Student loan payoff strategy - check out the new SAVE plan & Fresh Start - WEBINAR LINK ADDED 9/15

[happybaker]

That is the problem. It is not showing the payment at all anywhere. It is with Mohela. Have spent hours trying to get through on the phone too. It does show all the loans and how much they are but nothing about any amount for payment. So frustrating. Even when you click kn each individual loan there is nothing other than the interest rate.

We have loans with Mohela and I've been able to see all five loans and make payments to individual loans. I can see the monthly payment for each loan. Login and under My Account go to Loan Details. I see each loan on a line item and to the very left is a plus mark - click that and it will open up the info on each loan. Once it's open, you should see a Payment Information section, the monthly payment is listed there. Hope that helps.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Yes, of course it's nice for your child to come out of college without any debt, you just have to be able to truly afford it. His college degree (he graduated in 91), was 50K, so it wouldn't have been something that set him/us back significantly.

In getting kind of back on topic....the real reason he/we are able to help was his choice of degree....computer science. It's a really good "bang for your buck" degree. He's been called a lot of different titles over the year...from software engineer, to software developer...to senior software architect as of late. It's a field with a great return on investment with respect to college costs. You make nice money out of the gate, and it just grows from there.

More complicated than this, literally thousands of people lost their IT jobs to outsourcing in the 2000's so there are probably lots of people who did just as your DH did and didn't land on their feet. It worked for many but not all. If your DH had loans he might not have been able to whether all that turmoil back then. We knew lots of people in IT who were forced into other fields by bills and loans when their jobs vanished, it was a dark time for the field .

The spirit of W.E.B Du Bois Talented Tenth comes to mind, where it is tough to get to excellence when a person is stuck in survival mode. To be in such a state is to have valuable energy siphoned off, it is a great loss, I agree with the sentiment below:
"All men cannot go to college but some men must; every isolated group or nation must have its yeast, must have for the talented few centers of training where men are not so mystified and befuddled by the hard and necessary toil of earning a living, as to have no aims higher than their bellies, and no God greater than Gold. This is true training, and thus in the beginning were the favored sons of the freedmen trained."

 

[dvcgirl67]

More complicated than this, literally thousands of people lost their IT jobs to outsourcing in the 2000's so there are probably lots of people who did just as your DH did and didn't land on their feet. It worked for many but not all. If your DH had loans he might not have been able to whether all that turmoil back then. We knew lots of people in IT who were forced into other fields by bills and loans when their jobs vanished, it was a dark time for the field .

The spirit of W.E.B Du Bois Talented Tenth comes to mind, where it is tough to get to excellence when a person is stuck in survival mode. To be in such a state is to have valuable energy siphoned off, it is a great loss.

We lived through that time...my husband gradated in 1991. We lived in the heart of all of it....in the Silicon Valley for three years from 97-2000 when they were handing out stock options like candy. My husband was one of those people who lost his job....in 2003. He was unemployed for just six weeks, found a job that he didn't love, but then networked with an old boss and friend who worked in marketing....they came up with an idea that led to a start-up that they sold just a few years later. That led to him getting a job with the company he sold it to...and so on.

I completely understand that student loans can be overwhelming. I think it's criminal that banks will loan that much to 18 year olds. But college wasn't as much for us back then, and we would have handled it. I definitely think it's a lot harder now as degrees that aren't high paying can be astronomically expensive. We were fortunate....and had some good timing, but I also think that you make your own luck along the way.

 

[tinkerbellandpeterpan]

Uggh, I am so sorry this happened to you.

Seems we are all in a great awakening right now. I feel nothing but compassion for everyone such as yourself who got caught up. All most parents want is a better life with more stability for their kids & that American Dream drive is super easy to mess with all the time. We all follow people who seem to know things & have the answers when we don't know those things and end up following the Pied Piper, it stinks .

Maybe the SAVE plan can offer you some relief, I am no expert so call and ask but it doesn't look like this is only for new graduates.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/22/your-money/student-loans-income-driven-repayment-save.html

It's just so hurtful that the narrative is that I haven't been paying. I have. For 15 years. I haven't made a dent in principal.

 

[LuvOrlando]

It's just so hurtful that the narrative is that I haven't been paying. I have. For 15 years. I haven't made a dent in principal.

According to Credit.com this is how many people are just like you:
"According to the Federal Reserve's Consumer Credit report, 43.5 million Americans have some form of federal or private student loan debt. That's 13 percent of the population."
https://www.credit.com/blog/student-loan-debt-statistics/#:~:text=According to the Federal Reserve's,can also harm your credit.

While I am aware that there is a very vocal segment that have a lot of hostility towards the topic there are also a whole lot of people just like you, 43.5 million is a lot, and countless more are sympathetic to the struggle. Tough to think parents of all the 73.1 million kids under 18 aren't hoping for change, and that those kids themselves won't be in favor of change. I think some individuals who are against change are just more vocal than others, it doesn't mean they are the majority nor does it mean they are correct in their assumptions that lead to their conclusions.

Hang in there & see if the new program and various efforts might help you. Here is some info on some of the recent findings on the process:

https://www.gao.gov/blog/student-loan-payment-pause-ends-income-driven-repayment-plans-may-help-borrowers#:~:text=Saving on a Valuable Education,after 20 or 25 years.

 

[smrice95]

She and her DH are extremely fortunate. They married young (22), both have lucrative careers, were able to buy a home (at a 2.65% interest rate) and have been saving for retirement. They just had their first child in March and now have a daycare expense. They've cut down on the retirement savings a bit in order to continue hacking away at her student loans.

Not everyone has been that lucky. Yes, they worked hard. Some people simply needed that money to live on.

I wish the government would at least cut the interest payments in half. That would save people a lot of money.

Agree 100% about interest rates! I am paying my kids loans. Like many have said, we feel it is the best we can do to give them a jumpstart with adult life. I do not want them to begin their lives in debt. We pay undergraduate, but if they continue (and DD did) it is on them. DD managed to be a grad TA and ended up making money and getting her masters!! We have continued to pay the loans through COVID since ours are not federal loans. We needed more than they would give us. We did go from 1.125% interest to now over 8%. I wish we refinanced with a fixed rate right when rates went up. I will continue to pay more each month than is due, but lowering the interest rate would be wonderful.

 

[LuvOrlando]

More info about the "On Ramp" period protecting people from delinquency after the pause ends and payments restart. Not so sure this provision is very well known but here is some information.

New https://www.cbsnews.com/news/student-loan-repayment-on-ramp-what-if-you-dont-pay/


Be aware there is very different a much older pre-existing accommodation made to students called, "Grace Period," see below, which is not the same thing as the very much more temporary, "On Ramp," see above. The grace period was a pre-existing (read prior to 2020) provision giving students a few months to get a job. It seems what is described below will be restored as the state of things after fall 2024, time will tell.



Prior to 2020 https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment

Once you graduate, drop below half-time enrollment, or leave school, your federal student loan goes into repayment. However, if you have a Direct Subsidized, Direct Unsubsidized, or Federal Family Education Loan, you have a six-month grace period before you are required to start making regular payments. You’ll have a nine-month grace period if you’ve got a Perkins Loan. (Got a PLUS loan? You’ll go into repayment as soon as the loan is fully disbursed—which means once it’s paid out. But if you’re a graduate and professional student PLUS borrower, you will be placed on an automatic deferment while in school and for six months after graduating, leaving school, or dropping below half-time enrollment.)

​

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

Just paid off last $10K in August. We were paying little over double her monthly payment till about May when it got around $10K. Paid off the remaining $10K in August after the courts decision.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Just paid off last $10K in August. We were paying little over double her monthly payment till about May when it got around $10K. Paid off the remaining $10K in August after the courts decision.

Congratulations!

I wonder if any news outlets will make it a point to share exactly how many people made lump sum payments into these loans and when?

 

[LuvOrlando]

Looks like there is a lot of effort to help people:

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-relea...h-campaign-reaching-more-18-million-americans

 

[LuvOrlando]

If you missed the webinar, which I did, this is supposed to be recording of it, outstanding!

Main link is this
https://www.youtube.com/@FSAOutreach

 

[leebee]

We looked into the SAVE program for DD's loans. As far as we can see, it'll save her about $700 over the duration of the repayment but stretch her payments to 20 years instead of 10. It shows that it saves her $1700 in interest, but as far as I can tell, that's not "real" savings; it's just saving money that would have been recapitalized under the old plan, if she'd started making lower payments that then grew. She's considering the savings of $700, the hassle of the repayment being readjusted every year as her salary grows, but mostly at the concept of having school loan payments hanging over her head until she is 50. I understand that this program will help those who probably shouldn't have borrowed what they signed for, but I don't think DD is going to sign up for the SAVE program. The idea of paying off school loans until she is 50 is just daunting and defeating for her.