Student Loans: Student Loans Forgiveness, Consolidation, and More

Hey guys, President Trump just passed a tax bill that has a substantial impact on your student loans. Luckily we’ve got your covered right here on our AMA podcast. Check it out 🙂 The post Tax Reform and What It Means For Student Loans appeared first on US Student Loan Center.

The national student loan forgiveness program still seems to be going nowhere as rules are revised. The current administration is doing their best to radically modify the forgiveness program established during the Obama administration. If things continue in this manner, borrowers might lose every kind of protection they were once entitled to. ABC News has the full story. (Did You Know? Laws surrounding forgiveness and student loans are constantly changing. Don’t wait to take advantage of forgiveness or see if […] The post National Student Loan Forgiveness In Limbo With New Rules To Consider appeared first on US Student Loan Center.

Here we will outline the step by step process you will need to go through to get your federal student loans out of default. We’ve entered snippets of the transcription of the podcast of the step by step sequence to go about getting our of default on your student loans and entering into a rehab. Please listen to the full podcast by finding us on iTunes.  Here they are: Nick:             If you’ve gone into default, what do you do?   […] The post Step By Step Rehab appeared first on US Student Loan Center.

In this episode, Marques discusses how to avoid default on your student loans. If you’ve missed payments, are about to missed payments, or want to learn when to use forbearance and deferment, this episode is for you. We even have tips and tricks on how to prevent wage garnishment, or prevent the collection efforts, AND how to backdate your forbearance so you don’t have negative payment history. Enjoy 🙂 The post How To Avoid Default On Your Student Loans With Marques McBride appeared first on US Student Loan Center.

Just in case you missed it, we did a Facebook live where we discuss your student loan servicers. Check it out for the most update to date information on your student loan servicers and the need to know information they won’t tell you when you graduate! Nick:        Welcome to Episode Three of Student Loans, Ask Me Anything, with Marques McBride. My name is Nick Bentley, and I’ll be your host today. What you are about to hear is a recording from August 9th, 2017. What we discuss in this episode, is Student Loan Servicers, how they effect you, and why they may, or may not have your best interest in mind when it comes to communication with them about your repayment plans. We’re going to discuss Betsy DeVos, and what a single payer loan servicer would mean for you, if that gets approved. And we’re going to discuss some of the outstanding lawsuits against Navient, and how those can effect you. And what other services are out there that you may want to switch to, and then why they are not willing to help you through the process, and why it makes sense for them to keep you right where you’re at. Enjoy. Nick:        All right guys, welcome to this week’s Ask Me Anything. With me always is Marques McBride. Marques:  Here I am. Nick:        in the house, ready to go. Marques:  Yes. Nick:        And today… Again guys, this is the Youth Student Loan Center — we help students lower their Student Loan payment, get in to new repayment plans, all of that stuff that we focus on. But we are doing this to answer a lot of questions, and give some insight into some of the things that they just don’t tell you about when you graduate college, and when you go through the repayment process, and after you come out of your grace period — what are your options, and all of that. So guys we’re live right now, so go ahead, if you have any questions, chat them in. But the subject of today is going to kind of be two-fold. Number one, I want to talk to you guys about Betsy DeVos, who is the Director of Education under Donald Trump. And what’s been transpiring with what she’s got going on. And then also why what she’s got going on matters, and how it can effect you. Because it would, and it can potentially all of us, in a pretty big way. Marques:  Yes. It can. Nick:        So, Marques why don’t you go ahead and tell them about what was happening in the Student Loan industry — A) where we’re at currently; why Ms. DeVos was trying to do what she was doing. And then what the effects, and potential impact that it could have on you, your student loans, and what’s kind of transpired with some of the other guys. Marques:  Yes. You know, when it comes to student loans, you have the Department of Education, but they don’t want to do all that work on collecting on the debt, on all of these different loans and stuff, so they got these different companies that does the collecting for them that are called “servicers.” Nick:        OK. Marques:  OK, there’s all kinds — you got Navient, Fed-Loan, Nelnet — I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of Sallie Mae somewhere — Nick:        Yes Marques:  — back in the day. They’re not there any more — they’re called Navient. So — they have these different companies that collect on the debt. Nick:        So you mean, you go get a loan for your student loans, like for dorm or books or whatever they give it to you for — it’s not actually not actually the government that is collecting the debt from you after you graduate; they basically… They contract out these other companies to collect from you. Marques:  Exactly. You know, they’re hired by the Department of Education. Nick:        OK. Marques:  They collect on the debt. So what she was proposing was that she gets rid of all the different servicers and there’d just be one select servicer, one select — Nick:        — that was a government entity. Marques:  — that was a government entity. So the problem with that is — a lot of people that have difficulties reaching their servicer and trying to make a payment and trying to get the right bank, or they’ve been misinformed, or had some sort of just bad customer service experience or whatever — it limits them, because they don’t have an option to switch to a different servicer; they’re just kind of stuck. So if you have a bad relationship with that company and they always give you heck every time you call — you’d be stuck, and it’s kind of bad. Nick:        What do you mean by — a bad relationship? What would something like that look like? Because a lot of people… The word servicer just means the people that are actually collecting on your debt. But you come out, and you have to pay these guys; you start getting bills in the mail from Navient, Nelnet, Fed-Loan, whoever — and can you explain what a bad relationship would be like? What would you look out for if you were paying those guys back? And what are some of the struggles that you might come across dealing with some of the different ones out there? Marques:  Right. So… A lot of times, if you call in… I’ve heard from different personal stories, even with people that we help, that they’re not able to get someone on the phone; they’re always redirected different places. Hold times — things of that nature. When they get somebody on the line, they’re not really informative. They end up with a higher payment than usual. You ever called a place — a company — you call and you get that first person in customer service, and they don’t really know exactly what’s going on. They’re kind of feeling their way through, they’re kind of sounding like a robot they’re reading a script? Nick:        Sure. Marques:  But you call back, the same day or the next day and you get that one person that’s just absolutely amazing, that goes the extra mile, and things of that nature. So it’s kind of iffy. But right now, how there’s different servicers — you can consolidate and end up with a different servicer if you’re not pleased with where you’re at right now. Nick:        OK. Marques:  If that would have happened, you would have been just stuck with one. Nick:        Or if… One of the things that I heard about, yesterday actually — I think you were telling me about this; we were going to chat about this today — was the fact that, these guys at Navient, were actually knowingly putting students into the wrong repayment plans. And why and how that is such an unethical thing to do today, and B) how it really screws people out of the options available. I don’t know if you want to talk about Navient, and maybe give a little back story to that and then — Marques:  Let’s talk about it. Nick:        If people do have Navient — A) how can they overcome what’s going on right now? What do they need to know about it? And C) what can they do to get away from that? Marques:  So this is the thing, servicers — their main job is to collect on the debt. That’s what they’ve been hired for; that’s how they get their money, and that’s what they do. So it’s not in their best interest for you to get a low payment, or a zero dollar payment, or your loans forgiven. So if you’re calling them for help — the first mind for them is, “OK, sales. I have to get some kind of payment out of them.” The story was that there were some representatives that — when a person calls in, instead of them advising them how to save money, or get a lower payment, or what have you, they were either A) place them on forbearance for a year… Mind you — you only have 36 months of forbearance time rights, and if you use forbearance, the interest is accruing, so the balance is getting higher. Nick:        There you go. Marques:  So advice like that, where it seems like it’s a help for you, but it really is a vested interest in them. Nick:        Yes. Because they want to continue to hold the note. Marques:  They want to hold it, and they want it to grow. Nick:        Yes. Exactly. Marques:  There was another story where — a person calls in — hey I’m going through it; can I get under something that’s based off of my income? — and the way that they project all the information to them, that caused them to have a payment that’s higher than — Nick:        Than it needed to be. Marques:  — than it needed to be. Nick:        Their job is to get the money. So get the money baby, and let’s move on. Marques:  Yes. And so they’re not… You’ve got to understand their motive. Not talking bad, or anything like that, but that’s just what they’re paid to do, is to collect under that. So you’ve got to understand that. So people — when they call these places and they get these type of experiences — they look for — OK, I need help. Where’s the real help? And if this would have monopolized to just one servicer, there really wouldn’t be any options to escape. Nick:        Outside of that. Marques:  If that servicer that they chose was or something like that. Nick:        I think that’s what — the underlined goal probably was, was to give them more consistent, congruent, better information… Marques:  Right. Nick:        But the problem with that is guys like Navient, who are in a huge lawsuit with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau right now because — just what you were saying — they knew what they were doing and they weren’t helping people. They’re a huge servicer. Holds hundreds of billions. We were going through the numbers earlier. What is it? One point how many trillion dollars in Student Loans? Marques:  A trillion. Nick:        A trillion bucks right? Marques:  A trillion, not billion. And they were actually one of the most popular ones, because they were Sally Mae, and everybody used Sally Mae — and that name really rings bells further than Fed Loan or any of the other servicers. But it really took the toll when some soldiers in the military that went overseas —  they were servicing their loans specifically. So when they went overseas, instead of placing them in a deferment, they did a forbearance, all that whole time. And they came — Nick:        Accruing the interest whi

Just in case you missed it, we did a Facebook live where we discuss the Pay As You Earn and the Revised Pay As You Earn Programs. He answered some of the most popular questions regarding these repayment plans. Check it out for some answers to your most popular student loan questions! Hey everybody, welcome to episode one — Student Loans, Ask Me Anything, with Marques McBride and Nick Bentley. I am Nick Bentley, and I’ll be your host today. What you’re about to hear is an ask me anything about student loans recording from July 26, 2017. Now, this is our inaugural episode and we’ll be here weekly to help student loan borrowers with their questions about lowering their student loan payments. Enjoy. Nick:        All right guys, welcome. Thank you for joining us today. This is the very first, inaugural, Facebook Live, for the US Student Loans Center. Let me introduce myself, my name’s Nick Bentley. I am in marketing department over here, I oversee all that, but the most important person here today — and guys if you could comment or give us some like or some love if you can hear me; want to make sure that everything is working fine — but who I want to introduce you to today is Mr. Marques McBride. So, Marques is the number one champion of student loan debt here at the US Loan Center. And that’s a fancy term for basically the guy that knows everything about student loans. How they effect you, how you can qualify for a student loan forgiveness. What you can do, to put yourself into a better situation financially with your student loans, with the repayment status. So we actually, we sent an email to quite a lot of people. We got a lot of responses so I’m going to read some of these as they come in, but before I do that I kind of want to tell you guys who we are, why we do what we do, and why we decided to do this Ask Me Anything, because I think it’s important. First of all, we are the US Student Loan Center, and we specialize in helping people lower their student loan payment. And the reason why we do this, is to help people navigate through the red tape of the government repayment program. When you graduate with student loan debt, you’re left not knowing a lot about the options out there. There’s a lot of talk, Marques, about about forgiveness, and, “what happens if I default, can I come out of it”, and all these different questions that you’re just not told. I mean, you talk to hundreds of people every day about their specific situation. And one of the most prevalent things that comes up is forgiveness. Marques:  Yes. And it’s a sad thing because forgiveness has been available all the way since 2007. There’s been a lot of repayment plans that have been available to people that they could have taken advantage of a long time ago and they’re just now finding out or just now hearing the craze about loan forgiveness when it’s been available the whole time. And they’ve been missing out on a lot of valuable time, man. It’s just a sad thing, and that’s why we’re here. To take advantage of those programs that are already available through the department of education to get you guys on them. And we do it for you to make sure that you get on there and you get the lowest payment possible. And we see you all the way through until the loans are forgiven. We are those advocates. Nick:        So just to give you guys an idea of who Marques is and what he deals with, we help hundreds of people every single day. Marques — his job is to make sure that the payment actually gets lowered and it’s actually accepted by the department of education and that you’re put into a better situation. So I couldn’t have a better person here to answer the questions that you guys have been asking so much. And just to kind of circle back to loan forgiveness, you said that it’s been around since 2007. Marques:  It’s been around. Nick:        Now I don’t want to confuse people but there’s a lot of terms like “Obama student loan forgiveness.” Is that the same thing? How does that work it’s just a lot of confusion out there that we’ve got a lot of questions up right now. Marques:  Yes and I can understand how they can associate it with Obama because that’s when he introduced one of the newer payment plans called Revised Pay as You Earn. But ever since then it’s been available. There’s a couple of different payment plans that are not the lowest, but still you are eligible to be on their loan forgiveness. But really when everything kind of just got popped off and in the media was when Obama was in office and he made out that new repayment plan. And that’s when people started talking about it. But the sad thing is it’s been available before. Nick:        Gotcha. OK so it just kind of came into popularity. But I don’t want to… Obama is not here to forgive your student loans. That was the term that probably someone in the media gave him. But loan forgiveness is a real thing, but there are specific qualifications needed, right Marques? To fall into those programs so can you kind of walk us through the general — – and then I’ve got a bunch of questions here that are specific about that that I can get into that. So let’s talk about what it is — general. Marques:  OK. Generally, what is the loan forgiveness is exactly what it says. Your loans will be forgiven if you meet a particular criteria. Nick:        That means written off; don’t have to pay them again. Marques:  Never seeing again, you’re totally debt free when it comes to federal student loans . . . [inaudible] It is what it says. Nick:        So who qualifies? Marques:  Everybody that can get under an income-driven repayment plan qualifies for loan forgiveness. There’s a couple of different ones that help you get there quicker. For the average person… Nick:        What’s an income-driven plan? Let’s make sure that — because there’s income-driven, then there’s standard, and then there’s rehab and all that stuff. So income-driven is a specific type of repayment plan that you go into upon a consolidation. Marques:  Yes. Nick:        So when you graduate from school, you don’t fall into that. Correct? Marques:  That’s correct. Nick:        So let’s walk through that process. Marques:  So when you graduate from school, you automatically get placed on a standard payment plan. All it is is just you’re working toward paying the loan off with the interest — that’s what it is. Now, in order for you to get under something that’s based off your income and family size, that is what we’re talking about. We’re going to get your payment plan based off your income. Nick:        So when you graduate from school, you are not put into a plan that you can qualify for forgiveness. Marques:  Not at all. They set you up to just pay toward your loan with your hard-earned cash. Nick:        That’s crazy. Marques:  Yes. Nick:        So they don’t really like, set you up for anything to help you. So that’s why consolidating and going through the process of restructuring those loans into an income driven plan… OK, so now we know we’ve got to be income driven, which is through the process of consolidating those loans. Marques:  Yes. You’re taking the power back into your hands. You’re automatically thrown into that standard and saying — hey, pay this bill monthly; we don’t care what your expenses are; this is what it is, because this is the money that you’re borrowing. But you’re taking back the power by saying — hey this is where my income is; this is my family size; they have to calculate a payment based off of that. Nick:        OK, so there’s a bunch of different factors that come into play, but I know one of the most popular questions that we get on our blog and on the phone with everybody here is — what about careers? Because there’s certain specific careers that qualify underneath these income-driven plans. Marques:  Yes. Nick:        So, let’s list off the top four or five. Marques:  OK. So If you work for a non-profit organization, state-driven type of job, or any entity of the government, the loans get forgiven quicker. It’s a quicker process. Really it’s after 120 payments, which is ten years. Nick:        I don’t want to do math publicly. Ten years, right? [laughs] So ten years. So for non-profit. Marques:  Yes, for non-profit. Yes. Nick:        What about nurses and doctors and teachers. Marques:  A couple of those other — Nick:        Professionals Marques:  Professional degrees is what it’s called. Chiropractics, law, doctors and things of that nature. It actually takes longer. It’s twenty-five. Nick:        So you can be a doctor and graduate. I think the average doctor right now graduates around $140,000 in debt. You can pay on that loan for twenty-five years and then it goes away. Marques:  It goes away. Nick:        The government basically subsidizes the remaining balance of that loan. Marques:  Exactly. All you have to do is remain under that payment plan that is based on your income and family size. You are good to go. Nick:        I got a couple questions in coming in here. “I have worked 21 years as a drug and alcohol counselor. All of this has been at non-profit organizations. Is there any way I can have my loans forgiven?” This is perfect. It is what we’re talking about. Marques:  Yeah. He can, and was qualified for public service loan forgiveness, as I was saying. Which was the non-profit and thing of that nature, which can be forgiven after ten years. But the sad thing is, if he was not under one of those payment plans that was based off his income and family size, those 21 years have been kind of lost. He’s been paying towards his loans, faithfully more so, and it was just going towards the balance. But he could’ve, in all reality, had the loans forgiven half of the time he was working at that place. Nick:        Gotcha. Wow. So… What I want to do right now is just take a quick second and if you think your loans might be eligible for forgiveness… A lot of you guys know who Katie is. She is the one that h

For struggling borrowers, a student loan forbearance is the easiest relief one can find when swamped with debt. Forbearance can be granted by just making a simple phone call. Through it, you can postpone your payments or reduce your monthly payments for a certain amount of time. However, since this is only temporary, it can delay inevitable default and leave the borrower in a worse financial situation. (Did You Know? There are two types of “breaks” borrowers can take from […] The post Student Loan Forbearance and How to Use It appeared first on US Student Loan Center.

Private student loans tend to be our very last option once we’ve exhausted federal student loans. Unfortunately, the buy-now-pay-later mentality drives us to jump right into available resources. By doing so, students grab on to what’s easy to access without taking a deeper look into the details. Based on research and personal experience, this relevant info should help you before you apply for private student loans! Private Student Loans: Be In The Know It is practically in most student’s objective to […] The post What You Should Know About Private Student Loans appeared first on US Student Loan Center.