500, I took it out when I wanted to buy a motorcycle in college. The interest wasn't great but since I paid it off within like 2-3 months I didn't care.
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Aug 18, 2014 13:00
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Effexxor posted:good info Thanks. It is bizarre that you can negotiate it. Does that payment count towards PSLF? If so would negotiating it down have any effect on that? I also PMed you for some minor clarification.
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Aug 22, 2014 18:35
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Thanks, I will call back and hopefully I can just swap over to PAYE directly. I think that post answered the question that was in my PM. Extremely helpful!
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Aug 22, 2014 21:32
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Quick question: Federal loans do, I don't know about private. I would check with the institution that will be issuing the loan.
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Sep 29, 2014 15:43
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I don't know if they have changed their business model but Sofi used to only offer refinancing to graduates of schools they had approved, in order to maximize their expectations of being repaid.
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Oct 18, 2014 12:24
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Raimondo posted:If you apply to consolidate your loans, but get denied one of the plans, do you have to apply all over again to try IBR and wait again, or will they call you back saying no you can't have pay as you go, and then offer you other options that you do qualify for? There is a box you can check on the DOE form to basically says something like "Put me on the plan with the lowest payment that I qualify for" that lets the loan servicer decide.
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Nov 4, 2014 22:17
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quote:If you're on a standard repayment and she's on PAYE, I'm not sure. That's my situation and yep we are filing separately for the next 10 years. Sucks.
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Jan 20, 2015 00:55
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Has anyone submitted the form showing they plan to use PSLF? If so, how do you like the loan servicer that they switched you to? The only reason I haven't bothered to file the paperwork yet, since its not required at this point, is that I'm really happy with my loan servicer.
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May 8, 2015 21:30
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Residency Evil posted:Question about IBR. I re-certify for IBR in August each year. Next year my IBR payments are going to be about 1000/month, since my income for 2015 and 2016 is going to be about 100k. There's a chance that I may do a 1 year fellowship in a high COL area from July 2017 - 2018 and my salary would drop to about 80k/year. When it comes time to recertify in 2017, will they go off of my tax return for 2016 or could I ask them to base my payments off of an income stub for that upcoming year? You can use pay stubs, I think they require two. But they would have to be pay stubs you've already received. You can always rectify early as soon as you're a month into that job, if you want to. There's a separate box for "my circumstances have changed".
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Sep 2, 2015 17:28
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Duckman2008 posted:So I need help figuring out student loans. My wife currently has $83,400 in grad loans at rates of 7-8% for most of them. First off, your marginal income tax rate is not 40%, it's probably 28%, maybe even less. Although it might be a bit higher in 8 years. Also, unless the law changes, PSLF forgiveness is NOT taxable like regular IBR forgiveness. The 10 years is 120 qualified payments while employed in a nonprofit or government job. I'm not sure about the part time employment being qualifying. Department of Education considers 30+ hours a week to be full time for calculating eligibility, but if I was in that situation and wasn't sure, I'd start the paperwork NOW to figure it out. Note that submitting that paperwork will change your student loan servicer. Details here at the Dept of Education
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Dec 24, 2015 12:42
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Massasoit posted:You said they were consolidated through fedloan (penfed) so they shouldn't change servicer since penfed is the pslf servicer Good catch, I didn't realize penfed and fedloan were the same.
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Dec 24, 2015 13:53
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Well in that case a question for anyone with fedloan/penfed - how do you like your servicer? I will need to file that paperwork eventually but have held off for now because I am really happy with my student loan servicer and don't want to change. Has anyone in this thread actually sent in the intent to file PSLF paperwork? How did the process actually work? My concerns are that they wouldn't maintain my PAYE existing payment and would make me re-calculate it, and that they would put in a 60 day deferral for the transfer, but those are just suspicions not based on any real knowledge.
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Dec 24, 2015 16:26
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Massasoit posted:We consolidated federal loans. When consolidating the doe website asked if we wanted to go for pslf. When selecting pslf it automatically set penfed as the servicer. Thanks. So basically exactly what I thought would happen. I'll have to just time it so the forbearance doesn't screw me up too badly. The interest capitalizing will suck a lot. Maybe I'll just wait until year 9.
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Dec 24, 2015 18:50
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Doesn't it affect the 10 year standard repayment amount and thus increase the "ceiling" of payments you would potentially have to make under IBR/PAYE?
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Dec 24, 2015 21:39
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mastershakeman posted:How would it? 100k vs 100million in loans doesn't matter. Also nonconsolidated loans don't count to pslf, so consolidating doesn't reset the counter, it starts it. The amount of loans actually does matter because of the way they calculate the repayment. Let's say I'm a few years into repayment and I have to go into forbearance when I transfer servicers. That causes a bunch of interest to be added to the principal because I've been negatively amortizing due to my low payments. Unless I misunderstand the process, this in turn causes the 10 year standard repayment amount to be recalculated (and be higher). I'm anticipating having to pay the 10 year standard payment for at least 5 years of my 10, so that would impact me. Phone posting so I can't really look up details but I was under the impression all federal direct student loans were eligible without consolidation?
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Dec 26, 2015 18:41
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So am I. Although I guess I'm lucky in that I don't anticipate qualifying for the full 10 years. So that's probably where the disconnect in the discussion is coming in. But there definitely scenarios where you can make enough to qualify but your payment still increases due to the difference in the amount of loans. Basically under these programs every marginal dollar you earn, in my case due to over time, $0.10 or $0.15 (depending on your repayment plan) goes to next year's student loan repayments. The cap on that is calculated based on your overall loan principal. So that principal amount could affect some people who are still eligible for income based repayment.
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Dec 28, 2015 16:29
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You can recertify whenever, you don't have to just do it annually. So you can do it on your annual deadline, then re-submit it when your family size increases. Congratulations!
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Mar 29, 2016 22:24
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E-Money posted:Oh poo poo that's great news. I honestly don't remember the recert paperwork - but family size is part of the calculation, right? So adding 2 dependents will have a downward effect on my IBR payment amount, but they will still count towards my monthly payment forgiveness count, right? Correct.
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Mar 29, 2016 23:19
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Nevvy Z posted:If I schedule a payment on Fedloan for the due date and for no reason at all they don't process that payment til the next day, is it late? Shouldn't be. Usually they take like 4-5 days to show in your account. Their phone reps are pretty helpful too if you have questions.
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Dec 8, 2017 15:19
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Residency Evil posted:So in my situation, if I'm doing IBR and she's not: Yup that's what I do every year. Blargh Residency Evil posted:I think you can still do a backdoor Roth, however. Correct
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Mar 26, 2018 20:28
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Residency Evil posted:Question about student loan repayment: My understanding on #2 is you'll switch to IBR and your payment will be equal to what it would be under the 10 year repayment plan. No clue on #1 sorry.
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Oct 8, 2018 23:56
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PSLF is a ten year / 120 payment program, you are correct. The various repayment plans have their own forgiveness schedules, separate from PSLF and handled differently, for people who do not qualify for PSLF. Those are the numbers you highlighted. If you qualify for PSLF and are confident you will stay in a qualifying job for 10 years, I would not pay more than the minimum, but some people would want to hedge. Up to you.
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Oct 15, 2018 19:24
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Skull Knight posted:Apologies but I'm just trying to get this straight. So PSLF is the 10-years, 120-eligible payments plan, but it says right there at the top that I need to make qualifying payments under one of these plans. So after 120 PSLF qualifying payments are made while under one of these options (PAYE, IBR, ICR, REPAYE) I can apply for PSLF and if the conditions are met, the rest of the debt is wiped out and I just pay taxes on the forgiven balance? If I don't qualify for PSLF anymore, then I just "default" to the forgiveness options (timing, payments, etc.) listed separately under each payment option that I highlighted in yellow? That's basically how I understand it. Though if you go through PSLF the forgiven balance is not taxed.
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Oct 15, 2018 20:02
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The Slack Lagoon posted:Jesus loving Christ my wife took a course as an alumni at our grad school and the school reported to dep of Ed that she is enrolled in school and get loans were automatically put into deferment so oh cool not unpaid interest will probably capitalize when they are taken out Yeah that happened to me when I filed my first PSLF notification form and my loans were moved over to Fedloan. Like $20k or so in interest capitalized. And they still refuse to credit one of the payments I made during the transition towards PSLF. Assholes.
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Oct 24, 2018 13:29
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Alec Eiffel posted:I just did IBR in January using mine and my wife's Married Filing Jointly 2017 tax return. Can I immediately send in a new IBR request using a Married Filing Separately 2018 return? FedLoan, by the way. Yes. You can update your info any time your situation changes.
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Mar 5, 2019 11:47
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Raimondo posted:For IBR calculations, does it only figure it after all your pre-tax items get deducted? (health insurance, 401k, etc...) Based on MAGI, which is modified AGI. Yes 401k contributions reduce your payment amount.
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Mar 16, 2019 22:32
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Yorkshire Pudding posted:Hey all, Congrats! Yorkshire Pudding posted:
Yes, unless Congress changes it, it is federal law. And even if they change it the change would likely be forward looking as the terms are written into your Master Promissory Note. I feel strongly enough about this that I gave up a private sector job that would have let me pay off my 6 figures of debt in <2 years to go work for the govt. Time will tell if I'm a chump or not. Yorkshire Pudding posted:How does PSLF actually function? You make 120 on time payments (do not have to be consecutive, $0 payments count), under a qualifying repayment plan, while working for a covered employer. At the end you send in an application, DOE verifies that you met the criteria and if you did, write off any remaining balance. They recommend you verify your employment status annually, at which point they will calculate the number of qualifying payments you've made. But you're not technically required to do this. Yorkshire Pudding posted:If I did try and do PSLF, what happens if 5-years into my 120 month repayment plan I get a new job in the private sector, or lose a job for a few months but I still pay my loans, I'm just not working for a government or nonprofit agency at the time? Do I just lose all the benefits? You would get no benefit during a time frame where you aren't working or are working in the private sector. If you later returned to a qualifying employer and continued making payments, the count would keep up where you left off. If you never did, you would receive no benefit from PSLF. It's all or nothing.
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Apr 2, 2019 20:00
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Yeah like The Slack Lagoon says, REPAYE is one of the qualifying repayment plans for PSLF, which include all the income driven plans and the standard 10-year repayment plan. PSLF per se is not a repayment plan. Yeah if you decide to switch permanently to a non qualifying employer part way through, you would have to pay off the rest of the loans, but again could use any repayment plan you qualify for. So it's possible that some or all of your bachelor's degree payments already qualify. I hadn't read that article, though I was aware of some of the problems people have been having. I lost one qualifying payment when I submitted my first Employment Certification Form, because my servicer was changed. I made the payment but they just didn't apply it. After multiple calls trying to fix it I just gave up and decided to eat the ~$1,000. But other than that hiccup I'm on track. I make 6 figures (barely) and qualify for IDR. It depends on how much you owe, family size, and how much you make. It's calculated based off your MAGI, so pretax retirement account contributions aren't counted, among other things.
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Apr 2, 2019 20:49
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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.
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Sep 7, 2019 23:13
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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? Holy crap that's infuriating. I'm a federal employee so I think I'll be safe but stories like this give me pause.
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Sep 14, 2019 22:31
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To my surprise, DOE has updated their COVID FAQ to say that everyone is automatically going on a 6 month forbearance during which time interest rate will be zero and skipped payments will still count towards PSLF. I'm sure it will get hosed up in implementation (for example my automatic payment went through about a week ago and apparently I need to ask to have it refunded) but that's basically the best possible interpretation. DOE FAQ
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Apr 2, 2020 11:14
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I'm fully on the PSLF train personally with about 5 more years to go before eligibility, and my balance is slightly higher than yours. But I'm a government employee and therefore less likely to run into issues of "lol jk your qualifying payments don't actually count"
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May 13, 2020 14:34
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I'm in the middle of my annual recalculating of my PSLF eligibility. I'm curious to see if they count the deferrals like they said they would. They initially denied my eligibility, claiming there was info missing from my form (they did the same thing last year too). A short phone call with the FedLoan PSLF specialist and he reviewed the form, confirmed the info was there, and sent it back to be reprocessed with a note to approve it. We will see in a few weeks if they do or not. Residency Evil posted:I'm hoping it just extends what's already going on for another 3 months. *Same*
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Aug 13, 2020 21:10
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