Homework
0:00:04.1 Professor Walden: Hello. Anyone out there? Hello. Fantastic, fantastic. So just like usual, gonna wait a few minutes and let people kind of join in on this live and get in here and get settled before I really get into the nitty-gritty. So with that being said, grab your water, if you need to grab some notes, go ahead and do that so that we can be prepared. And we’ll get started. Alright. Perfect. So as you guys are kind of joining in and joining me now and making sure that you are here and ready… We are excited. Hello, Josh, we are excited because remember the conversation that we are having right now… Hey Kimberly, the conversation that we are having right now is we are normalizing nurse millionaires, right?
0:01:04.9 Professor Walden: So part of the reason we’re having this conversation this last what, month or two, is simply because we’re jumping tax brackets. Let’s just be real, we are jumping tax brackets and we are starting to make a lot more money maybe than unusual, or have the ability to make more money than usual. And so I really want you guys to understand your money and how to make your money work for you, and how to pay those debts off, mainly those student loan debts, so some of the conversations that we’ve had in the past was… Well, the first one with Naseema was, Hey, we’re building a budget, okay, so we’re gonna be talking… We talked about budgets. Today we’re talking about student loans, and then at the end, she’s gonna come back and talk to us about investments because now we have to make our money work for us. So with that being said, I just wanna let you know that the Naseema is leaving the country. Excuse me, not because she got caught or anything or doing anything, but she had a trip planned, and so she had to kind of [0:02:14.5] ____ out of here and get with her trip and it kinda conflicted, but that’s not a problem because you have me.
0:02:22.0 Professor Walden: So as I told my team, I know a lot about a lot. And student loans is one of those things that I know a lot about, so we are going to continue on and I am going to do… I am going to do the discussion, so it’s not even a worry, not even a problem, you’re not gonna miss anything, and I am gonna give you all of the information, so no worries there. Okay. Alright, so like we said, we were talking about budgets before. Okay, so budgets, you are very welcome, Gurley. So, we were talking about budgets before, so guys, first and foremost, like I said, normalizing you having money, normalizing millionaire nurses, that is the conversation that we are doing. So I want you guys, if you don’t have a budget and you’re not living by a budget, we gotta get a budget.
0:03:10.5 Professor Walden: Now, budgets are meant to be messed up, they are meant to… We are meant to do them wrong sometimes it is okay. When you budget, remember budgeting doesn’t have to be restrictive, budgeting is just a… It has a negative connotation surrounding that word, but it doesn’t have to be that way, if you wanna go on a trip, I don’t know, to Jamaica or something, by all means, budget that in your budget and plan a trip to Jamaica, if you wanna take the kids to Walt Disney World, go ahead. Just budget it in there. If you like to eat out and eating out is your thing, make sure you’ve allocated enough money so that you can do that on a regular basis, so you’re not putting it on a credit card or doing all the other things that we do. So that’s the first conversation. So Hayma is good. So now, let’s get to the nitty-gritty. Okay. Today, we are talking about student loans, oh boy, student loans is like the elephant in the room and nobody wants to discuss it, and nobody wants to talk about it, but we’re going to because I want to make sure that you understand student ones and that you understand how to get rid of them. [laughter] For a lack of a better word. And don’t worry. Exactly.
0:04:38.8 Professor Walden: And don’t worry. I’m in the same boat. I like to tell people I have a house in student loans, and that we are slowly paying those off as well, being very methodical and using a lot of these skills. Where did I learn them? Ironically, I learned them from Naseema because she did pay off over $1 million in debt, and that is real, as I’ve said before, because I know her and we went to school together. So this is what we’re doing. So now we’re talking about student loans, guys, you’ve already taken them out, so now we have to talk about them, and I need you to understand them. Alright, so let’s kind of go through and talk about them. So first and foremost, you have a servicer, you probably already know this, so your servicer, and we’re gonna discuss that language that’s surrounding that. So your servicer is the company that is asking you to pay them the money back on behalf of probably the US Department of Education, if they’re federal loans. So that is people like… We could… What do we call them? Uncle Navient, that’s what I call them.
0:05:49.8 Professor Walden: So like Navient, Sallie Mae, Great Lakes, those are your Public Loan Servicers. Do you have some others? Yes, absolutely, because remember, not only do we have federal loans, we also have private loans, and we’ll get into a little bit of the difference between those two. I do wanna tell you that if you were… If you had loans in undergrad, in undergrad, you most likely had federal loans, and there are two types of those, we’re gonna talk about those as well, and then when you got to graduate school, you maybe had a combination, so you maybe had a few federal loans and private loans, or maybe you have to go completely the private route. So you can do combinations in order to complete your schooling, it just depends on your own personal configuration and what you needed. Now, like we said, there are servicers, so these are the people asking us to pay them their money back. And there are several, there are many more than I absolutely mentioned. I just wanted to give you an example. Okay. So those are mainly, like I said, your federal loans. There are some banks that dabble in student loans as well, so the new thing now is for banks and all these kind of other financial institutions to dabble in student loans, so I know like Discover does student loans now, your own personal bank will do some student loans now.
0:07:34.8 Professor Walden: Just all those others. Wells Fargo is a big one that’s doing student loans out on the West Coast. So some banks will dabble in student loans as well, but I want you to know that if you are going to be involved with the actual banks, that you are probably going to pay more for that student loan, what do I mean? Your interest rate is likely going to be higher. And you may not get as long to pay off that student loan as well, so there are some variations that you have to kind of take into consideration when you are looking at these student loans, this is important for you guys, because a lot of us talk about going back to school, we always say we’re not going to, right, we get out of F&B School and we’re like, I don’t ever wanna do that again. I think I’m good. I’m done with school. I know. That was my reaction. My general reaction to school was, “I’m gonna have a visceral reaction if anyone asked me, am I going back to school?” I would literally be like, “No, I’m not doing it.” But then you know, we’re nurses. We never stop learning. It happens, you guys, you get the bug, some of you may wanna do psych, some of you may wanna go acute, some of you may wanna go for your DMP.
0:09:06.3 Professor Walden: All of these things are going to be very important as you kind of pursue those other passions, those other avenues that you could possibly pursue. Okay. So just kind of keep that in mind. So we don’t really want to pay for high… We don’t really wanna pay more for student loans if we don’t have to because we probably already have enough. So there are two types of federal loans, so let’s talk about those, there are subsidised and un-subsidised loans. You’re gonna have to read your loan paperwork in order for you to figure out if you have subsidised and un-subsidised loans. I can tell you right now that I have a combination of both. One of the easier ways to figure it out is subsidised loans are usually awarded in undergrad school. So when you are an undergrad, they will usually give you… Right, they will usually give you subsidised loans. So what is a subsidised loan, that means that the interest is paid while you are enrolled in school.
0:10:22.3 Professor Walden: So as long as I was in school, the interest was being paid. Who’s paying it? US Department of Education, they’re just basically not allowing it to accrue, it’s like, “Thank you, thank you for my little blessing.” Okay. Because that’s the interest that kills us, right? So that’s what a subsidised loan is, again, you get those typically in undergrad. An un-subsidised loan is when your interest starts accruing, and there’s no need requirement for you to get an un-subsidised loan, so meaning I come from a single family background, it was only my mother, I had a need base, they gave me subsidised loan, there’s no requirements like that for unsubsidised loans, and you can also get those in graduate school. Okay. Also with un-subsidised loans, usually if you haven’t hit your max of borrowing, you’ll get these loans as well. So for example, let’s say that you guys went to undergrad school. Okay. Did your thing, you got your four-year degree, all is well in the world. You’re like, “Alright, cool.”
0:11:42.8 Professor Walden: And let’s say you only spent $50,000, that is not the max for borrowing, the max rearing for undergrad is about $57,000 a year. So you didn’t hit it. So you’re good. So the government says, “Hey, you still have room to borrow, if you wanna go back to school, think about it.” You go, “I was thinking about it.” [chuckle] So you decide, “I’m gonna do this crazy thing and I’m gonna go to F&B School.” You do that, but to do that, you have to take out loans. That’s okay, I guess, you may get unsubsidised loans, all right, now, it doesn’t matter that you’re in school, that interest starts accruing, the interest is what gets us. That’s what causes the the loan to balloon up. The interest starts accruing as soon as I say, “Okay, sign my name.” Interest starts accruing. The max for borrowing for graduate students is $138,000. $138,000.
0:13:00.3 Professor Walden: That’s a lot of money, but you and I both know, depending on the school, we can hit that easy. [laughter] You and I both know that, you hit that. Let’s say that you went to an expensive undergrad school. Let’s say you went to an expensive one, let’s say that grad school is taking you a little bit longer, and so you’re having to do things part-time and you hit that max, guess what you gotta do. You have to either pay for it out of pocket, which is very expensive, or you have to use private loans. So private loans is the other type of loan, this is not a federal loan. You only have subsidised and unsubsidised as federal loans. Private loans are just that, they’re like… They’re as if you went out and you’re getting a loan for your car, but instead of your car, it’s a school loan. Now, with private loans, they cost a lot more. Meaning, the interest rate is a lot higher.
0:14:10.0 Professor Walden: So again, as you guys think about going back to school, really think about this and financially, is this a good decision right now. We always know that school is something that we advocate for me, you know me I’m a big learner, a big knowledge speaker, I love it. I advocate for school. However, we also love living certain lifestyles, we love to travel these days, or we don’t, or we love to spend it on, I don’t know, clothes, or we wanna buy a house, or whatever those things are, you’re at a point where you really have to start thinking about how your student loans are going to impact your future, so yes, you can go back to school. I could possibly take out student loans to do so, but is this gonna hinder me possibly getting a bigger house or getting a new car, do we wanna be saddled with all this debt? Exactly. Ms. Good knows we like to travel. I like to travel, I have not traveled, I am jossing to travel, I’m ready to go you guys, but at the same time, I’m like, alright, we’ve got this debt paid, so now we have to ration things, again, we have to use our budget. It’s only temporary if I pay off the student loans then that’s what I’m getting around to.
0:15:41.8 Professor Walden: Just kind of keep that in mind, you’re going back to school, or if you have private loans, it just costs more to have them… It’s more expensive. So be careful with that. Be careful with that. So let’s talk about this interest and these interest rates. On your federal loans, if you are looking at the breakdown, most likely your subsidised loans have a very low interest rate, it’s probably about 2.73%. It’s very, very low. But again, that’s undergraduate, right? Subsidize is undergraduate. When we start talking about graduate school and graduate school loans and federal federal loans, the interest rate is about 4.3%, so somewhere around there is what you are paying to borrow that money. Still pretty good interest rate. I know that the interest rates will fluctuate depending on your servicer and things like that, what you need to be looking at, at that point is that you are not paying something like 7%, 8%, because if you are, you gotta have some questions, “What is going on? Why is my interest rate so high?”
0:17:07.0 Professor Walden: Especially if it’s a federal loan. I want you guys to look at this stuff like you are looking at your credit card, or you’re looking at your bank account, really start analyzing what you are looking at, because again, you jump these tax brackets, you start making all this money, yes, we wanna pay down our debt, but we also wanna do fun things as well, how quickly can we… How quickly can we pay off this debt so we can go do the fun stuff? Like travel and go buy a house. Alright, so just so you know, interest rates, federal, about 4.3%, that’s about the average right now for graduate students, so anything largely above that you’re paying a lot. Now, when we start talking about private loans, when I said private loans, guys, remember I said it costs more for you to borrow that money, so it costs more for you to borrow that money. Private loan interest rates have a range. Anywhere from about 3.3% to about 13% even higher sometimes. So it can be on the low side, or it can be on the high side. How do I know what I’m getting Professor Walden?
0:18:25.0 Professor Walden: It depends. It depends a lot on your credit, because private student loans are just like if you go out and you get a car, so if you are going out to get a car, what are they looking at? They’re running your credit. How risky is she? Does she pay her stuff back on time in full… All that good stuff. So it really kind of depends. Does she need a co-signer? Because typically, the private loans, we’re taking out larger amounts than just a car… Sometimes, I don’t know, cars these days are expensive. [chuckle] An SUV, it can be anywhere from 50, 60 plus thousand dollars, so I don’t know. But anyway, it can be very, very expensive, is my point. And it depends on your credit, so again, as you are thinking about your future, pay attention to things like that. Yes, we wanna go back to school, but is now a good time? Can I afford it? Do I really wanna do the private loan thing? Maybe I don’t… Do I really need this certification in order to make me competitive because you might not… It may just be your area that you’re in or I need to reassess how I’m looking for a job. It really, really depends. So there’s a lot of things that go into thinking about your future before you just kind of jump into maybe a different program or something like that. So think about those things financially, I really, really am imploring you to do that.
0:20:07.6 Professor Walden: Now, how do you get ahead? Because I know you and I, we’ve probably been paying loans and then we go look at our account and we’re like… It says I’ve paid $2, but I’ve been making $300, $400, $600 payments every month. Why does it say I’ve only paid $2 on this loan? Well, it’s the interest rate, that is what is getting you, so guys, how do you pay this stuff off? How do you get ahead? It’s not that you pay it more often, it’s that you just pay more, specifically on the principal. So the goal when trying to pay off these student loans is just to pay more on your payment, the interest rates will eat up your payments. Oftentimes, a lot of you guys don’t know this, but oftentimes, a lot of you are just paying interest only payments, you’ve got to read your paperwork, because if you are paying interest only payments, you’re not hitting that principle, you’re not hitting that big number, if you owe $100,000, all you’re paying is the interest every month. This is why I need you to look at your budget and I need you to pay more. So yes, we’re gonna pay the interest payment, we’re gonna do that… Absolutely, because we are obligated. We are required, right? So we’re gonna pay that every month, but if I’ve got an extra $100, an extra $200, I am going to throw that at the principal.
0:21:50.8 Professor Walden: Now, there is a trick to doing this, it’s just like your car, your house… It’s just like your car or your house. Don’t just pay… Don’t just go online and pay again, that’s not how you do it, you pay your required payment, and then what I want you to do is I want you to log in and go online and pay specifically on your principal, a lot of these electronic systems will allow principle only payments. If you don’t find it online, what you need to do is you need to call and you need to sit on the phone and you need to say, Hey, I’m looking to make a principal only payment. How do I do that? Sometimes they’ll take your payment on the phone. If you’re mailing in a check every month… Do people still mail in checks? Did I just date myself, ’cause I like to mail in checks. I still like to mail in checks.
0:22:47.8 Professor Walden: I will use online banking, but I still like to mail in checks. But if you are doing that and you’re actually physically writing a check, you wanna write on the check, ‘Principle only’ so that they apply it to your account, this is no different than you paying a credit card or you making an extra payment on your car, an extra payment on your mortgage. When you have… Student loans is gonna be the same way. We recently have student loans held, because of COVID, they said we didn’t have to pay them, they being the government, they said, Hey, we’re gonna hold everybody’s payment federally, so if you have federal loans, you were obligated to pay. If you continued to pay… The exciting part is, I made sure I called and was like, Can y’all apply that to the principal? I want all this money for these next six months to be applied to the principal and just knock down a nice little chunk of principal money on the student loans. So again, when you’re trying to pay stuff off, don’t just pay extra arbitrarily, make sure it’s hitting that big balance. Otherwise, you’re gonna be screwed. You’re gonna be like, Where did my payment go? And then for you to call in and to re-allocate and all this… It’s a lot of work. It takes a minute. It’s gonna be frustrating. Just do it the right way the first time.
0:24:21.7 Professor Walden: First of all, always pay more, just be prepared to pay more. I don’t care if it’s $50, you guys, if you have an extra $50, principal only, and make sure that you hit it because it will add up, that money will add up and you may knock off a couple of years off your student loans. It’s kind of like when you pay your mortgage and you make an extra payment a year, an extra payment a year on the principal, sometimes knocks off five years, just one. So imagine if you make an effort to do that on a regular basis, you can own your house sooner, with this, it’s your student loans, you can be free of them from Navient sooner. So that’s the whole idea for that. So just kind of make sure first, again, go in and read your paperwork, make sure… Or not make sure, but look and see, Are you paying interest-only payments, ’cause really, it’s not a benefit for you. If you are making interest-only payments, really look at your budget and see how much extra you can pay so that you start hitting that mortgage, so that when you do log in and you see your account and you’re looking at that big number, you’re not like, I only paid $2. Why? So you can see the fruits of your labor. Alright?
0:25:52.7 Professor Walden: Alright, so that is the important part on there, that is the key to knocking down your debt, guys, I promise you, sounds… I know if you owe a lot, it sounds overwhelming, I get it… Again, I’m in the same boat. I do not enjoy it. But it is one of the things that I make sure that I do. Now, can you consolidate your loans? Big question. We all have these student loans, one of the questions is always, well, can I consolidate my loans? Yes and no. So you can consolidate your federal loans together through your government lender or your government servicer, so for example, if you have only subsidised and unsubsidised loans, doesn’t matter if it was undergrad and grad, you can combine those… That’s consolidating. So you can combine those, so where you get one payment. So you can combine those and get one payment… That’s consolidating your loans. Now, if you have federal loans, that’s the subsidised and unsubsidised along with private loans, you cannot put those together and consolidate them through your government servicer, so Uncle Navient is not going to be able to put those things together ’cause they’re seen as separate entities.
0:27:21.9 Professor Walden: They’re seen as separate entities. So what you can do if you want to really combine the federal and the private together is you have to go to an outside servicer. So remember I said, Sometimes banks are involved in student loans. Remember I mentioned Discover, you would have to call Discover and see if you can get them to consolidate your loans for you so that you get one payment. You would call… What is the commercial I’ve been seeing or I had been seeing. Commercial… Do we even see commercials? The ad? I guess that I have been seeing… SoFi? SoFi? I don’t know how you say that one. S-O-F-I? That one?
0:28:08.6 Professor Walden: So if you would call them, they can consolidate them for you and you’ll get one payment and you just pay them. There are some others out there that are legitimate, like Earnest, and there’s a few other… I think Wells Fargo will actually do it as well, but just keep in mind that when you consolidate specifically federal loans and private loans, your interest rate is going to be higher. So let’s say right now, and this kind of addresses your question, and I’ll get there Ms. Birch or Kylie, so let’s say you have multiple, multiple payments, because there was a point in time where I had multiple payments, so I would log on to Navient and I would make a payment for my federal loans, and then I would make a separate payment for my private loans. So you may have multiple payments because they’re seen as separate entities. Now, once I paid off my private loans, ’cause those were very tiny, so once I paid off my private loans, now I just see the federal loans and I have that one payment. So that is what I’m paying.
0:29:32.2 Professor Walden: When you consolidate or… If you want to, if you consolidate the federal and the private together through those outside lenders, first and foremost, make sure that it is a legitimate… A legitimate lender. I really kind of caution against doing it, I would rather you just make the two separate payments, so when people ask me, I’m always like, Uh, be careful. Why? Because you have to be aware of predatory lending. You guys know you get… You read your mail and you get in the mail, how… Contact me, I can consolidate your loans, and you’re like, Well, why didn’t Navient say anything. Why didn’t Great Lakes say anything? Who are you?
0:30:22.5 Professor Walden: And it’s like some random attorney or some random… You’ve never heard of company. Be careful because there are predatory lenders out there who will send you that information, they will tell you all the things, you will give all the information you will sign up for their program, and guess what, instead of paying your loan with that one payment that you are paying to them, they are not. So it will initially look like your payments are disappearing or coming off your credit report, or they’re getting better and they will not.
0:31:01.7 Professor Walden: They will suddenly reappear, you will be in default… It’s a big deal. Now we’re in trouble because now someone… The company that I thought was paying my student loans is not, so I really do caution against… I am one of those people that would just prefer to work with the big servicer and let me get it done through them. I know that they’re not going to… They’re gonna lie to me. But I know, I also know that they’re not gonna fold out of… Or fake me out or something along those lines. So that’s just me, if you choose to do it again, just be aware, make sure it’s a real servicer, if you want to combine your federal and private. It can be done, you just have to be aware, but be aware of that predatory living. And we’ll get to a few things, also, I want you to make sure. So let’s answer this question.
0:32:03.5 Professor Walden: The different… The different payment plan options. So I was gonna mention it a little bit later, so there are different payment plan options for your student loans, right? So if you throw out some to me, then I can tell you about them. So I know the big one is always like income-based repayment plans. So that’s based off of your income. Like right now, if you do not have your NP job yet and you are searching and you’re anticipating that your income will go up, now might be a good time to lock in your income-based repayment because it’s going to be lower because then you’re gonna get your NP job, and you’re gonna make all this money and you’re still gonna have this low payment. Typically with your income-based repayment plan, depending on your servicer, what happens is you have to provide paperwork proving that your income is low, and they will calculate a payment for you, and then you pay that. You pay that. Some services have you re-certify every so often, like every year, every two years, or something along those lines, meaning you just gotta turn in paperwork saying, I don’t make a lot of money. Now, let’s say that your income kind of stays around that the entire time… Your income stays around that the entire time, it stays pretty low, after so many payments… Maybe… It’s about maybe 10 payments.
0:33:46.9 Professor Walden: I’m not really sure, I can’t remember, but… Not 10 payments, 10 years. About 10 years, they will forgive your loan, so they forgive the whole thing after you’ve made all of those payments. That works, right? So that works. I mean, it could work for you, it could work for… I don’t know about you, but having my loan forgiven sounds really, really great.
0:34:16.3 Professor Walden: But again, that’s assuming that our income stays around that time and we’re able to re-certify year after year saying that, but I know there’s different payment plans. I know that they do have one… Like Navient has one. I can’t remember what it’s called. It’s more like a graduated plan, you may start off with interest only and then maybe… ‘Cause typically, we’re paying student loans for about 30 years or 25 years, so you may start off with interest only payments, and then maybe somewhere around year 10, after you’ve made those payments, it might switch to where it’s largely principal only and a little bit boing to interest and that’s kind of how you end up paying it off, but again, then you’re paying for the life of the loan.
0:35:12.4 Professor Walden: If you need that time to pay for 25, 30 years, it switches somewhere in the middle, it’s called a graduated plan. There is also a different version of a graduated plan, where sometimes the payment just slowly increases because the idea is that as we get older, our income increases, as we get established in our career, our income increases, so some of them will start with a lower payment and all of these, you have to fill out paperwork and do things like that, but it may start with a lower payment… So maybe let’s say your payment’s $230, and then it will gradually increase, so it may go from $230 then maybe like year five, it goes to $300, and then maybe like year…
0:36:03.2 Professor Walden: I don’t know, 10, it goes to $375. So it’ll keep gradually going up until basically you pay it off. If you wanna post… If you wanna post in the group and just say, What is this payment plan? I can let you know exactly probably what it is, ’cause y’all… I’ve run through the gamut. I have looked at all of them. I need to know what… How am I gonna get rid of these things? The payment, what works for me, that kind of thing. So I could definitely advise you, so if you have questions about that, feel free if you just wanna email us, that’s cool too. But like I said, if you guys are searching, if you don’t have a job or don’t have your NP job yet, now is a really good time to get that income-based repayment plan going, that you’ve all done your taxes and all that kind of stuff. Get it done now, so that you have the low payment as you get into your position… As you get into your position, and then you can use that for the next year as you get comfortable with your new money, you get comfortable with your new budget, and then next year, if your payment goes up, you’re ready for it. So that’s one of the things that you can do right now. So I was mentioning about the predatory lending and just kind of being careful about that, especially if you’re consolidating your loans.
0:37:42.0 Professor Walden: Here’s a few things about student loans, student loans stay on your report until they are paid off, you cannot discharge them, it is rare that they are discharged in bankruptcy and I mean, super rare, so I mean you had a disability, you are never going to be able to work again-type disability, that kind of issue, and that you’ve been fighting with a lawyer for years, so it’s very rare that they’re discharged. If they disappear off your credit because they’ve possibly been sold or something like that, because… I know… I think Great Lakes likes to sell their… What you call it, they like to sell their student loan sometimes, if they disappear off your credit, if you monitor them, your credit report, keep paying. I know, I’ve seen in some of these Facebook groups where people go, my student loan disappeared and I’m so excited and I’m not gonna pay it, do not not pay it. Do not not pay it. It is not something that you wanna do, keep paying it, they will return and they will pop up and they will expect their money back, so I’m telling you, if they disappear, keep paying. Guys, if you are not monitoring your credit report, please start doing so. Again, as you guys make more money, you’re gonna wanna do more fun stuff, buy more things, right?
0:39:09.1 Professor Walden: What is against… Maybe Tammy decides she wants a summer house in about 10 years on the beach somewhere, in order for us to make sure that we’re able to do this, we need to make sure that we have good credit, we’re paying off our things. It doesn’t matter if it’s trashed right now, it’s fine, be trashed, have a credit score of 530, I don’t care. In the next couple of years, especially if you’re dealing with me, you will not, so you will have a good credit score, you will be able to really plan to get this home or have the investments or retire early or whatever it is that you want to do. How do we monitor our credit report? Using… Pull your actual credit report, annualcreditreport.com. Did you know that? Annualcreditreport.com, you get a free report every year, and I think you get three, two, I can’t remember. But it’s a free report every year and it’s a legitimate report from all three credit agencies, pull it. Know what’s on your credit report. So pull it.
0:40:25.0 Professor Walden: Don’t worry, I’m gonna give you homework. It’s gonna be on there. You’re gonna be able to pull your report and know what’s on it, and you’ll see all of your student loans as well. Now… But just keep paying them guys, student loans will mess up your whole life, they will mess up your whole lives, I tell people, you pay the IRS, you pay your student loans and you pay your mortgage in that order. Do your best not to default. That’s right, we’re going to Florida and we’re retiring. That’s what we wanna do. Now, deferment and forbearance. Let’s talk about those couple of things. Deferment and forbearance. So let’s say that, Oh my goodness, I’m having some financial difficulty, it happens. We switch jobs, we lose jobs, we get sick, things like that, this is where that comes in. So you are able to either choose forbearance or deferment for your student loans, what’s the difference? They’re both used when you kind of have financial difficulty, forbearance is more so used when you’re having that financial issue where you can’t pay, deferment is what people like to use when you get back in school. You get back in school, you’re not paying.
0:41:40.7 Professor Walden: I don’t wanna pay my student loans while I’m in school in another program, so I will defer them until I get out. What’s the difference? Deferment has more paperwork that you need to fill out, there has to be like a qualifying event, there has to be… There has to be a reason you need deferment. In forbearance, there’s no qualifying event, so I don’t have to be in school. I can just call and just be like, I need a forbearance, just because I don’t know, I need a break… Whatever it is. You can just call them up, it’s one form that you fill out, your interest still accrues on forbearance and typically on deferment except for those subsidised loans, but it’s easier, I guess you could say to get a forbearance. So it’s less paperwork to get a forbearance, that kind of thing, but it’s really kind of up to the servicer… I know when I was younger, I would request the forbearance because I didn’t know any better, now I know better. So I don’t ever request it now, I do whatever I can to make sure that that payment is being made.
0:42:57.1 Professor Walden: Let’s talk about the big nitty-gritty, the last thing. Let’s talk about this re-payment programs, you guys hear about these, ’cause you’re all in these groups and these Facebook groups and it’s good. You’re all in these groups and you all are hearing about, Oh, I’m gonna work at the federal… What is it called? I can’t remember, but you all know what I’m talking about, those clinics that are federally run so that I can get my loans repaid, guys, the Forgiveness programs… You gotta be careful. They are great. We love them. You have to make 100… First off, you gotta apply… Let’s start there. You have to… Qualified health site. Thank you Tammy. You have to apply, you have to have a qualifying site, you have to have a qualifying site, it’s not any inner city hospital or any place, it has to be on the list.
0:43:57.1 Professor Walden: And then after you’ve made 120 payments, monthly payments, then it’s forgiven, then it being the student loan is forgiven after you have applied. The only issue with the public student loan forgiveness program, PSLF for sure. The only problem with it is it gets a bad rap because you typically have to stay at that place for a long time, sometimes like a decade in order to get your student loans forgiven, and you have to apply every so often ’cause they will tell you, Oh, you didn’t… You didn’t get chosen. You have to re-apply again. You didn’t get chosen this year, you have to reapply again, so sometimes people can end up staying somewhere for a decade. I don’t know about you guys, but if you’ve ever worked or known someone to work at these FQ centers or clinics, it can be really stressful, it can be really taxing. That population is… That population, that can be really difficult where you care more than they care, or you don’t have the resources that you need in order to take care of your patients, so it can be really taxing and tiring, so you just kind of… Again, you have to think about that. I know when we talked about jobs, the idea is to go into a job where we don’t have any get regrets, right? So we have to go into a job where…
0:45:30.4 Professor Walden: We’ve negotiated for the money that we want with no regrets, that we’ve got the job and the site that we want with no regrets because that filters into how we feel about our job and how we will perform at our job. If we are unmotivated or we have regret, we tend to not perform as well. So keep that in mind when you are thinking about, Oh, I’m gonna get my loans forgiven, I’m gonna apply to the federal site, you may not get approved, you may have to stay there for a long time, and let’s be honest, most folks don’t typically last that long, so I just wanna put that out there. And you know, last year there was… Or earlier this year, there was a lot of conversation about the public student loan forgiveness program because they’re not forgiving at a rate fast enough, so they’re not forgiving at a rate fast enough for people to say that this is a great program. So just things to keep in mind, but… Or not, but… And with that being said, don’t count on student loan forgiveness, make a plan… This is why I’m giving you the plan.
0:46:42.0 Professor Walden: Make a plan throw an extra 50, throw an extra $100, be very diligent. Maybe I go on three trips this year, maybe I go on two trips this year, and I throw that extra money at my student loans because I just want this crap gone, ’cause that’s where I am guys, I just want… I just want it gone. I’ve had it long enough, it’s hang around, let’s have some plastic surgery and take it off, I’m tired of it, alright? And also be very bold, ask, ask when you’re negotiating your contract, especially if you’re at these mom and pops, or even if you are not, these smaller clinics, bigger clinics, ask. Can this be put into my contract if I worked here for five years? Can you forgive $25,000 of my student loan? If I work here for five years, can you forgive $30,000 of my student loans? I’d be willing to do that. Depending on the site, right? Be bold in your ask you guys. You’ll never know unless you ask. And what’s the worst they say, No? You didn’t have it in the first place, right? So there’s no big deal for you. So just be bold in your ask. I have seen it done. It can happen. So don’t be scared. Just do it. Alright?
0:48:06.8 Professor Walden: Alright. So with that being said, that is student loans, I want you to make a plan. You have your budget, we’re looking at the extra money that we have, we’re gonna talk about investing next, I know, you’re asking me to do all… Or the sign-on, good job, Tammy, or the sign-on bonus for the student loan, how much can… How much can I get out of you? How much are you gonna give me and then apply that. Absolutely, be smart about your money. Because again, like Caitlin said, and she’s coming back, you guys… So Caitlin our tax preparer is coming back in the next couple of months, we’re working it out right now, but she’s coming back in order to talk to us because I need you guys to understand your tax implications for you jumping these tax brackets. It’s really important that you guys get it right ’cause I don’t want you guys to show up at the end of the year talking about you owe $7000 to the government. No, we’re gonna correct that. We’re gonna correct that early. So with your student loans, make a plan, pay them off, you have your budget, we’re looking at all the ways that we can kind of cut what we need, what we don’t, what we feel comfortable with, what we don’t… Look for that little bit of extra money and start throwing it at your student loans. I know. It seems overwhelming, just do it.
0:49:38.2 Professor Walden: It’s one of those things. It’s uncomfortable. I don’t like it, just do it. I promise you, it is for the good. Y’all don’t default on these loans, don’t ignore them, don’t put them in deferment for years, ’cause you know students like to do that, right? We’re like, I’ll just go back to school. Don’t do that crap. The interest continues to rise and it will balloon your loan… Don’t do that. Pay your student loans if you can… It’s all about prioritising. Yeah, I want a new car, but my car right now is just fine, I don’t need another car, I’m probably good for the next 10 years. I’m also not a car person, so it doesn’t make me a difference, but you know, prioritise… Prioritise what you need. Y’all, they will take your social security check if you default on these loans, we are not doing that, we are a millionaire nurses, I’m gonna have you all with some investments and y’all gonna have some money in your pocket, and then y’all are gonna know all the things.
0:50:42.9 Professor Walden: You’re gonna know all the things and you’re gonna have money, it’s like the perfect storm. Alright, so with that being said, that is the end of your student loan lecture. So hopefully you got some good information out of that. As usual, and as always, I will be having homework for you just so that I can make sure that you are really absorbing the information that I’m telling you and I’m giving you some actionable plans in order for you to really make those moves to help you, so with that being said… Guess what? Next week is labs. So next week we are talking to Liz, I promise you Liz will be here, Naseema will be back, it was just a little snafu today that she was having… But Liz will be back. I mean, Liz is coming, Naseema will be back. I’ll be back as well. I’m gonna start testing out some of my lectures on you guys, which will help you in learning and help you as you start to see your patients, and all of that good stuff. So this was fun. If you have any questions, please make sure you’re posting in the Facebook group as… I’m there, I’m hanging around. If you have questions, absolutely please call. I’m going to be reaching out to some of you. So I will see you soon, okay? Alright, you guys, I will talk to you later. It’s been fun, it’s been real. Pay the student loans. Alright, talk to you later, bye.