07/20/2023
If you think you're eligible for student loan forgiveness, now is the time to take action! I highly recommend you:
1) Read the Student Loan Planners latest blog/announcement (pasted below)
2) Get on their mailing list if you need nudges to stay on top of whatever needs to happen to get those loans forgiven
3) See if you need to consolidate your loans to qualify, and even book a consultation with them if you need to. *I don't get any kickbacks for referring to them, I just know they are an awesome company with an awesome service!
From the SLP newsletter today:
"The Biden administration just announced that they're about to forgive $39 billion in student debt for more than 800,000 borrowers who have been in repayment at least 20 years.
Translation: this is the IDR waiver / IDR account adjustment actually happening (finally).
Keep in mind, they announced this program in April 2022, and it's only just now being implemented.
That tells you a lot about how backlogged Department of Ed is on everything these days.
But the good news is that it's happening.
A lot of our readers and clients forwarded us emails from Dept. of Ed saying that they qualified and would soon receive forgiveness. Folks wondered if those emails were fake.
I can confirm that they're true.
The other good news is that it's not too late to qualify. You have until December 31 of this year.
You also don't need to receive full forgiveness to still save a bunch of money.
The primary thing you need to do is figure out if you would get a lot of additional credit towards forgiveness if you consolidate.
You have to weigh that additional credit with losing your low IDR payment early (most people won't need to recertify until mid 2024).
Now for the bad news.
I think somewhere between 5 million and 7 million borrowers could qualify for this total forgiveness, but only 800,000 people are getting it.
Why?
Most borrowers need to consolidate to get the full benefits.
And that's a very active step.
Many borrowers are scared to give up a low interest rate or a predictable monthly payment for the unknown.
As with the PSLF waiver, most people don't do it, but you get these sunny press releases anyway that hide the fact that the majority of people who could qualify are being left out of the program entirely.
Why?
Because if they trumpeted the policy louder or tried to do it automatically, they'd probably entice a lawsuit that would block the relief completely.
So if you need to consolidate, just go to the federal website and get it done.
If someone at Dept. of Ed is reading this, please make it easier for borrowers to get to the consolidation page.
I assume a pirate must have designed the current process, because it's like trying to find buried treasure."