Pslfp

[docstudent]

Is anyone else in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program? If so, how will you navigate around the upcoming changes?

Current stats:
Income/ $100,000
Take home/ $4,900 (after 403b deduction of $500, disability insurance, $165, vacation account, $150)

Mortgage/ $1500 + $50 extra, plus HOA of $349=$1899
Car/ 424 (13 months remaining)
Student Loan, $190,000, payment of $436 per month. Must make 120 payments and I've paid made 26 payments to date.
Phone: $120, Utilities, $50, Cable, $23
Car insurance: $140, Gas: $90, Groceries: $190
Gym, $176 and Incidentals: $150
Life insurance policy: $500,000, $121 every three months.

Mortgage a balance: $199,000, Current value: $400,000

Savings: $10,000
403b #1: $22,000 (no longer making contributions)
403b #2: $52,000 ($500 per month contributions)
STRS: $76,000 (12 more years until I hit 30 years of service)
Retirement is based on 40% of your two higehest years of salary, and I should be able to draw $4,000 per month.

Card Card debt $0

If the program is cut- my payment would skyrocket, but I "heard" that there would be a grandfather clause, is anyone else in a similar situation? If so, what are you going to do?

[disneysteve]

If the program is cut- my payment would skyrocket

I have no idea what changes they are talking about but first thing is to not worry about things that haven't actually happened. Not to make this political but lots of stuff that gets tossed around in Washington never actually happens.

If they do eliminate the forgiveness program, how would that affect your monthly payment? I thought the program was just that after 10 years, your loan is forgiven. If that goes away, wouldn't you just keep making payments until the loan was repaid?

Sorry, but I don't know the details of how all of that works.

[docstudent]

Ideally, if you make 120 payments and remain in a public service field, your remaining balance will be forgiven. Most people have restructured their careers around the rules of the program. In a lot of cases, people have passed up opportunities in the private sector to remain in public service aligned employment. In my case, the $436 per month payment only covers interest, and if the program didn't exist my payment would be over $1600 per month. From what I've gathered as of last night, the gov would most likely grandfather all current participants in the program, and discontinue enrollment moving forward. Typically, I'm not the worrying type, but it seems that our new ...democratically elected President is very (if you can't say anything nice...don't say anything at all). We are living under a very unique administration and I feel the need to brace for whatever will happen, but I feel ok about the likelihood of the enactment of the grandfather clause.

The changes would include: extending payments for an additional 10-20 for undergrads and graduate students, banning forgiveness for all new applicants, and increasing minimum payments. This will def drive people away from careers that make up the fabric of our nation- I'm interested to see how this plays about both politically and on Main Street.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I would think they will have to grandfather in people because it would be unfair otherwise.

Personally I think they should push the program to help people get out of student loan debt. Make it more public. I wonder if some people with debt in low income or rural areas have no idea they could be having their loans forgiven?

[AJSimon]

My understanding is that the President's submitted budget was DOA (as are virtually all budgets submitted by sitting Presidents). So we might be getting ahead of ourselves in terms of predicting the fate of PSLF.

[disneysteve]

If you are already in the program, you should get exactly what you were promised. You signed a contract and the other party should hold up their end of the bargain.

As for the program going forward, I think it needs to change significantly. As it stands now, it's giving students a blank check. They get to spend as much as they want to attend whatever school they'd like and know that they'll never have to repay the money. It also creates an incentive for the schools to keep hiking their fees with no regard to the actual inflation rate because they know the students have that blank check.

I disagree that eliminating or capping the program would drive people away from public service jobs. I think what it will do is make people actually pay attention to the costs when choosing a college. They'll stop borrowing 200K to go to a high-end private school to become a kindergarten teacher. Instead, they'll choose a school with a solid program and much more modest costs. And it will cut off the endless flow of money to the schools so that they'll need to rein in their fees and their spending as well.

[docstudent]

Interesting point, but it greatly alters opportunities for our brightest students entry to elite institutions (if we simply look at it with a limited scope). In a perfect world, your viewpoint would be ideal. Look at the political scope of our nation, the last cycle of leaders have been tied to Ivy League institutions, in addition, when you analyze significant advancements in science and technology, you can draw the same parallels. The bulk of people in the program...with loans over $100,000...don't teach kindergarten. Should there be a cap? Yes. Should people born into poor families attend less prestigious school/rigorous schools? Luckily, I reside in CA and the public universities are some of the best in the nation, i.e., Cal Berkeley, UCLA, and a host of other schools that offer an education of par with some of the best colleges in the nation. These examples do not exist throughout our nation....In particular, would you want to attend a law school with a bar passage rate of 35%, most top tier programs have a passage rate over 85-90%, you might pay less, but....it's just good to be rich, rich, rich....though I see the bigger connection per affordability.

[Gailete]

If you are already in the program, you should get exactly what you were promised. You signed a contract and the other party should hold up their end of the bargain.

As for the program going forward, I think it needs to change significantly. As it stands now, it's giving students a blank check. They get to spend as much as they want to attend whatever school they'd like and know that they'll never have to repay the money. It also creates an incentive for the schools to keep hiking their fees with no regard to the actual inflation rate because they know the students have that blank check.

I disagree that eliminating or capping the program would drive people away from public service jobs. I think what it will do is make people actually pay attention to the costs when choosing a college. They'll stop borrowing 200K to go to a high-end private school to become a kindergarten teacher. Instead, they'll choose a school with a solid program and much more modest costs. And it will cut off the endless flow of money to the schools so that they'll need to rein in their fees and their spending as well.

Steve thanks for saying what I wanted to but was biting my tongue so I knew I had better not!

As to the best passage rates, etc. I do have an opinion on that. When I went to nursing school, it was a diploma program that led to an RN if you passed the state boards. I already had a Bachelor’s degree and saw absolutely no reason to do four more years to get a BSN. In two years, I graduated from my program and we took our State boards - diploma grads and BSN grads together. I passed my boards as did every other student in my class. That year a bit after the fact we got a letter announcing that MY school, my class had the HIGHEST passage rate on the state boards of any class in the NATION! But because colleges with much more clout than the smaller hospital based nursing schools, kept pushing for all RNs to get a BSN degree, I think it was the year after I took my boards that they changed passage of your boards to pass/fail. That way the diploma programs couldn't pass up the BSN programs anymore, but it was still obvious in the grads that came out of many of those programs. Eventually many of the smaller programs had to close as they couldn't, with facts, prove that their programs were better than the 4-year college. From day one as a new nurse to the day I could no longer work I could see the difference between those nurses that came out of a diploma program and those that didn't. The things the BSN folks should have been learning, they didn't have a clue about. We weren't even allowed to graduate unless we passed a skills checklist as long as your arm. I have at times had to train new nurses making MORE money than me because of that BSN to do simple things that they should have learned in school, like inserting a catheter, giving a heparin injection, etc. Colleges can spew any facts that they want to in seeking students, it doesn't necessarily make them right. Nor should a student get to go to them for years racking up student loans that they know will be forgiven after a minimal amount of payments.

[docstudent]

I'm not privy to the inner working of nursing schools and learning outcomes associated with licensure exams. From what you stated, it's rather alarming and structural changes must be made with the testing procedures if these issues are systemic across the board. Firstly, I'm not for the government unleashing a blank check to student loan borrowers. The greater issue is probably the interest rates attached to student loans. Again, nurses and teachers are not generally in debt over $100,000, mainly balances over the six-figure range are attributed to those in the medical, legal professions and those seek terminal degrees. Case in point, most people entered careers in public service long before this program was initiated. I found out about it after the fact and had already begun making a monthly payments to honor my debt. After the program was created it provided an opportunity to continue my work in public services opposed to entering the private sector as did many of my classmates. Most of my classmates are making a minimum of 150K per year in the private sector.....which approximately 50G less than I'm currently making. Cost have skyrocketed with relationship to cost of higher ed, for instance, my undergrad institution cost $17,500 (almost 20 years ago) to attend (room/board), now the fees to attend has doubled...it's a very complex matter, but a healthy conversation...

[Gailete]

Again, nurses and teachers are not generally in debt over $100,000,

I should hope not! I left nursing school with a loan of around $2000 that was paid off early in about 2 years. My 4 year college I worked my way through and never had a loan from anyone unless the fact that the school allowed me to pay as I went could be considered a loan.

Anyone taking a loan of up to $100K isn't doing enough to keep costs down in the least. They don't understand the concept of poor starving college student.

In your first post you said that you were making $100K and this last post implies you are making $200K. Which is it. Your numbers seemed a bit screwy to me as it was and this just adds to it.

[docstudent]

My salary is $100,000 and my classmates outside of public sector work have minimum salaries of $150,000. I was just providing a compassion between public service and private sector employment with my degree type. One of the major arguments hinges on MDs working at non-profit hospitals being able to benefit from the PSLFP. I don't have enough background on the issue to offer an opinion, but a former classmate is working on a research project discussing the topic. I have family members in the nursing field and I know that advancement per management is linked to having a BSN, and sometimes a graduate. My family member attended a school like you referenced, and now is pursuing a BSN to further advance her earning power. She attends a local school with minimal tuition fees, so I understand both perspectives. I just like to examine education from a larger context....think about our Supreme Court, where did they attend school? They did not attend state schools....there are multitude of examples and I'm not saying that it's right or wrong, but....we have to reshape and rebuild state/ public instiutions....

[docstudent]

http://www.businessinsider.com/every-supreme-court-justice-went-to-yale-or-harvard-law-school-heres-where-they-went-for-undergrad-2016-2

[Thrif-t]

Docstudent, I'll admit to not being thoroughly educated on loan forgiveness programs; but I thought somewhere along the way, I picked up that the amount forgiven gets added to your income and you may owe taxes on it. Have you ever heard anything like that?

[docstudent]

According to the language, participants will not be taxed on the loans that are written off. If not, the people in the program would be in debt all over again. I'm not an expert, but I investigated a bit because it directly impacts my financial life. If you know anyone that might qualify I would sign up before any drastic changes are made to the program. I heard nightmares about signing up, but I was able to get enrolled relatively quickly and the customer service has been outstanding. BTW, I live in SoCal, and $100,000 does not go very far.....public service equates to 11/12 hr days of work, but the program allows me to work in an area with the greatest need. From the inside, the program is keeping highly people in the trenches for a minimum of ten years, and that's a good thing.

[Thrif-t]

I guess this is what I was thinking. Which is a different program than what you are involved in.

Under current Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rules, any loans forgiven under these programs are considered taxable income. In short, this rules means that you could face a hefty tax bill when your loans are forgiven. Let's say that after making payments under IBR for 25 years, you're left with $40,000 in debt.Feb 27, 2017
Surprise! Here's When You'll Owe Taxes on Student Loan Forgiveness ...

https://studentloanhero.com/featured/owe-taxes-student-loan-forgiveness/