Ep 79 The best and least expensive way to pay off your student loans

The large majority of new teachers have some form of student loan debt are probably trying to figure out how they’re going to pay it off with their new salary. What if I told you that some of you could pay as little as $100 a month AND have all of your debt taken care of in 10 years? Sounds too good to be true, right? In this episode, Travis Hornsby from the Student Loan Planner tells us not only why we’re entitled to do this but also how we can save tens of thousands of dollars on our debt. 

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I’m so happy you joined me today since I have a seriously valuable episode that you definitely want to stick around until the end for. As I mentioned in the introduction, Travis Hornsby from studentloanplanner.com and the Student Loan Planner podcast is with me to discuss how teachers can get out from under the burden of student loan debt.

Travis founded Student Loan Planner after helping his physician wife navigate ridiculously complex student loan repayment decisions. To date, he’s consulted on almost $500 million in student debt personally, more than anyone else in the country. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst and brings his background as a former bond trader trading billions of dollars.

Before we dive into the interview, I wanted to let you guys know about an upcoming conference JUST for new teachers. It’s called the New Educator Weekend, and it’s being held in two locations: in San Diego from December 6-8 and Santa Clara, CA from February 21-23. These conferences have everything that you need to be successful in your first few years of teaching with sessions covering topics like classroom management, IEPs, working with colleagues, admin, and parents, common core and state standards, and how to build your teaching career.

I’ll be at both of those conferences both as a presenter and exhibitor for this podcast, so I definitely encourage you to sign up. I’d LOVELOVELOVE to meet you and hear about how your first years are going!

For more information and to sign up, head over to teachersneedteachers.com/conference, where you’ll see information about both the southern on in San Diego and northern one in Santa Clara.

 


Kim
Well, thank you, Travis for being on the podcast.

I really appreciate it.

Travis
Thanks for having me, Kim excited.

Kim
Now, I thought your story about helping your wife figure out how to pay her six figure student loan debt was really cute. And I’m pretty sure that every person who listens to my podcast has student loan debt. So they’re definitely going to be interested in hearing about how they can get out from under this just heavy burden of debt.

But just some background for so why were student loan forgiveness programs created in the first place?

Travis
Well it was to incentivize people to do jobs that pay less than other opportunities Right. I mean, that’s kind of the the main goal is to give somebody a little bit of, you know, debt forgiveness where they don’t have to go out and feel like they have to make $80,000 a year, you know, being a salesperson or working in tech or, you know, because we need Teachers, right.

And the problem is, is that people that graduate have the same bachelor’s degree debt, regardless if if you pursuit engineering or teaching, you know, and so that’s clearly a problem. If you’re making 30, or 40, or $45,000, depending on what part of the country you’re in starting out, you know, to pay back 30 or $40,000, on that kind of income is way tougher than to pay it back on, you know, a higher income.

So that’s kind of the original reason for having some sort of forgiveness programs at all in the first place. I’m talking about kind of way back in the day before any of this sort of modern forgiveness programs came into play. So if you’re going to go to graduate school, or med school or anything like that, you’re going to be in debt forever. Just because you make six figures as like a physician doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy to pay back those loans. Right.

And you mentioned mass, you know, graduate degree or master’s degrees, like that’s where we see Teachers with the big debts, you know, like the the Teachers that just have the bachelor’s degrees, they have the kind of the same debts that everybody else has. And so it’s not really like a super unusual strategy for most people if you have 30 or 40,000 in debt. Although you can still save a lot more money than then you would think using some of these loan forgiveness programs.

Kim

There are some student loan forgiveness programs that are actually for teachers. Can you explain how those are unique?

Travis
Yeah, I mean, there’s a bazillion like state specific programs or programs like specific to your local district, you know, but then there, the main one at the federal level is called teacher loan forgiveness. So this is administered, you know, by basically the loan servicer says, Do you have five years of service as a highly qualified teacher.

And basically, most teachers can get that serving in any capacity for about $5,000 worth of loan forgiveness. And then the teachers that are highly qualified for special education, and they’re at the elementary or secondary level, they can get that for, they can get that $17,500 level, which is a lot higher. So actually, I have a cousin that’s a special ed teacher pursuing that 17,500 version. And then if you’re a secondary math or science teacher, then you can also get that $17,500 number.

So the number the number of teachers that can get teacher loan forgiveness for that almost 20 grand figure is actually relatively small, because obviously like there’s not, you know, I mean, there’s a small piece of the pie of all Teachers, you know, like highly qualified, secondary math, science and special ed. And then, you know, most teachers could get that $5,000 level of forgiveness.

But the problem is, is that even though it’s called teacher loan forgiveness, it’s actually often, like more often than not, it’s actually the worst repayment preeminence.

Kim
Oh, wow. Yeah. And I was thinking when I heard that there was even one for teachers, that is kind of too good to be true.

What are the pros and cons of using that teacher, that teacher one? Are there any tax implications if your loans are forgiven?

Travis
No, not really. I mean, not for the public and federal programs, you know, so for the like, if you work in the private sector, then there are tax implications. But if you’re in a not for profit or government world, then there’s not there’s also like some Teachers which I’m not quite as familiar with is the forgiveness programs.

But there was a big scandal where these grants got converted into loans because of some like silly, silly paperwork error that, you know, there’s still one servicer messed up. And so, you know, it’s just kind of amazing to me that the programs that are specifically created for teachers are absolute abject failure. You know, I mean, we have a lot of people, you know, emailing us all the time, like, we have pretty good data on this stuff like that the teacher forgiveness programs are unnecessarily complicated. They’re not very generous at all compared to the programs that exist for people like physicians.

So you know, you’ve got situations where you know, these forgiveness programs, they’re designed for physicians, you can get $400,000 forgiven and meanwhile, a teacher is just scraping by trying to get $5,000 forgiven for working at a title one school, you know, I mean, that’s, yeah, totally, patently poorly designed. You know, whoever the people were that wrote these bills currently didn’t care a lot about Teachers where they just had no clue what they were doing,

Kim
Especially when you’re starting out is it A lot of teachers start out Upper 20s, low 30s. And now, you know, they have to pay back how many 10s of thousands of debt, and they can barely pay their bills. So yeah, it is a little bit unfair to, to just give us at most I mean, I would still be grateful for that. 17,000 but at the same time, I’d still have another, you know, 40 or so thousand ago.

Are there any alternatives to the teacher loan forgiveness program that I can qualify for?

Travis
Yeah, I mean, so basically, anybody that’s got more than $20,000 probably needs to not do teacher loan forgiveness. So here’s the reason why. So for example, you’re eligible for something called Pay As You earn. So pay as you earn is probably the best option for somebody pursuing public service loan forgiveness.

So what that means is you’re going to pay 10% of your income after a deduction for like how big your family is, right? So if you’re single deductions, about 20 grand, you know, you can add about $5,000 for every person in your family in terms of how big that deduction is.

So for example, most teachers that make 20 or $30,000 a year, under the pays room plan, they’re going to be paying 10% of like their income minus that, like 20 k deduction. So that could literally be like 50 or hundred dollars a month, right? Like we’re talking like a really small payment.

Now, here’s where it gets tricky. If you sign up for that teacher loan forgiveness program. Did you know that those five years do not count towards the 10 years needed for public service loan forgiveness? I didn’t know that. So a lot of teachers get screwed over big time this way. They sign up for the $5,000 teacher loan forgiveness, which is like $1,000 per year for five years. Right? Right. You know, and so they commit to that they get the $5,000 forgiven, so they’re 40 goes to 35.

And then they find out that all that time, they could have been just paying like 50 to 100 bucks a month. And they would only have needed five more years and all 40,000 could have been forgiven instead of just five. I’ve never heard of that. Pretty crazy, right? Yeah.

And then what they do is they do that five year period and they find out that their payments don’t count towards PSLF because they were pursuing teacher loan forgiveness, and then they’re stuck, like doing an extra 10 years to get their loans white. And that’s like not I guess the worst thing in the world if you’re a, you know, career teacher, but like, I mean, but it’s super unfair regardless.

So Teachers get I should, you know, call it like the teacher 15-year trick, because basically teachers get tricked by like government stupidity and bureaucracy, the way they name these things, they get tricked into signing up for especially teachers with larger debts than 20 K, you know, the teachers that have these larger debts than 20 K, they get suckered into signing up for teacher loan forgiveness because literally named after Teachers, so you would just have flood you had logical the sign up for the one name that for you, right.

And second, you know, there’s a lot of teachers that will be in the field, like 10 years, you know, or like 15 year like they won’t necessarily spend their entire career as an education professional. So, you know, I mean, that’s just kind of screw somebody over where like, they feel like they’re stuck even longer, which I don’t think that they thought through, you know that from it like, you know, even masterplan like the trap teachers in the profession. But that’s kind of what it does.

Kim
Well, and then you’re paying five more years than necessary.

Travis
Exactly, yeah, you just keep it around when it could have been out of your life. You know, like most teachers probably start, you know, right after graduating, right? So like early 20s. You could be free from your debt by your early 30s. Or if you make these mess ups like we see most people do, you’re afraid more like in your late 30s, because you’re probably doing a little bit of forbearance, you’re maybe on an eligible plan, that’s a big problem we see people do.

And then there’s like, more complicated stuff, like being on the wrong tax filing status. So for example, let’s say that, you know, you’re a teacher, you know, law teachers get married, right, that’s the thing. So, you know, you get married, let’s say you get married to somebody that doesn’t have any student loan debt, right. So you can file taxes, married filing separately and exclude their income from your payment calculation for your loans.

So what happens is a lot of people like they’re paying $50 to $100 a month, they’re single, and then they get married and that payment goes from like, 50 $100 a month to like 400 a month, which is their standard plan. You know, that’s the one that they have you pay off in 10 years, right? So instead of having to pay 400, you could file your taxes separately and keep that 50 $200 a month payment on the right repayment plan pays you were.

Kim

Which means that you’re actually going to pay down less and more will be forgiven in the long run. I don’t know why they don’t tell us this soon as well. It’s because they don’t tell anybody.

Travis
Well, it’s super complicated, right? So like, let’s kind of talk about how like Teachers kind of get screwed over. So we’re talking before we press the record, my dad’s a teacher was a teacher, he retired. He taught for 40 years. And this is the typical interaction with with financial professionals, right, some like high fee like, you know, commission salesperson comes to the teacher lounge, like during lunch and gives away free pizza.

And all the teachers like oh yeah, free stuff, like my favorite, you know, and so they try to put away yeah they tried to put you into like super high commission, you know, insurance products, and the insurance person makes like 10% commissions and whatever you put with them, you know,

So that’s like a typical, you know, arrangement for Teachers that they’re, you know, kind of, you know, susceptible to. And so, you know, sales people do not really understand that much about financial planning, usually, right, like, they understand about the product they sell, and they understand they have to sell this product to get paid. But they, you know, in most cases are not like, super well versed in, you know, financial planning topics, and just things like student debt repayment management, right?

So, so they’re, they’re going to, like, sit there and try to give you financial advice, like, oh, put your money here. And like, you’re not going to get that advice from financial professionals, because, you know, most of the financial planners want to work with the physicians and the attorneys and like the people that have the big incomes that can pay them a lot of money, right. So they’re going to play with, right, exactly.

It’s like that’s because they charge a flat fee for service and so the Teachers that you know, could potentially like be able to pay for help they’re not able to pay as much. And so what happens is you have these like product sales, people that are insurance driven, where they make big commissions. And so that kind of works out for them because they can give somebody advice.

And instead of having to get paid, you know, you know, a couple hundred dollars a year for like a long time, they can make a couple thousand dollars up front all at once, you know, and just be done with you. So that’s, that’s kind of the that’s kind of the model for like how Teachers, you know, like how financial professionals like Target Teachers. And I wouldn’t really call, I would say more financial sales people rather than financial professionals. But so that’s why you don’t hear about it from them. And then the second reason why you don’t hear about it is because like I just mentioned, like the stuff we just talked about, it’s a little bit complicated. You know, I mean, you have to really know this stuff about the conflict between teacher loan forgiveness and PS lF to be able to talk about it. And then you also have to know about how the rules would impact your average teacher that’s making, you know, 2030 40,000 a year in terms of how much that means that they’re going to have to pay and it actually gets like

Even more complicated than that. If you have like, if you’re married to somebody else with high income, and high student loan debt, for example, like there’s all kinds of stuff that can impact things, you know, like Perkins loans, you can get Perkins loans cancelled. Sometimes your loans are not all direct. So maybe only some of your loans are eligible for forgiveness, and some of them are not. So then, you know, there’s, there’s a lot to this, right. So yeah, so I’m excited to keep going through this stuff, try to get people as much free advice as we can.

Kim

To qualify for PSLF, you have to be you have to have had a Direct Loan, the correct repayment plan, work in the right job and make 120 on-time payments. Does that sound about right?

Travis
Right. So Perkins cancellation is a separate thing. So you know, the Perkins cancellation is like, just like a totally separate animal. So So if somebody has Perkins loans, I would contact like, your person that has the Perkins loans and tell them that you want their help setting it up for teacher Perkins forgiveness, okay.

So for the for the PSLF program, like this is kind of how it works. So basically, all loans after 2010 unless their private student loans were issued by the government. So anybody that like went to undergrad, you maxed out all your Stafford loans, and then your parent either took out Parent PLUS loans to cover the difference, or they took out private student loans your parents did to cover like that extra bit, right? And then let’s say you went to graduate school, almost surely all of those loans are in your name, and they’re all direct loans, if you took that debt after 2010 Okay.

So, so, so what happened before that is you had these loans called FFEL. So FFEL loans were before 2010, that was like the typical way that people had student loans from the government back then. And that stuff’s not eligible for PSFY is that it’s because it’s mostly held by banks. It’s like bank held guaranteed government, government guaranteed stuff. And so the banks are still getting profits off of that to this day. Right.

So and so the banks obviously do not want the government to forgive their debt. Right? That’s like an obvious thing, right? So they put this little loophole in the PSLF rules, that basically said, the only stuff that’s eligible for, you know, PSLF is direct loans. That’s the only thing that can be forgiven. So a lot of the people that had loans from before 2010 had these bank kind of type loans from the federal government, they were like, you know, kind of like, you know, like the big mortgage lenders kind of were like, sort of governmental kind of things, right. So it’s kind of like that, like before 2010.

And so all these people are getting denied, because they all have the wrong kind of loans that were carved out with this, like super weird loophole like so the banks can keep that on their profit balance sheet and everything. And so that’s why people are getting denied right now is because remember, I said before 2010, it was all screwed up. So what’s before 2000 10 plus 10 years? What date? Is that? Right? 2019? And before?

Kim
Yeah, my undergrad wouldn’t qualify for that either.

Travis
Well, it depends. It depends. So we actually so so I just interviewed somebody on our student and player podcast couple Teachers that not only, not just one of them, but both of them just got their loans forgiven tax free. They both they both had like 80 grand each of them. And both of them had their loans forgiven. And what how were they lucky enough to have that happen to them.

So in like the mid 2000s, like a really nice financial aid person just like happened to steer them towards like the really hard to get government loan, like the direct government loan that like was really difficult to access before 2010. And so, you know, a lot of the most ethical places like you had to be super ethical to put somebody in direct loans before 2010. So they just happen to get in those kind of loans.

And then they happen to be paying on like these payment programs that like so like income based repayment, IB are the kind of the first version of plan you have to be on for public service loan forgiveness, that actually didn’t exist until 2009. at all, you know, so if you had the right kind of loans, you weren’t even able to sign up for the right kind of plan that counted towards this program, until 2009.

So almost nobody had the right kind of loans for 2010, almost nobody had access to the right kind of repayment program before 2009. everybody’s like, super confused, because this thing is a big old mess. And so like, this is how all this train wreck happened when everybody started applying thinking that they like, works for 10 years, and they should get their loans forgiven.

Kim

Are there any loopholes to that in terms of all of the requirements?

Because we talked about how you had to have like the right payment plan work in the right job? And all of that? I mean, do you have to check every single box perfectly to qualify for psle?

Travis
Well, yes and no. So they passed the temporary expanded PSLF, about a year or so ago. And that made a several hundred million dollars available to help people there kind of screwed over by that process. So here’s, here’s the problem, right, you have to have had direct loans during during the period that you were serving in the public, or you know, not for profit or government employer, right. So that right away eliminates, like 80 90% of people, okay, because you had to have this like Heart of Gold financial aid person that put you in the right kind of loan before 2010 to potentially qualify for this.

So then what you have to do is apply to the PSF program and get denied. Okay, so once once you’re denied, then you send an email to TEPSLF fed loan org, I believe is the email saying, like, I got denied my PS left, I want my loans forgiven, because I’ve been making payments for 10 years on direct loans. Right. And so the couple that I’m interviewing on our podcast, like they took that route, and that’s how they got their loans forgiven, because, you know, they had these loans from mid 2000s. You know, they were on like the extended plan, which was more than what they would have had to have paid if IPR had existed at the time.

So that’s why they’re getting their loans forgiven under this kind of one shot, you know, temporary, expanded PS left, what’s going to happen though, is once people start hitting like 2020, once we start hitting that kind of date, you’re going to start seeing people that like, Did master’s degree programs, and like 2010 2011, like one year programs into your programs, it’s like 2020 2021 2022, this is when people are going to start ending up doing like, they’re getting loan forgiveness, like just because they had it all set up without having to have a PhD. And like all this bureaucratic nonsense, right?

So like, there’s this exponential curve, if you look at all of the approved applications for like the certificate certifications, repeated PSLF. So it’s like, it’s like small, medium, massive, you know, and so there’s this huge exponential wave that’s coming for loan forgiveness, based off of just how Congress structured the program 10 years ago.

Kim
Everything that I’ve been reading the National Educators Association, they’re like, Oh, it’s not a good idea to go for PLSF because so many people are being denied, and it’s too rigid. And one person said, You know, I, my employer didn’t put down the right phone number and I got denied.

Many teachers complain about being denied. So do you find that these are common experiences when you’re working with teachers? Or do you feel because you have knowledge of it, and the whole process that you’re able to steer them away from making those mistakes?

Travis
I mean, the clients that we’ve advised to not have these problems, because we kind of prepare them on, like how to fill out the forms and like what to do and had everything set up.

So I mean, I haven’t personally had anybody that’s used our service that’s gone through that. But I know, I know that, like, so the NEA like, this is a little unfortunate for them to take that position, because I think they’re going to cost their members billions of dollars in one forgiveness, because they’re just not experts in this program. Right. So like, the NEA is not your financial advisor. Right?

So, you know, I mean, like, they can make comments on like, what they think about, like legislative programs, but like, at the end of the day, like they’re not experts in this program at all, right? Like, the NEA is just taking sort of like a values based position on this, which is that teachers are getting denied, this isn’t right, it should change, right? What they’re, what they’re not doing is saying, like, this is why the PSLF program was broken. This is why it should work for anybody that’s, you know, got loans from after 2010. Right, this is how you can qualify, like they’re not doing any of the education piece, they’re just doing, like the lobbying piece, you know, which is important.

But like, it’s not accurate, even though because, like, again, like it’s very clear that if you have direct loans, you’re eligible for this, like, if you’re on an income based plan, it’s not 120 payments, by the way, that’s not even, like consecutive, that’s cumulative. So if you took time away to have kids or like you went part time and like or you missed payments, or like you went into forbearance, and that doesn’t reset the clock, yeah. Okay, you know, you literally just come right back where you left off.

So also like for summers, like summers count for Teachers, like towards those hundred 20 months of payments, as long as you keep the payments going, also maternity leave or paternity leave, like the three months a year maternity or paternity leave counts towards PSLF to you know, okay, so there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of stuff in there. I would say that any teacher with more than any teacher definitely with more than $20,000 in student loans, absolutely needs to look at this because it could I mean, I think that you would probably call yourself like a five figure sum by not optimizing this stuff. I’m not exaggerating there.

Kim

So then how can we make sure, so let’s say that a teacher listening to this episode, that they’re going to be approved, assuming they have a direct loan, and they made the consecutive payments?

Travis
I’ll tell you like the way to do it on your own. The way to do it on your own is to go to nslds.ed. gov. So that’s a website that you can log into, and you’re going to see a table of all your loans, and it’s going to list all of your loans on there. And if all of your loans say direct, then you’re in great shape, you don’t need to do anything to your loans, right?

If you go in there and you see that your loans say FFEL, then they’re not eligible, right? And anything that says FFEL is not eligible. So. So if you have, let’s pretend that you have all FFEL owns, you would need to consolidate them. So you could consolidate them by going to student loans.gov. Right. So so you know, you need to make sure you have the right kind of loans, that’s first.

The second thing would be to send in the PSLF ECF form. So if you Google that term, PSLF ECF form, you’re going to get a PDF that you can literally send in to fed loan servicing, and it’s going to have the address on there, it’s going to be straightforward, you know, obviously, make sure the information is correct. On the on the application. I mean, usually, that’s like 40% of the reasons for denials is because like someone’s advisor forgot to sign it or like didn’t put the address for the employer on there. It’s silly, but like, you just need to double check the form, right?

And then when you send that in, wherever your loans are in the world, they’ll be transferred to federal servicing. Right? Okay, so they’ll get transferred over there. And then you’re going to be asked to like sign up for an income based plan when you’re at federal and servicing. So that’s the company that manages the PSLF program.

So for most teachers, if you can, I recommend pay as you earn because it gives you the most flexibility to exclude your spouse’s income if you’re married one day. So that’s like the best advice I can give.

But I’m sure there’s some listeners that are listening that are like that sounded like French, I have no idea what he just said. Right? No, hence the reason for groups like us existing is like, we will do it for somebody for except for the document preparation. Like we won’t do that, but we’ll explain exactly how to do it, we’ll make sure that it’s done. Right, we’ll make sure that you understand, like, you know which path is best.

But, but yeah, I think that like Teachers are probably missing out on like, probably, I would guess, 10s of billions of dollars in loan forgiveness right now. Because that there’s just like awareness, there’s lack of like having it set up the right way. Like people are paying stuff off and refinancing stuff when they should be going for forgiveness. Because basically, every teacher or almost every teacher is at a not for profit or government employer. Right. Right.

Like there’s like there’s, I guess, maybe there there’s some, like for profit, like charter schools or something like that, maybe. Private schools are not for profit, right? Like if you’re teaching it like a Catholic school or something like that, you know, like, you’re probably at a not for profit employer, you just have to be a 501 c three employer, or a government employer. Those are the two rules. So for example, like five, one, C three just means that like some rich person could give a million dollars and name the school after themselves, right. And deducted on their taxes. So that’s, that’s basically every private school anywhere, you know, with it.

Kim
It’s not just a title one school, then?

Travis
No, this is like, basically 95% of the teaching profession.

Kim

I was under the impression that because of the teacher, one, that you had to teach at a title one school.

Travis
That’s why the teacher loan forgiveness sucks. Yeah, I mean, you know, Excuse My French, but, you know, it’s lousy, especially if you have more than 20 grand in debt.

Because, you know, if you have 20 grand or less than maybe like that five K, or the 17,500 is like really awesome, you know, you can just do that plan, get most of it forgiven, pay off the rest when it’s gone. Right. But like, if you owe more than 20,000, at all, then you really need to pay attention to this stuff.

Because you know, you could really seriously get a lot of your of your debt forgiven. And, you know, the only thing that’s not eligible is private debt. So that’s like stuff that, you know, maybe your parents took out and undergrad, I very rarely see a teacher that did a master’s degree program where it’s not Stafford or PLUS loans. It’s almost always Stafford or PLUS loans. When somebody goes to grad school. for undergrad, like there’s, there’s limits, so much you can borrow.

So for grad school, there’s no limits, you can borrow as much as you want from the government. for undergrad, you can only borrow like, I think it’s like, you know, like five to 10,000 per year, you know, and so since schools typically cost more than that, like parents will often like, sign up for private loans that they co sign. So that’s the only situation for you know, when teachers should definitely pay something back as if it’s a private loan.


Here are my key takeaways from this episode:

 

First, the Teacher Loan Forgiveness isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. If you qualify by teaching in a Title I school for five consecutive years, then you can get $5,000 forgiven and up to $17,500 forgiven if you teach math, science, or special ed. While that seems like a nice chunk, it doesn’t really help if you have tens of thousands of student loans.

Next, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program is THE best option for all teachers. You pay down your loans for ten years using the income-based plan, and after ten years, you can apply to have the rest forgiven. Travis gave us tips on different ways to lower our income base so that your monthly payment is less.

Finally, there’s a lot of misinformation out there about these types of loan forgiveness programs, or even worse, there’s a LACK of information. I’ve been teaching for 18 years now and I had no idea that this was even a possibility! So services like those provided at Student Loan Planner can definitely steer you in the right direction so that you can minimize the amount you pay and maximize the amount of debt that’s forgiven.

I didn’t want to overwhelm you guys with all of this information, so I decided to split this interview into two episodes. I highly recommend that you listen to this one again so that you can wrap your brain around all of the details about the PSLF program. Next week, Travis and I go into more detail about the program as well as calculate some different scenarios so that you can get a really good idea of just how much you can save.

If you want to read more about what Travis and I discussed today, just head on over to teachersneedteachers.com/studentloan.

And if you want to contact the Student Loan Planner, you can email help@studentloanplanner.com or head on over to the Student Loan Planner podcast.

Be sure to subscribe to this podcast so that you can automatically get next week’s episode where I continue the conversation with Travis. Just look at the device you’re on and hit that Subscribe or Follow button now!

And if you have a teacher bestie who would benefit from knowing how to have their student loans forgiven, please share this with them.

Thanks for hanging out with me today, and have a fabulous week!

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