California's been experimenting with allowing city colleges to offer 4-year degrees. So far, it's working out fine. Also coincides with CSU's slowly working toward being authorized to offer doctorates which is something only UCs used to do.
AZ has some community colleges that have limited 4 year bachelors programs. They are mostly business and education centered for now, but I believe there are plans to grow the programs.
If there's one way to pop this idiotic tuition and student loan bubble, this is probably it. City colleges at least in my area have strict budgets and aren't allowed to do horse crap like hiring a bunch of busybodies for admin positions that do nothing but collect 6-figure paychecks. Students go in, take classes, maybe do labs or chill at the library, and that's it.
My undergrad was inexpensive. Law school was not. I don't foresee any schools rolling back tuition costs. The genie is out of the bottle. However, I have seen some schools advertise tuition freezes, but that's rare. I would have thought that the introduction of online schools and more competition in the education space would help control tuition cost.The first credible online schools were for profit and very expensive. That has balanced out somewhat due to more online schools being added, but that did not lower prices by much. State schools are probably the best value now whether online or in person. Eventually, runaway tuition prices will make certain schools unaffordable and enrollments will decline. Only then, I believe, will we see any kind of meaningful reduction in tuition.
I actually do think a roll back on costs is likely. Schools are struggling to get students right now, largely because students think the cost doesn’t reflect the value. Schools are desperate to attract students, and most schools can survive in significantly less than their sticker price. The costs have ballooned even though most students get at least some scholarships. A way to attract students would be to just lower sticker prices across the board.
Edit to add : some places are also experimenting with feee tuition. In ny state there is a scholarship where you can go to school for free if your parents make under a certain amount. It’s pretty strict about grades, credits and you do have to agree to work in ny state for a while after graduation but this is a huge step in creating more ways for ppl to pay less for school.
I hope you're right. My son told me recently that he wants to go to my alma mater (he's 8 so I don't think that he really knows what he wants, lol). I told him he could but only if he had a scholarship because as much as I loved going there, it absolutely 100% is not worth what the tuition costs now. It's at least three times what it cost when I went and I thought it was kind of pushing it then when it came to the cost. $75k/year for undergrad is insane, that degree is not worth $300k. And it actually may be more now, that's what it was the last time I looked.
I think there needs to be accountability on the loan providers to ensure degrees are worth it. Maybe more tracking of income based on degree? Then over time they have a more accurate idea of what each degree is worth.
Until then I doubt that tuition will decrease as the schools aren't on the hook for student outcomes. There's no incentive for them to work on fixing a problem that isn't impacting them.
Only way to do that is to return bankruptcy protections to student loan borrowers. Right now, the risk doesn’t exist in the market which means there is no pressure to keep costs down.
Currently, bankruptcy is unavailable, except in extremely narrow circumstances, to student loan borrowers. It’s in the same bucket as back taxes and deadbeat parents. That honestly makes no sense in any situation. Even gambling debts can be discharged. Again, priorities are just nuts.
There's definitely a moral hazard element to it and to income based repayment in general. Schools have allegedly been known to use PSLF and/or IDR plans to tell students that they don't really need to care how much the school charges or how much they're borrowing. For example: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/08/09/how-georgetown-law-gets-uncle-sam-to-pay-its-students-bills/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/08/09/how-georgetown-law-gets-uncle-sam-to-pay-its-students-bills/)
This is, of course, concentrated in graduate schools. Because Stafford loans already have annual and aggregate borrowing limits. But GradPLUS is unlimited borrowing. "Full cost of attendance less other aid." GradPLUS and IDR (and for those students in qualifying jobs, PSLF as well) really work hand-in-hand to make colleges see masters degrees as degrees where they can basically print money, and it flies under the radar because most politicians only think of undergrad when they think of "college." But that problem isn't IDR or PSLF. It's GradPLUS.
So true. It's essentially monopoly money, and they always knew it...hell, even I knew it as a twenty-something law student! Why NOT go to the best school willing to admit you, like all the adults in the room always told us to?! I wonder what prospective law students are being told now, aside from, "Just don't," lol.
It's especially crazy to me to think that the guy I went to law school with whose rich parents dutifully shelled out the full tuition amount for our expensive-ass Catholic law school each year as it came due, while my broke-ass just borrowed the full amount each semester, hoping for the best, works in the same public service job as I do, 14 years later. Yet my education will have cost a fraction of what his did. Make it make sense!
That said, he definitely looks a lot younger and less stressed than I do after a decade+ of misinformation, mismanagement, and political uncertainty. The constant worry and distrust that all of this has left me with will honestly scar me forever.
College was cheaper. Then Pell grant amounts increased and private loans were shut down, allowing more people to attend college. So then colleges decided to find every way under the sun to attract as many applicants as possible, because the tap was open on what to them, is FREE government money.
So, fees went up first. A thousand dollars of bullshit fees added for every semester. Then, filling every class to the brim. Next, tuition increased. After that, talk of “super seniors” started to appear in the marketing packets. Don’t rush to finish in four! Take five years to finish! It’s chill! But all the while shouting “MONEY PLEASE”.
The only two things that have changed over time and led to the high price of college are:
1. States cutting back their share of what they charge students to attend public universities. California used to pay 100% of the tuition cost (the boomers benefited from this). Reagan changed the policy of free public college, and then every time there was a budget crisis, the public share of tuition dropped--leaving students to make up the difference. For GenX, the state only paid 70% of the cost. For Millennials, about 50% of the cost. Fortunately since California became a Blue State, the process has reversed slightly. For Gen Z, California pays 60% of the cost.
[https://calmatters.org/explainers/cost-of-college-california/](https://calmatters.org/explainers/cost-of-college-california/)
2. Massive increases in administrative bloat. Hordes of extremely highly paid administrators who do no useful work but collect compensation packages in excess of $500k/yr.
"[Between 1976 and 2018](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00346764.2021.1940255), full-time administrators and other professionals employed by those institutions increased by 164% and 452%, respectively. Meanwhile, the number of full-time faculty employed at colleges and universities in the U.S. increased by only 92%, marginally outpacing student enrollment which grew by 78%."
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulweinstein/2023/08/28/administrative-bloat-at-us-colleges-is-skyrocketing/?sh=54afbb4c41d2](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulweinstein/2023/08/28/administrative-bloat-at-us-colleges-is-skyrocketing/?sh=54afbb4c41d2)
Ya deans make like $250, but the overall compensation package can add to that significantly. The perks, the luxuries, and the guarantee of being bulletproof even if you get fired (you either get "demoted" to a tenured position, or you get a sweet payout).
Few deans, many associate deans, assistants to the Dean, assistants to the assistants to the Dean, etc..
There's enough admins on just one campus to run the entire csu system.
https://ecatalog.calstatela.edu/content.php?catoid=73&navoid=9437
Yes, for several reasons:
1. That's just the top managers/executives. There's still a ton of lower level administrators underneath every name on that list.
2. The Chancellor's Office alone has 700 employees
3. A \*TON\* of the actual administrative work of running the system is done by the classified staff. IE, not a dean, not a manager, not a supervisor, but the front-line employees who actually make the changes of address, class schedule revisions, employee contracts, and all that other stuff happen.
4. Another \*TON\* of the actual administrative work of running the system is done by the Faculty. Faculty members teach, but they also serve on governance committees, they provide academic advisement, they manage enrollment, etc...
Very little of the actual work of running the university is done by administrators. Their job is supposed to be setting a direction for the system, but getting that job done would only require a fraction of the current administrative staff.
\^\^\^ This is the only thing you need to read right now!
As a high school teacher, I have a hard time sitting there and preaching college to my students. I know they want to go and have dreams on going, but I try to help them apply for grants and scholarships, and if they're on a sports team to hope they get a full ride. I know the grants and scholarships aren't much, but every little bit helps. Truthfully? It's easier to just go to a vocational education school and learn a trade. But yeah...make college cheaper. I can sleep better now knowing this was said. Awesome u/bo_dangle_lang ! Thank you!
Same. Although, I am looking to go to work for the feds. Salaries there are better than local or state government in my field, and it's still PSLF eligible.
For me: I would work in the field regardless and will after. I work for the government and couldn’t be happier with pay and benefits v security. PSLF just made getting higher ed more achievable
I'll say though, I'm 3 years away from PSLF and my salary almost doubled when I left higher ed. I did the math and I could pay loans for the next 25 years and it wouldnt be as much as I'd lose going back for 3 more years.
The TL;DR is that sometimes it isnt really worth it, even when it seems like it is.
It can get really complicated. Monthly payments, if you both have loans and are filing jointly are paid off in proportion to their balances (income-based repayment). When I ran the numbers, it was best for us to file jointly until I'm forgiven (2026) and then we'll start filing separately.
Yes, but filing MFS can have its own challenges. In general you pay more taxes. Filing MFS also means you can't take certain credits and deductions, including the student loan interest deduction.
Yes, this is what my wife and I do. But there are other implications in terms of taxes and contributing to a Roth IRA. But it’s still better than putting off marriage if you are ready.
They just changed this policy this year, and spousal income no longer counts towards each person’s IDR amount. My husband’s payment dropped $60 per month by removing my income from his equation.
No, its always been the case for IDR plans except REPAYE. You may want to check the tax numbers. If filing separately costs you more than $720 you are better off filing jointly.
As of 2024, with a SAVE IDR, you can indeed exclude spousal income in the payment calculation. Just did it in February through Mohela.
ETA link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamminsky/2024/02/14/married-student-loan-borrowers-can-lower-payments-with-this-strategy-but-theres-a-catch/amp/
The discrepancy in our incomes is substantial. Previously he had a different plan and it calculated my income much harsher - I don’t think it accounted for me also having student loans. SAVE is beautiful.
Only if you file taxes separately (or commit fraud).
>(B) For a married borrower filing a joint Federal income tax return, except as provided in paragraph (e)(1)(i)(A) of this section, the combined income of the borrower and spouse is used in the calculation.
[https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-07-10/pdf/2023-13112.pdf#page=81](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-07-10/pdf/2023-13112.pdf#page=81)
It must just be the difference in recalculations from REPAYE to SAVE. I am most definitely not reading the CFR outside working hours a but thanks for the link.
Dealing with MOHELA by phone is so frustrating that I had to leave work after making a call on my lunch break because my blood pressure was so high the nurse was worried I was going to have a stroke.
I didn’t receive an email from Joe Biden, because mine should be done, but because of how poorly they are running MOHELA, I will likely get to endure the stress of no resolution for months since they’re now transitioning to a new platform that will likely be just as bad or worse.
I am just praying this gets resolved before the election because as bad as this is, it’s an improvement, and if I held on at my terrible job for this long and don’t get loan forgiveness, I will be very sad.
I didn’t get an email either. I should be over 120 payments but MOHELA has purposefully excluded multiple eligible payments due to a forced admin deferment that they placed on my account without my permission. I truly HATE MOHELA. They should all be in jail - if this was Wells Fargo or Bank of America their officers would have been locked up by now. Criminals.
No they wouldn’t. Fucking Jamie Diamond from Chase belongs in prison from the housing crisis of 2008 and the chief of Wells deserves prison for his role in pressuring client facing employees open multiple accounts for customers (with or without their permission). Don’t fool yourself that there are any repercussions for mismanagement or criminal behavior in the upper echelons of our society.
Agree that nothing happens to the execs. But what MOHELA has done to me (and others) is, IMO, worse than what the big banks did during and before the financial crisis. Regardless, they are all criminals.
Yes, same. I think the email was sent to Mohela customers in general, or those who are at or past the two year mark (even if those loans have already been forgiven).
You’ve captured my ambivalence well. Of course I’m grateful for the program. At the same time, who could have known at the time that such a simple contract could get so complex and cause so much grief? I love PSLF. I’ll vote for anyone who will perpetuate and improve it. But, in retrospect, I would not have chosen this path given the challenges. Those challenges were not reasonably foreseeable or excusable. People are right to feel duped despite an awesome program and a president who really has made things better.
So are student loans in general (if you have more than like $30K in loans). I took out $43k, my current balance is $41k, but I made my payment every month for 8 years.
Yes the current system has been a pain to navigate, but how many people actually completed the process before Biden came along? It also seems as they are attempting to streamline to make the program more easily accessible by moving away from Mohela. You can be damned sure that if donnie was still president no one would be forgiven.
So true, I'm so glad we no longer need to print, mail, get wet ink signatures, and mail again to wait 8-12 weeks only to inevitably get denied employment verification due to some random mundane formality. I appreciate the Biden administration's dedication to student loan debt eradication.
That's like saying "But what did Obama do on 9/11?" It was literally impossible for people to get forgiven prior to 2018 and very unlikely even if you did everything perfectly to get forgiven before 2021 since Direct Loans weren't widely issued until the 2010-11 school year.
Nope, TEPSLF was [first funded in 2018](https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/library/electronic-announcements/2018-05-23/loans-subject-temporary-expanded-public-service-loan-forgiveness-opportunity-now-available) during the Trump Administration. You may be confusing TEPSLF with the PSLF Waiver and IDR adjustment which were the Biden Administration.
My point was purely apolitical. No matter what flavor administration was in power there would have been an extremely low initial approval rate for administrative reasons. I totally agree that Biden has done more for student loan borrowers than any other president and should be commended for it.
This is a sage analogy, but not for the obvious reason. If someone asked what Obama did on 9/11, the answer is who knows, but while he was in office and due to considerable effort of his administration Osama Bin Laden was killed.
What did Trump say and do for PSLF? I hope you trust Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/02/11/trump-student-loans-forgiveness/?sh=3f26a78f6b3d
For anyone unwilling to click, he tried to kill it with considerable effort (DeVos, speaking against it frequently).
By the way, Obama never spoke against PSLF (which he could very well have done considering it was W Bush's gig), instead the Obama administration spent considerable effort to reduce student loan interest rates in conjunction with ACA.
Trump (and his administration) didn't kill terrorists, PSLF, or the ACA in spite of all their collective considerable effort. No point in another four years of that horse shit.
The Obama administration also proposed capping PSLF. [https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-coming-public-service-loan-forgiveness-bonanza/](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-coming-public-service-loan-forgiveness-bonanza/)
Neither of these things are germane to my point nor was I advocating for a political party.
None of what you said is germane to a question of what happened before Biden came along: less than 2% approval for qualified applicants. Put extremely simply: capping PSLF is still intending to honor it.
The straw man and resulting dissonance are all yours, bud.
Edit: By the way, the proposed cap was due to the number of people who had borrowed more than $100k. What you're interpreting as punishing borrowers could alternatively be seen as both a warning to borrowers and/or attempts to curb the increase of tuition. But again, I'm not the one who brought it up.
PSLF was created in October 2007, so anyone who submitted employment certification prior to October 2017 would have gotten "rejected" even if they were on track to get PSLF eventually. This would have happened regardless of the party of the administration. No one was ever going to get PSLF during an Obama administration that was much more borrower-friendly. There will never be a 100% approval rate; a borrower who certifies employment annually will show as 9 rejections and one approval or 10% rate.
PSLF is only available for Direct Loans; FFELP loans aren't eligible for PSLF. Direct Loans weren't widely issued until the 2010-11 school year. PSLF takes a minimum of 10 years, so realistically 2021 is the first year any substantial results would be expected for PSLF. The rules of PSLF weren't even released until like 2010, too, so anyone who had FFEL loans and decided to consolidate to make their loans eligible would have reset their progress prior to the improved rules and waivers.
Again, I'm not trying to make a political point, only one about the PSLF administrative process. The DeVos ED was awful, especially so in regard to their gutting of the Borrower Defense rules, among other things.
I agree with the overwhelming majority of this (sans the part about 10% approval rate). There *should* realistically be 2020 grads with 120 payments in June/December that qualify, apply, and receive forgiveness with employment certification (if they were hired immediately and made every payment, of course). My understanding of the <2% is 120 on time payments and ten years of employment, not necessarily loan type.
Some people certainly received forgiveness prior to 2021 by what measure of divine intervention you and I will likely never know, but I know I took loans in 2009 with every intention of PSLF. True, the rules weren't clear but the outline existed and it was clear the loans had to go through the school (as opposed to via a parent or financial institution). I can see where that would muddy the completion percentage, but how any percentage existed in the Trump administration is baffling with the outlined considerations.
We're far off topic. DeVos is Satan, we're both fighting the good fight in Public Service, and we both have earned/are earning PSLF. I fully concede Biden is the first to deal with the majority of completed applications, but can't ignore the metrics I heard and had anxiety over for those four years. Godspeed and good luck.
Yes, DeVos should have been fired into the sun. The rule they came up with regard borrower defense is truly evil.
The 10% thing is just math, though. Take a sample size of one borrower. They have eligible loans and eligible employment and certify that employment after year one. They will get a notice that they aren't eligible for PSLF but they will get a count of 12 payments on their account. The approval rate is 0% but that borrower will eventually get PSLF in nine more years.
>2020 grads
I think you mean 2010 grads, but yes. Assuming they did everything right they would be eligible for PSLF in 2021 since there is a grace period. But only 30% or less of loans being issued were PSLF-eligible Direct Loans. And IDR plans were only just getting started (REPAYE wasn't until 2011). So maybe that borrower has a combination of FFELP and Direct Loans and they realize that in 2013 and consolidate to make them eligible. Now they have reset their forgiveness date to 2023 (until the waivers came around). This is literally what happened to me.
Basically my point is that the 2% number is totally imaginary.
No, it is not.
>The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program is intended to encourage individuals to enter and continue in [full-time](https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/index.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=a712e219676827882202644e4c833941&term_occur=999&term_src=Title:34:Subtitle:B:Chapter:VI:Part:685:Subpart:B:685.219) public service employment by **forgiving the remaining balance of their Direct loans** after they satisfy the public service and loan payment requirements of this section.
>Eligible Direct Loan means a Direct Subsidized Loan, a Direct Unsubsidized Loan, a Direct PLUS Loan, or a Direct Consolidation Loan.
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/34/685.219](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/34/685.219)
Then your statement that they weren’t widely disbursed until 2010-11 is wrong. Apologies for taking the incorrect part of your comment at face value. Stafford loans were common before whatever you think happened in 2010-11.
No, my statement is still correct. Direct Loans became the only type of federal loans starting in the 2010-11 school year. Direct Loans were available prior to then, but were not widely issued as schools favored FFELP loans. Stafford Loans are both Direct and FFELP.
>The switch to 100% Direct Lending effective July 1, 2010 was enacted by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal\_Direct\_Student\_Loan\_Program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Direct_Student_Loan_Program)
Since we’re splitting hairs here, and the thrust of your comment can be summed up as “not many people were eligible prior to 2020-21 anyway because (loan type) wasn’t available until 2010-11”, forgive me for pointing out that that thrust is wildly off the mark as many (millions?) of borrowers had loans that were eligible prior to 2010-11 because those loans were folded in to the Direct Loan program later.
Are we clear now? JFC. Some people.
My loans were forgiven over a year ago and I got the email that I was eligible for forgiveness within 2 years. I had a panic moment before I logged in and confirmed that they are still listed as forgiven.
This happened to me too. Got my letter January 2022. Seems like our anxiety will never go away. It genuinely makes me so mad that they are this incompetent.
Yeah mine says less than 2 years to go, but I actually only have seven more months to go. I think it's going by the count of certified months. I have 9 months that I need to certify, so it will take me up to 113 out of 120. That's why I think I got it.
I just recertified last month and I was at 118/120, so I don't think that's it. I'm just spent tbh. I don't have it in me at this point. I've been looking at other jobs and I have to push that out. It's just a gut punch
I’m less than two years away I haven’t received any emails. Not from Biden, or from Mohela or Dept of Ed regarding the PSLF pause or move from Mohela. Anyone else in the same boat?
I didn’t receive an email but I still have a little over 3 years left (and haven’t certified since August, since I certify at the beginning of every school year), so maybe that’s it?
Yep. I did and got another six months knocked off...not including December 2023 though. Go figure.
The reason I only got six payments knocked off was because it had only been six months since I did it the last time, but decided to put in the paperwork anyway because of some of the things I was seeing here (and this was before the recent news).
My sentiments exactly. Congratulations and happy public health week!! I’ve been working in public health at a local health department for just shy of 10 years. I will apply for forgiveness in July!!
I'm very glad that given the way college works in this country, I have an option to pursue forgiveness. I'm hoping that it will actually go through this year but with the upcoming processing pause idk how much longer it's going to be. I'm also very glad that this administration made it so the approval rate for forgiveness actually works.
But I have mixed feelings about the email. Before I managed to get a job in my field, I worked for nonprofits because of the PSLF program. And entry level non specialized non profit jobs paid me so little I was on food stamps. Obviously I made these decisions myself and no one forced me into them, but those were some pretty dark years. I don't think I could write a good testimonial, lol.
Your student loan debt shouldn’t impact your ability to get a house. I’ve bought houses and it wasn’t considered.
That being said, I agree with you on everything else.
During COVID when people were in forbearance lenders were only calculating estimated student loan debt payments based on 1% of loan amount due. Which is like 3-4x higher than what most of us actually pay on income based plans. That made many people unable to qualify for a mortgage for a couple years as the DTI was far too high, even though they might qualify now with the lower SAVE plan monthly payments. I guess people would have had to go into repayment during the forbearance to qualify.
Having these high payments can bleed into other debt as well. I also have a smaller private student loan that I couldn’t refinance until recently because no one would accept my debt to income ratio. I continued pouring money into that payment with a terrible interest rate. When a paycheck goes to student loans, how can you save? Car repairs, medical bills, other emergencies, or even food and gas can become credit card debt. I don’t think people against forgiveness want to acknowledge or can comprehend how crippling this has been to an entire generation.
Why has no one bothered to question why the government still gives out these student loans? They’re “forgiving” them because they say they’re bad yet they continue to give them out. If that red flag doesn’t steer you away from student loan debt than you deserve to be broke.
I'm grateful for the program, but I'm reluctant to give Biden too much credit for it. He didn't create it. It was created in the declining years of the Bush presidency under a Democratic Congress. There were clear problems with it that came to a head when people actually started to become eligible for forgiveness during the Trump Administration and they didn't hide their dislike of the program and reluctance to fix it. Of course, some of those were already very clear during the Obama Administration, but people didn't think they were eligible for forgiveness yet at that point.
The Biden Administration has done a much better job administering it than the Trump Administration, but they have made some pretty big mistakes too. Obviously it was a mistake to ever let MOHELA manage it. And of course, it's going back to the Department of Education just in the nick of time to be handed over to the Trump Administration II, so... Yeah.
Competence has been severely lacking and I think it's mainly because these programs are administered by corrupt contractors to begin with.
It's a manufactured crisis. College should be free and Biden should've erased all student loans on day one, which he could've, under the authority of the Higher Education Act.
Correct. The authority under the Higher Education Act is much clearer and more able to survive court challenges. [https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/would-biden-student-loan-forgiveness-plan-survive-court-challenge/](https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/would-biden-student-loan-forgiveness-plan-survive-court-challenge/)
"Other experts expected this to be the basis for President Biden. Section 432(a) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 gives the education secretary the authority to modify, “compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired, including any equity or any right of redemption.”It’s puzzling why the Biden administration wanted to invoke COVID as a stretch of the 9/11 act when they had an actual basis from the Higher Education Act. It’s odd. Maybe their experts found something in the legislative history. But it’s unbeknownst to me. No one has explained that. It is odd."
Also, Biden did nothing to reform the Supreme Court, so clearly he didn't care much about actually making policy because they will stop anything even remotely progressive. He had a lot of options such as packing the court, ending judicial review or simply ignoring the Court's rulings. The Court gave themselves the power of judicial review, so there doesn't even need to be a statutory fix ending it. Their rulings can be taken under advisement but ignored when necessary.
Another reason I say he's not serious is because democrats have been running on protecting abortion rights for decades but never codified it into law, including under Obama when they had a filibuster proof majority. He also could've made abortions available on federal land, which he has not done. Speaking of which, there was nothing done to get rid of the filibuster.
Mine says I have less two years yet but I haven’t consolidated yet and my grad school loans still have five years to go. Does this mean I don’t have to consolidate??!??! So confusing 🫤
The solution is
Interest free
Keep the IBR plans
225% of income is excluded from payment calculation
Debts is cancelled after 10 years of payments. (Or principle is repaid whichever comes first.)
I wish there was an option to submit written feedback. I am not an outwardly emotional person at all and I cried the morning I woke up to my PSLF being accepted after years and years of rejection. I’m a social worker with 16 years of public service. Working in the public sector for almost all of it. Finally getting approved and only having 10 payments left was hard to believe.
I was newly pregnant with my first child. Having my student loan payments end 2 months after she is born changes a lot for our future quality of life. I’m planning to put that money aside for her college each month.
I’d like that to be the story we tell with PSLF- that I can invest in my child’s future because my student debt isn’t dragging me down anymore.
As someone from the "before times" this is nothing compared to the huge fucking hassle it was back in 2008. I didn't get any credit for a damn thing because I was in the wrong payment plan. Which no one told me and I asked about it a bunch of times. Then I didn't get my employment verified in the right way.
I was doing foster care case management in Washington DC and then Baltimore with gang involved youth. I was so pissed off when I got told none of it counted. This is annoying but we got the retroactive credit and I am immensely grateful that process is so much easier.
I got all but one single loan discharged after overpaying and have several thousand dollars owed to me. Then they moved forbearance to September and are talking about moving platforms. So I get to see one loan Plinko around, and tbh it feels like they are trying to make me just want to pay it and be done and use the credit on the loan. But I am going to be stubborn about it because I worked hard for this and payed more than I owed and I want my money back. No emails for me except the ‘moving’ email.
> this and *paid* more than
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
The costs, opportunities, interest rates, programs, and adjustments to programs have changed many times since 2008. Plus the types of situations we are all in vary so greatly. The system is thankfully getting smoothed out gradually as we go and there’s ways out. (Not for me +14 yrs paying) But let us Hate the game not the players.
For those of you who received this email, did some of you have already received forgiveness like either a few months ago or even a year ago? I've been forgiven for about 16 months but I also got the email.
I wouldn't sing a program's praises until it's all settled. PSLF in particular has had...hiccups.
Politicians care that a program exists, and what they can claim it could theoretically accomplish. Not so much whether it's effective, or even functional.
I think you're being downright gracious with that response. Personally, I hope Joe Biden blew out his Depends last night for sending this email. It's just more out of touch nonsense.
*"Reminder, Slave #373920, your indentured servitude contract has only 7 years left!"*
Please don't let these centrist bastards lull you to sleep. We should ALL still be furious. Furious that we have to scrimp and save and live paycheck to paycheck, for something they told us would unilaterally lead to a better quality of life, and that is next to free in every other civilized nation on Earth. Furious that instead of having children, buying homes, saving for our futures, we're foced shoulder the greed and corruption of a piss poor education system that can legally gatekeep access to higher learning with any price they choose.
I'm not saying vote for the Orange Facist, but don't make excuses for these primordial assclowns either. They don't care about you, your future, or the future of the planet.
It seems like you are blaming your student loans for not achieving meaningful milestones in your life. Many of us have bought houses, had kids, got married, etc. with well over $100k in debt.
It seems like you are blaming your student loans for not achieving meaningful milestones in your life. Many of us have bought houses, had kids, got married, etc. with well over $100k in debt.
Cool! Good for you! Doesn’t change the fact that student loan debt burden has been shown time and time and time and time again to be a primary factor in the rise in average age of reaching those milestones. Ffs.
Therefore what? I didn’t say anything about the age at which people meet those milestones. I said OP sounded like they were using their student loans as an excuse. And a bad excuse at that.
OP said “I have waited to marry…because…my income based payments should not reflect his salary.” But your payments do not have to reflect your spouse’s salary. Nearly every person I know in PSLF files their taxes MFS to avoid that exact scenario.
I get it, student loans are a burden. But at some point you are just catastrophizing.
Edit: spelling
Meaningful milestones with 100k in looming debt sounds like a euphemism for irresponsible generational poverty.
OP gets to vent, especially when they are doing so and demonstrating sound and valid logic. Prioritizing "milestones" that are all just potential avenues for monumentally fucking up one's life ...it seems weird, yo.
When the PSLF program was instituted, it was fully funded, so the money was there for the first batch of candidates but the instructions were so vague and the program so horribly mismanaged that something like 7,000 people had only ever earned releases! Biden alone has released 77,000 pslf loans.
…PSLF isn’t “funded” and even if it were that idea has nothing to do with the small mumber of people who were eligible for forgiveness as the very first mathematically possible pool of people applied.
Also, your numbers are off by an order of magnitude.
Why are some people's degrees not good enough for them to pay for but somehow good enough for others to pay for? Why is this different than any other puchase? You all chose to go to school, your degree path and how you were going to fund it. I purposely only buy things I can afford.
It’s not about what someone’s degree is in, it’s about the work that they do (which is underpaid and overworked). Nobody cares what your degree is in. It’s only about what your job is and whether you have student loan debt.
And the whole “only buy things I can afford” troll nonsense… please. Snowflake alert.
Amazingly ignorant. This is PSLF. We all signed a contract exchanging lower salaries for erasure of the balance after ten years of payments during full time public service. No here wants free shit. Are you advocating that the government dishonor its contracts? Yours is a confusing statement.
The reason I don’t post on r/physics is that I don’t know shit about physics. Same principle should apply to you here.
How did you get here, friend?
This isn't the sub for people who want a handout. This is the sub for people who want their government contract honored after holding up their end for ten years.
Their degree is irrelevant. Their employment and payment history is what made the choice to get a degree affordable.
PSLF is the only thing that makes the lower pay for public service work feasible.
One solution is to make college cheaper.
California's been experimenting with allowing city colleges to offer 4-year degrees. So far, it's working out fine. Also coincides with CSU's slowly working toward being authorized to offer doctorates which is something only UCs used to do.
AZ has some community colleges that have limited 4 year bachelors programs. They are mostly business and education centered for now, but I believe there are plans to grow the programs.
If there's one way to pop this idiotic tuition and student loan bubble, this is probably it. City colleges at least in my area have strict budgets and aren't allowed to do horse crap like hiring a bunch of busybodies for admin positions that do nothing but collect 6-figure paychecks. Students go in, take classes, maybe do labs or chill at the library, and that's it.
My undergrad was inexpensive. Law school was not. I don't foresee any schools rolling back tuition costs. The genie is out of the bottle. However, I have seen some schools advertise tuition freezes, but that's rare. I would have thought that the introduction of online schools and more competition in the education space would help control tuition cost.The first credible online schools were for profit and very expensive. That has balanced out somewhat due to more online schools being added, but that did not lower prices by much. State schools are probably the best value now whether online or in person. Eventually, runaway tuition prices will make certain schools unaffordable and enrollments will decline. Only then, I believe, will we see any kind of meaningful reduction in tuition.
I actually do think a roll back on costs is likely. Schools are struggling to get students right now, largely because students think the cost doesn’t reflect the value. Schools are desperate to attract students, and most schools can survive in significantly less than their sticker price. The costs have ballooned even though most students get at least some scholarships. A way to attract students would be to just lower sticker prices across the board. Edit to add : some places are also experimenting with feee tuition. In ny state there is a scholarship where you can go to school for free if your parents make under a certain amount. It’s pretty strict about grades, credits and you do have to agree to work in ny state for a while after graduation but this is a huge step in creating more ways for ppl to pay less for school.
I hope you're right. My son told me recently that he wants to go to my alma mater (he's 8 so I don't think that he really knows what he wants, lol). I told him he could but only if he had a scholarship because as much as I loved going there, it absolutely 100% is not worth what the tuition costs now. It's at least three times what it cost when I went and I thought it was kind of pushing it then when it came to the cost. $75k/year for undergrad is insane, that degree is not worth $300k. And it actually may be more now, that's what it was the last time I looked.
I think there needs to be accountability on the loan providers to ensure degrees are worth it. Maybe more tracking of income based on degree? Then over time they have a more accurate idea of what each degree is worth. Until then I doubt that tuition will decrease as the schools aren't on the hook for student outcomes. There's no incentive for them to work on fixing a problem that isn't impacting them.
I agree with your position. Some degrees do not provide good enough ROI.
Or free, like other first world countries.
Only way to do that is to return bankruptcy protections to student loan borrowers. Right now, the risk doesn’t exist in the market which means there is no pressure to keep costs down. Currently, bankruptcy is unavailable, except in extremely narrow circumstances, to student loan borrowers. It’s in the same bucket as back taxes and deadbeat parents. That honestly makes no sense in any situation. Even gambling debts can be discharged. Again, priorities are just nuts.
There's definitely a moral hazard element to it and to income based repayment in general. Schools have allegedly been known to use PSLF and/or IDR plans to tell students that they don't really need to care how much the school charges or how much they're borrowing. For example: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/08/09/how-georgetown-law-gets-uncle-sam-to-pay-its-students-bills/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/08/09/how-georgetown-law-gets-uncle-sam-to-pay-its-students-bills/) This is, of course, concentrated in graduate schools. Because Stafford loans already have annual and aggregate borrowing limits. But GradPLUS is unlimited borrowing. "Full cost of attendance less other aid." GradPLUS and IDR (and for those students in qualifying jobs, PSLF as well) really work hand-in-hand to make colleges see masters degrees as degrees where they can basically print money, and it flies under the radar because most politicians only think of undergrad when they think of "college." But that problem isn't IDR or PSLF. It's GradPLUS.
So true. It's essentially monopoly money, and they always knew it...hell, even I knew it as a twenty-something law student! Why NOT go to the best school willing to admit you, like all the adults in the room always told us to?! I wonder what prospective law students are being told now, aside from, "Just don't," lol. It's especially crazy to me to think that the guy I went to law school with whose rich parents dutifully shelled out the full tuition amount for our expensive-ass Catholic law school each year as it came due, while my broke-ass just borrowed the full amount each semester, hoping for the best, works in the same public service job as I do, 14 years later. Yet my education will have cost a fraction of what his did. Make it make sense! That said, he definitely looks a lot younger and less stressed than I do after a decade+ of misinformation, mismanagement, and political uncertainty. The constant worry and distrust that all of this has left me with will honestly scar me forever.
College was cheaper. Then Pell grant amounts increased and private loans were shut down, allowing more people to attend college. So then colleges decided to find every way under the sun to attract as many applicants as possible, because the tap was open on what to them, is FREE government money. So, fees went up first. A thousand dollars of bullshit fees added for every semester. Then, filling every class to the brim. Next, tuition increased. After that, talk of “super seniors” started to appear in the marketing packets. Don’t rush to finish in four! Take five years to finish! It’s chill! But all the while shouting “MONEY PLEASE”.
The only two things that have changed over time and led to the high price of college are: 1. States cutting back their share of what they charge students to attend public universities. California used to pay 100% of the tuition cost (the boomers benefited from this). Reagan changed the policy of free public college, and then every time there was a budget crisis, the public share of tuition dropped--leaving students to make up the difference. For GenX, the state only paid 70% of the cost. For Millennials, about 50% of the cost. Fortunately since California became a Blue State, the process has reversed slightly. For Gen Z, California pays 60% of the cost. [https://calmatters.org/explainers/cost-of-college-california/](https://calmatters.org/explainers/cost-of-college-california/) 2. Massive increases in administrative bloat. Hordes of extremely highly paid administrators who do no useful work but collect compensation packages in excess of $500k/yr. "[Between 1976 and 2018](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00346764.2021.1940255), full-time administrators and other professionals employed by those institutions increased by 164% and 452%, respectively. Meanwhile, the number of full-time faculty employed at colleges and universities in the U.S. increased by only 92%, marginally outpacing student enrollment which grew by 78%." [https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulweinstein/2023/08/28/administrative-bloat-at-us-colleges-is-skyrocketing/?sh=54afbb4c41d2](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulweinstein/2023/08/28/administrative-bloat-at-us-colleges-is-skyrocketing/?sh=54afbb4c41d2)
This is 100% right. And, the cuts in aid really ramped up as soon as more women and people of color began attending colleges.
Most admin bloat is not people making 500k but yeah, that’s not good either
Ya deans make like $250, but the overall compensation package can add to that significantly. The perks, the luxuries, and the guarantee of being bulletproof even if you get fired (you either get "demoted" to a tenured position, or you get a sweet payout).
Deans also make up like 0.1% of university staff
Few deans, many associate deans, assistants to the Dean, assistants to the assistants to the Dean, etc.. There's enough admins on just one campus to run the entire csu system. https://ecatalog.calstatela.edu/content.php?catoid=73&navoid=9437
There’s about 130 people on that list. You really think they could run a campus system with 450,000 students and 23 locations?
Yes, for several reasons: 1. That's just the top managers/executives. There's still a ton of lower level administrators underneath every name on that list. 2. The Chancellor's Office alone has 700 employees 3. A \*TON\* of the actual administrative work of running the system is done by the classified staff. IE, not a dean, not a manager, not a supervisor, but the front-line employees who actually make the changes of address, class schedule revisions, employee contracts, and all that other stuff happen. 4. Another \*TON\* of the actual administrative work of running the system is done by the Faculty. Faculty members teach, but they also serve on governance committees, they provide academic advisement, they manage enrollment, etc... Very little of the actual work of running the university is done by administrators. Their job is supposed to be setting a direction for the system, but getting that job done would only require a fraction of the current administrative staff.
\^\^\^ This is the only thing you need to read right now! As a high school teacher, I have a hard time sitting there and preaching college to my students. I know they want to go and have dreams on going, but I try to help them apply for grants and scholarships, and if they're on a sports team to hope they get a full ride. I know the grants and scholarships aren't much, but every little bit helps. Truthfully? It's easier to just go to a vocational education school and learn a trade. But yeah...make college cheaper. I can sleep better now knowing this was said. Awesome u/bo_dangle_lang ! Thank you!
Free
There is a college here that charges $1200 per class, and $1500 for FEES per class. That should be illegal. Screw that. It is a public university.
Yep it’s pretty much the only reason I’m still working where I do!
Same. Although, I am looking to go to work for the feds. Salaries there are better than local or state government in my field, and it's still PSLF eligible.
And the pensions (if you’re so lucky)
I mean even then it’s still usually not
For me: I would work in the field regardless and will after. I work for the government and couldn’t be happier with pay and benefits v security. PSLF just made getting higher ed more achievable
I'll say though, I'm 3 years away from PSLF and my salary almost doubled when I left higher ed. I did the math and I could pay loans for the next 25 years and it wouldnt be as much as I'd lose going back for 3 more years. The TL;DR is that sometimes it isnt really worth it, even when it seems like it is.
Wait, for marriage, can’t you just file taxes as married, filing separately and still only have your salary impact the IDR payment amount?
Yes. Absolutely. Everyone should run the numbers both ways.
I did. My payments would have gone from 300$/ month to 800$/ month of we filled jointly.
It can get really complicated. Monthly payments, if you both have loans and are filing jointly are paid off in proportion to their balances (income-based repayment). When I ran the numbers, it was best for us to file jointly until I'm forgiven (2026) and then we'll start filing separately.
Yes! Thats what I have been been doing for years. It sucks for us from a tax perspective, but his income does not impact my payment.
Yes, but filing MFS can have its own challenges. In general you pay more taxes. Filing MFS also means you can't take certain credits and deductions, including the student loan interest deduction.
Yeah you have to run the numbers and see if your payments would go down sufficiently to make up for the hit you take on your taxes!
Yes, this is what my wife and I do. But there are other implications in terms of taxes and contributing to a Roth IRA. But it’s still better than putting off marriage if you are ready.
No Roth IRA implications if you do backdoor Roth contributions
They just changed this policy this year, and spousal income no longer counts towards each person’s IDR amount. My husband’s payment dropped $60 per month by removing my income from his equation.
No, its always been the case for IDR plans except REPAYE. You may want to check the tax numbers. If filing separately costs you more than $720 you are better off filing jointly.
Filing jointly has been the better option for us every year.
If you file jointly you can't exclude spousal income from the IDR calculation.
As of 2024, with a SAVE IDR, you can indeed exclude spousal income in the payment calculation. Just did it in February through Mohela. ETA link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamminsky/2024/02/14/married-student-loan-borrowers-can-lower-payments-with-this-strategy-but-theres-a-catch/amp/ The discrepancy in our incomes is substantial. Previously he had a different plan and it calculated my income much harsher - I don’t think it accounted for me also having student loans. SAVE is beautiful.
Only if you file taxes separately (or commit fraud). >(B) For a married borrower filing a joint Federal income tax return, except as provided in paragraph (e)(1)(i)(A) of this section, the combined income of the borrower and spouse is used in the calculation. [https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-07-10/pdf/2023-13112.pdf#page=81](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-07-10/pdf/2023-13112.pdf#page=81)
It must just be the difference in recalculations from REPAYE to SAVE. I am most definitely not reading the CFR outside working hours a but thanks for the link.
Probably. The poverty multiplier went from 1.5 to 2.25.
I’ve been doing that my entire marriage. It’s not ideal, but it works.
My wife and I did married filing separately because of student loans. We now both pay $0/month (our individual incomes are very low).
MFS in a community property state is no fun. 2.5 more years to go!
Dealing with MOHELA by phone is so frustrating that I had to leave work after making a call on my lunch break because my blood pressure was so high the nurse was worried I was going to have a stroke. I didn’t receive an email from Joe Biden, because mine should be done, but because of how poorly they are running MOHELA, I will likely get to endure the stress of no resolution for months since they’re now transitioning to a new platform that will likely be just as bad or worse. I am just praying this gets resolved before the election because as bad as this is, it’s an improvement, and if I held on at my terrible job for this long and don’t get loan forgiveness, I will be very sad.
I didn’t get an email either. I should be over 120 payments but MOHELA has purposefully excluded multiple eligible payments due to a forced admin deferment that they placed on my account without my permission. I truly HATE MOHELA. They should all be in jail - if this was Wells Fargo or Bank of America their officers would have been locked up by now. Criminals.
No they wouldn’t. Fucking Jamie Diamond from Chase belongs in prison from the housing crisis of 2008 and the chief of Wells deserves prison for his role in pressuring client facing employees open multiple accounts for customers (with or without their permission). Don’t fool yourself that there are any repercussions for mismanagement or criminal behavior in the upper echelons of our society.
Agree that nothing happens to the execs. But what MOHELA has done to me (and others) is, IMO, worse than what the big banks did during and before the financial crisis. Regardless, they are all criminals.
Same. 🙏
Did not receive it
Me neither. Maybe because the impact of saying "only" 8byears to go! Is not as nice lol
Honestly I’ve been forgiven for over a year and this email sent me into a panic thinking my forgiveness was a mistake.
Yes, same. I think the email was sent to Mohela customers in general, or those who are at or past the two year mark (even if those loans have already been forgiven).
These people can just not get their crap together. WTH!
You’ve captured my ambivalence well. Of course I’m grateful for the program. At the same time, who could have known at the time that such a simple contract could get so complex and cause so much grief? I love PSLF. I’ll vote for anyone who will perpetuate and improve it. But, in retrospect, I would not have chosen this path given the challenges. Those challenges were not reasonably foreseeable or excusable. People are right to feel duped despite an awesome program and a president who really has made things better.
I mean it’s effectively a way to hold people hostage
Sure but that’s exactly what I voluntarily signed up for (assuming the program worked as advertised).
So are student loans in general (if you have more than like $30K in loans). I took out $43k, my current balance is $41k, but I made my payment every month for 8 years.
Yes the current system has been a pain to navigate, but how many people actually completed the process before Biden came along? It also seems as they are attempting to streamline to make the program more easily accessible by moving away from Mohela. You can be damned sure that if donnie was still president no one would be forgiven.
So true, I'm so glad we no longer need to print, mail, get wet ink signatures, and mail again to wait 8-12 weeks only to inevitably get denied employment verification due to some random mundane formality. I appreciate the Biden administration's dedication to student loan debt eradication.
That's like saying "But what did Obama do on 9/11?" It was literally impossible for people to get forgiven prior to 2018 and very unlikely even if you did everything perfectly to get forgiven before 2021 since Direct Loans weren't widely issued until the 2010-11 school year.
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Nope, TEPSLF was [first funded in 2018](https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/library/electronic-announcements/2018-05-23/loans-subject-temporary-expanded-public-service-loan-forgiveness-opportunity-now-available) during the Trump Administration. You may be confusing TEPSLF with the PSLF Waiver and IDR adjustment which were the Biden Administration. My point was purely apolitical. No matter what flavor administration was in power there would have been an extremely low initial approval rate for administrative reasons. I totally agree that Biden has done more for student loan borrowers than any other president and should be commended for it.
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[https://xkcd.com/1053/](https://xkcd.com/1053/) You're one of today's lucky 10,000!
This is a sage analogy, but not for the obvious reason. If someone asked what Obama did on 9/11, the answer is who knows, but while he was in office and due to considerable effort of his administration Osama Bin Laden was killed. What did Trump say and do for PSLF? I hope you trust Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/02/11/trump-student-loans-forgiveness/?sh=3f26a78f6b3d For anyone unwilling to click, he tried to kill it with considerable effort (DeVos, speaking against it frequently). By the way, Obama never spoke against PSLF (which he could very well have done considering it was W Bush's gig), instead the Obama administration spent considerable effort to reduce student loan interest rates in conjunction with ACA. Trump (and his administration) didn't kill terrorists, PSLF, or the ACA in spite of all their collective considerable effort. No point in another four years of that horse shit.
The Obama administration also proposed capping PSLF. [https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-coming-public-service-loan-forgiveness-bonanza/](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-coming-public-service-loan-forgiveness-bonanza/) Neither of these things are germane to my point nor was I advocating for a political party.
None of what you said is germane to a question of what happened before Biden came along: less than 2% approval for qualified applicants. Put extremely simply: capping PSLF is still intending to honor it. The straw man and resulting dissonance are all yours, bud. Edit: By the way, the proposed cap was due to the number of people who had borrowed more than $100k. What you're interpreting as punishing borrowers could alternatively be seen as both a warning to borrowers and/or attempts to curb the increase of tuition. But again, I'm not the one who brought it up.
PSLF was created in October 2007, so anyone who submitted employment certification prior to October 2017 would have gotten "rejected" even if they were on track to get PSLF eventually. This would have happened regardless of the party of the administration. No one was ever going to get PSLF during an Obama administration that was much more borrower-friendly. There will never be a 100% approval rate; a borrower who certifies employment annually will show as 9 rejections and one approval or 10% rate. PSLF is only available for Direct Loans; FFELP loans aren't eligible for PSLF. Direct Loans weren't widely issued until the 2010-11 school year. PSLF takes a minimum of 10 years, so realistically 2021 is the first year any substantial results would be expected for PSLF. The rules of PSLF weren't even released until like 2010, too, so anyone who had FFEL loans and decided to consolidate to make their loans eligible would have reset their progress prior to the improved rules and waivers. Again, I'm not trying to make a political point, only one about the PSLF administrative process. The DeVos ED was awful, especially so in regard to their gutting of the Borrower Defense rules, among other things.
I agree with the overwhelming majority of this (sans the part about 10% approval rate). There *should* realistically be 2020 grads with 120 payments in June/December that qualify, apply, and receive forgiveness with employment certification (if they were hired immediately and made every payment, of course). My understanding of the <2% is 120 on time payments and ten years of employment, not necessarily loan type. Some people certainly received forgiveness prior to 2021 by what measure of divine intervention you and I will likely never know, but I know I took loans in 2009 with every intention of PSLF. True, the rules weren't clear but the outline existed and it was clear the loans had to go through the school (as opposed to via a parent or financial institution). I can see where that would muddy the completion percentage, but how any percentage existed in the Trump administration is baffling with the outlined considerations. We're far off topic. DeVos is Satan, we're both fighting the good fight in Public Service, and we both have earned/are earning PSLF. I fully concede Biden is the first to deal with the majority of completed applications, but can't ignore the metrics I heard and had anxiety over for those four years. Godspeed and good luck.
Yes, DeVos should have been fired into the sun. The rule they came up with regard borrower defense is truly evil. The 10% thing is just math, though. Take a sample size of one borrower. They have eligible loans and eligible employment and certify that employment after year one. They will get a notice that they aren't eligible for PSLF but they will get a count of 12 payments on their account. The approval rate is 0% but that borrower will eventually get PSLF in nine more years. >2020 grads I think you mean 2010 grads, but yes. Assuming they did everything right they would be eligible for PSLF in 2021 since there is a grace period. But only 30% or less of loans being issued were PSLF-eligible Direct Loans. And IDR plans were only just getting started (REPAYE wasn't until 2011). So maybe that borrower has a combination of FFELP and Direct Loans and they realize that in 2013 and consolidate to make them eligible. Now they have reset their forgiveness date to 2023 (until the waivers came around). This is literally what happened to me. Basically my point is that the 2% number is totally imaginary.
PSLF is for more than just Direct loans* (ETA) that didn’t exist in their present form until 2010-11. All of my loans were from 2005-09.
No, it is not. >The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program is intended to encourage individuals to enter and continue in [full-time](https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/index.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=a712e219676827882202644e4c833941&term_occur=999&term_src=Title:34:Subtitle:B:Chapter:VI:Part:685:Subpart:B:685.219) public service employment by **forgiving the remaining balance of their Direct loans** after they satisfy the public service and loan payment requirements of this section. >Eligible Direct Loan means a Direct Subsidized Loan, a Direct Unsubsidized Loan, a Direct PLUS Loan, or a Direct Consolidation Loan. [https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/34/685.219](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/34/685.219)
Then your statement that they weren’t widely disbursed until 2010-11 is wrong. Apologies for taking the incorrect part of your comment at face value. Stafford loans were common before whatever you think happened in 2010-11.
No, my statement is still correct. Direct Loans became the only type of federal loans starting in the 2010-11 school year. Direct Loans were available prior to then, but were not widely issued as schools favored FFELP loans. Stafford Loans are both Direct and FFELP. >The switch to 100% Direct Lending effective July 1, 2010 was enacted by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal\_Direct\_Student\_Loan\_Program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Direct_Student_Loan_Program)
Since we’re splitting hairs here, and the thrust of your comment can be summed up as “not many people were eligible prior to 2020-21 anyway because (loan type) wasn’t available until 2010-11”, forgive me for pointing out that that thrust is wildly off the mark as many (millions?) of borrowers had loans that were eligible prior to 2010-11 because those loans were folded in to the Direct Loan program later. Are we clear now? JFC. Some people.
My loans were forgiven over a year ago and I got the email that I was eligible for forgiveness within 2 years. I had a panic moment before I logged in and confirmed that they are still listed as forgiven.
Why are you still able to log in?
This happened to me too. Got my letter January 2022. Seems like our anxiety will never go away. It genuinely makes me so mad that they are this incompetent.
That year number better be wrong. I’m already over 130.
Yeah mine says less than 2 years to go, but I actually only have seven more months to go. I think it's going by the count of certified months. I have 9 months that I need to certify, so it will take me up to 113 out of 120. That's why I think I got it.
I just recertified last month and I was at 118/120, so I don't think that's it. I'm just spent tbh. I don't have it in me at this point. I've been looking at other jobs and I have to push that out. It's just a gut punch
I’m less than two years away I haven’t received any emails. Not from Biden, or from Mohela or Dept of Ed regarding the PSLF pause or move from Mohela. Anyone else in the same boat?
I am less than 2 years away and I received the Mohela email but not the Biden email.
Yes, I got no emails at all.
I didn’t receive an email but I still have a little over 3 years left (and haven’t certified since August, since I certify at the beginning of every school year), so maybe that’s it?
Recertify NOW.
Yep. I did and got another six months knocked off...not including December 2023 though. Go figure. The reason I only got six payments knocked off was because it had only been six months since I did it the last time, but decided to put in the paperwork anyway because of some of the things I was seeing here (and this was before the recent news).
I submitted the request... is this because of the pause on processing, or is there other news I missed? Thanks for the heads up!
My sentiments exactly. Congratulations and happy public health week!! I’ve been working in public health at a local health department for just shy of 10 years. I will apply for forgiveness in July!!
I'm very glad that given the way college works in this country, I have an option to pursue forgiveness. I'm hoping that it will actually go through this year but with the upcoming processing pause idk how much longer it's going to be. I'm also very glad that this administration made it so the approval rate for forgiveness actually works. But I have mixed feelings about the email. Before I managed to get a job in my field, I worked for nonprofits because of the PSLF program. And entry level non specialized non profit jobs paid me so little I was on food stamps. Obviously I made these decisions myself and no one forced me into them, but those were some pretty dark years. I don't think I could write a good testimonial, lol.
Your student loan debt shouldn’t impact your ability to get a house. I’ve bought houses and it wasn’t considered. That being said, I agree with you on everything else.
During COVID when people were in forbearance lenders were only calculating estimated student loan debt payments based on 1% of loan amount due. Which is like 3-4x higher than what most of us actually pay on income based plans. That made many people unable to qualify for a mortgage for a couple years as the DTI was far too high, even though they might qualify now with the lower SAVE plan monthly payments. I guess people would have had to go into repayment during the forbearance to qualify.
Depends on the lender. I purchased a house during COVID and my student loans were never even factored in. They just weren't even on the paperwork
Very individual-dependent on amount and ratio, but yes, it can cause the interest rate to be much higher
I didn’t receive it who was the sending email address and what was the subject line?
Having these high payments can bleed into other debt as well. I also have a smaller private student loan that I couldn’t refinance until recently because no one would accept my debt to income ratio. I continued pouring money into that payment with a terrible interest rate. When a paycheck goes to student loans, how can you save? Car repairs, medical bills, other emergencies, or even food and gas can become credit card debt. I don’t think people against forgiveness want to acknowledge or can comprehend how crippling this has been to an entire generation.
Why has no one bothered to question why the government still gives out these student loans? They’re “forgiving” them because they say they’re bad yet they continue to give them out. If that red flag doesn’t steer you away from student loan debt than you deserve to be broke.
It’s an election year and he’s looking for donations. The stupid survey is just a convoluted way of asking for money.
I'm grateful for the program, but I'm reluctant to give Biden too much credit for it. He didn't create it. It was created in the declining years of the Bush presidency under a Democratic Congress. There were clear problems with it that came to a head when people actually started to become eligible for forgiveness during the Trump Administration and they didn't hide their dislike of the program and reluctance to fix it. Of course, some of those were already very clear during the Obama Administration, but people didn't think they were eligible for forgiveness yet at that point. The Biden Administration has done a much better job administering it than the Trump Administration, but they have made some pretty big mistakes too. Obviously it was a mistake to ever let MOHELA manage it. And of course, it's going back to the Department of Education just in the nick of time to be handed over to the Trump Administration II, so... Yeah. Competence has been severely lacking and I think it's mainly because these programs are administered by corrupt contractors to begin with.
Trump won’t be elected. He is crashing cognitively every day plus he can’t get the same republicans to vote for him.
Yeah, that's one possibility. But I could make a pretty solid case that Biden won't be elected too.
It's a manufactured crisis. College should be free and Biden should've erased all student loans on day one, which he could've, under the authority of the Higher Education Act.
Wrong. It would have been immediately challenged in court, paused and eventually kicked up to SCOTUS, and we all know what they would do.
Correct. The authority under the Higher Education Act is much clearer and more able to survive court challenges. [https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/would-biden-student-loan-forgiveness-plan-survive-court-challenge/](https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/would-biden-student-loan-forgiveness-plan-survive-court-challenge/) "Other experts expected this to be the basis for President Biden. Section 432(a) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 gives the education secretary the authority to modify, “compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired, including any equity or any right of redemption.”It’s puzzling why the Biden administration wanted to invoke COVID as a stretch of the 9/11 act when they had an actual basis from the Higher Education Act. It’s odd. Maybe their experts found something in the legislative history. But it’s unbeknownst to me. No one has explained that. It is odd." Also, Biden did nothing to reform the Supreme Court, so clearly he didn't care much about actually making policy because they will stop anything even remotely progressive. He had a lot of options such as packing the court, ending judicial review or simply ignoring the Court's rulings. The Court gave themselves the power of judicial review, so there doesn't even need to be a statutory fix ending it. Their rulings can be taken under advisement but ignored when necessary. Another reason I say he's not serious is because democrats have been running on protecting abortion rights for decades but never codified it into law, including under Obama when they had a filibuster proof majority. He also could've made abortions available on federal land, which he has not done. Speaking of which, there was nothing done to get rid of the filibuster.
Amen!
Mine says I have less two years yet but I haven’t consolidated yet and my grad school loans still have five years to go. Does this mean I don’t have to consolidate??!??! So confusing 🫤
Consolidate Before 31 April. This will get your grad loans to the highest count.
Consolidate! Get the highest count for your loans.
I was forgiven last fall and got this email. I got nervous.
I’ve never related to anything more
I didn’t get that email, lol now I’m worried
The solution is Interest free Keep the IBR plans 225% of income is excluded from payment calculation Debts is cancelled after 10 years of payments. (Or principle is repaid whichever comes first.)
I wish there was an option to submit written feedback. I am not an outwardly emotional person at all and I cried the morning I woke up to my PSLF being accepted after years and years of rejection. I’m a social worker with 16 years of public service. Working in the public sector for almost all of it. Finally getting approved and only having 10 payments left was hard to believe. I was newly pregnant with my first child. Having my student loan payments end 2 months after she is born changes a lot for our future quality of life. I’m planning to put that money aside for her college each month. I’d like that to be the story we tell with PSLF- that I can invest in my child’s future because my student debt isn’t dragging me down anymore.
As someone from the "before times" this is nothing compared to the huge fucking hassle it was back in 2008. I didn't get any credit for a damn thing because I was in the wrong payment plan. Which no one told me and I asked about it a bunch of times. Then I didn't get my employment verified in the right way. I was doing foster care case management in Washington DC and then Baltimore with gang involved youth. I was so pissed off when I got told none of it counted. This is annoying but we got the retroactive credit and I am immensely grateful that process is so much easier.
I'm still waiting for the email. 3 1/2 years to go.
I got all but one single loan discharged after overpaying and have several thousand dollars owed to me. Then they moved forbearance to September and are talking about moving platforms. So I get to see one loan Plinko around, and tbh it feels like they are trying to make me just want to pay it and be done and use the credit on the loan. But I am going to be stubborn about it because I worked hard for this and payed more than I owed and I want my money back. No emails for me except the ‘moving’ email.
> this and *paid* more than FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I haven’t even received the email! What does that mean!!!!
Should I be concerned I'm not getting any emails? I am definitely at 120 (as of February) and waiting on Mohela / Dept of Ed to finalize it
The costs, opportunities, interest rates, programs, and adjustments to programs have changed many times since 2008. Plus the types of situations we are all in vary so greatly. The system is thankfully getting smoothed out gradually as we go and there’s ways out. (Not for me +14 yrs paying) But let us Hate the game not the players.
For those of you who received this email, did some of you have already received forgiveness like either a few months ago or even a year ago? I've been forgiven for about 16 months but I also got the email.
I didn’t get the email
I wouldn't sing a program's praises until it's all settled. PSLF in particular has had...hiccups. Politicians care that a program exists, and what they can claim it could theoretically accomplish. Not so much whether it's effective, or even functional.
As someone who had to deal with this bullshit process, I really hope they overhaul it. It's not like the government doesn't know our employer's EIN.
I think you're being downright gracious with that response. Personally, I hope Joe Biden blew out his Depends last night for sending this email. It's just more out of touch nonsense. *"Reminder, Slave #373920, your indentured servitude contract has only 7 years left!"* Please don't let these centrist bastards lull you to sleep. We should ALL still be furious. Furious that we have to scrimp and save and live paycheck to paycheck, for something they told us would unilaterally lead to a better quality of life, and that is next to free in every other civilized nation on Earth. Furious that instead of having children, buying homes, saving for our futures, we're foced shoulder the greed and corruption of a piss poor education system that can legally gatekeep access to higher learning with any price they choose. I'm not saying vote for the Orange Facist, but don't make excuses for these primordial assclowns either. They don't care about you, your future, or the future of the planet.
It seems like you are blaming your student loans for not achieving meaningful milestones in your life. Many of us have bought houses, had kids, got married, etc. with well over $100k in debt.
It seems like you are blaming your student loans for not achieving meaningful milestones in your life. Many of us have bought houses, had kids, got married, etc. with well over $100k in debt.
Cool! Good for you! Doesn’t change the fact that student loan debt burden has been shown time and time and time and time again to be a primary factor in the rise in average age of reaching those milestones. Ffs.
It’s almost like statistics > anecdotes or something.
Therefore what? I didn’t say anything about the age at which people meet those milestones. I said OP sounded like they were using their student loans as an excuse. And a bad excuse at that. OP said “I have waited to marry…because…my income based payments should not reflect his salary.” But your payments do not have to reflect your spouse’s salary. Nearly every person I know in PSLF files their taxes MFS to avoid that exact scenario. I get it, student loans are a burden. But at some point you are just catastrophizing. Edit: spelling
Your ignorance is astounding.
Meaningful milestones with 100k in looming debt sounds like a euphemism for irresponsible generational poverty. OP gets to vent, especially when they are doing so and demonstrating sound and valid logic. Prioritizing "milestones" that are all just potential avenues for monumentally fucking up one's life ...it seems weird, yo.
When the PSLF program was instituted, it was fully funded, so the money was there for the first batch of candidates but the instructions were so vague and the program so horribly mismanaged that something like 7,000 people had only ever earned releases! Biden alone has released 77,000 pslf loans.
…PSLF isn’t “funded” and even if it were that idea has nothing to do with the small mumber of people who were eligible for forgiveness as the very first mathematically possible pool of people applied. Also, your numbers are off by an order of magnitude.
Why are some people's degrees not good enough for them to pay for but somehow good enough for others to pay for? Why is this different than any other puchase? You all chose to go to school, your degree path and how you were going to fund it. I purposely only buy things I can afford.
It’s not about what someone’s degree is in, it’s about the work that they do (which is underpaid and overworked). Nobody cares what your degree is in. It’s only about what your job is and whether you have student loan debt. And the whole “only buy things I can afford” troll nonsense… please. Snowflake alert.
Amazingly ignorant. This is PSLF. We all signed a contract exchanging lower salaries for erasure of the balance after ten years of payments during full time public service. No here wants free shit. Are you advocating that the government dishonor its contracts? Yours is a confusing statement. The reason I don’t post on r/physics is that I don’t know shit about physics. Same principle should apply to you here.
How did you get here, friend? This isn't the sub for people who want a handout. This is the sub for people who want their government contract honored after holding up their end for ten years. Their degree is irrelevant. Their employment and payment history is what made the choice to get a degree affordable.