this is a good one for schools schools want to give money to people that have shown proven history in high school of being active and value members like they want to put you on the billboard so when I went to Bloomsburg and got all of that money it's because I was a part of everything in high school so nine times out of 10 I'm going to do what be a part of everything here in college you you can put me as an ambassador you might want to put me up there like you know the this is how schools think about when they give institutional money if that makes sense all right guys welcome back e back home yes so this is going to be a followup episode um welcome back glad to be back sure Sonia Lewis aka the student loan doctor yes so we spoke around two years ago um and it was a great episode um so we got your whole backstory how you started the business in a variety of different things so we'll go straight into it this time cuz I think that um being that we already kind of spoke on that side now we can kind of just focus straight on the student loan issues and there's a lot that's going on obviously it's very time sensitive um the President Joe Biden um has made some some new changes so there's a lot to talk about and a lot of people are confused a lot of people don't know what's going on what's what's what's real and what's not and um now more than ever people need the information because you know student loans have only gone up um so trillion dollars in in debt total real debt real debt yeah yeah real debt for thank you for joining us appreciate it thank you for having me back um I will say uh business changed significantly there's a blessing over your lives no um the awareness that you guys brought to our business after the first episode I really can't thank you guys enough um just cuz it is in line everything you guys talk about there's always somebody's little elephant like but what about my loans when you think about investing home buying any of that somebody has a probably six figure student loan problem that may stop them from doing all the great things you guys are talking about so when we shed a little light or a little perspective it just makes people want to go actually do what you guys are telling them to do yeah it's one of those things that as teenagers I can remember even now when we talk to young adults nobody prepares them for this moment and we try to say it's the probably the biggest financial decision you're going to make at 18 I mean obviously if somebody gets married later in life that'll be one but college is is that and if you make the wrong decision if you don't have the right information like you said you're talking six figures in debt yeah which is tough to climb out of especially when you talk about interest rates especially when you talk about the cost of living um it's it's tough It's almost insurmountable uh and we don't know we don't know why this is why uh episodes like this is so important yeah yeah yeah yeah all right so okay let's start here um so we posted last week couple weeks ago that um Biden um announced to cancel more than $5 million in student loan debt more money additional and a lot of people you know they was confused they like well I don't know anybody that has received any cancellations of student loans and people was like well I actually did receive a canc I saw the comments yeah yeah so what exactly what exactly happened um and who actually benefits from this so here's what's going to happen we're going to see more and more headlines like five billion five million we're going to just see all these headlines um because wait it's coming up anybody know election election so this is going to be the carrot if you will to get people to real in terms of our age group so you figure anywhere from like age 30 to like 55 the the the student Alan carot is definitely going to keep being pulled so he did actually give out money and I do know from my community a lot of people benefit from it now let's talk about who benefited from it the most you probably were over age 45 you probably were in school like 1995 to 2000 because there was a time period around that type of money that he gave out and the term here is called income driven um repayment they were looking to see were you in scool and repayment for 20 25 years and then here's the thing they even made some um exclusions let's say you weren't in repayment but you had loans that amount of time in repayment they hit for forgiven well we might get into it but there was a big glitch that occurred recently too so even though they put the headline out there about the five I think was billion right billion we using terms billions now right we saying billions billion fiveon yeah the challenge is is that there were about over 9 million people left out in that last round so this is the first time ever that they actually made an announcement that they messed up I was very big with the Department of Education I feel like they always messing up well they actually said they did it though yeah so what happened was there's literally what they do is they push a button it's like a real one button and if you qualify according to their system you would have got the email you get the letter things go into perspective well a lot lot of people over 9 million people got skipped because if you had just Consolidated a few years prior um or you know how all these loans are being transferred to different lenders the lenders aren't showing the full loan history so a lot of people accidentally got skipped so who who are the the the lenders that that were qualified cuz I know I mean Navi and unnown any federal lender falender can qualify but the problem is is uh let's give it a good example you know how everybody went from fed loans to moila that was in the Public service loan forgiveness well just because you went over to Mia doesn't mean all of your history went with you and there used to be old system if your education you'll know it called NSL DS it actually used to be open to the public until the pandemic we all could have looked at everybody's loan history on that site colleges and universities use it now it's a private site so if you want what's called your pre-conversion record you have to request it from the Department of Education now it's very very so it's very Elusive and it's actually uh not beneficial to just the everyday person to be able to track their progress you used to contract how long you were in forbearance repayment in school those are the type of uh pieces of information you need to fight for yourself to get your loans forgiven so okay so um how do you apply for that for the pre-conversion or which part what Joe Biden what he just did okay so if you missed it a lot of people missed it like I said over 9 million people missed it what you would have to do is file a complaint so we actually have something we're putting together and we've been helping people oneon-one file a complaint so the cool thing about it is is that it's going to take them about uh let's say 3 to 6 months from now we're with December in December mhm so 3 to six months from now they're going to literally go through each person's complaints so that department is called the ozman group they'll look through they'll say hey Rashad you're right you should have been forgiven we didn't see your pre conversion record from prior some people will be told no let's say you were in grad school for forever you weren't in repayment then so you have to literally submit a complaint through student a.gov right and it can't be like I'm upset y'all didn't forgive me so they're going to close it out so it has to be thought out and you should even like highlight or be prepared to say if you know which loans you believe could be forgiven so spend a little time on it gotcha gotcha so that was for the 9 million people but the biggest one and when you came in you're like TR how your loans doing I just knew you was going to say they were going I was excited well there's some confusion around it right because I feel like they making mistake so so the Public service loan forgiveness yes so there's a couple things around it let let's just explain to the people again what that is and then I know there's a bunch of dates so I even I get the emails like hey this is expiring by the October so we'll start there and then we'll dive into the some of the misconceptions and confusion around the public service on so just depending on the audience that's watching this most people I would say just even think about your events are between 30 and 50 would you say this about right yep so if you're between 40 and 50 you got to be careful here you want to log in studentaid.gov and you want to look at your loans click view details and you want to see if it says that you have a direct loan very important if you have what's called a FF P loan that's not going to work so it has to be direct loan that's all you need to know then you'll be eligible for any forgiveness programs coming up even Biden loan forgiveness but they're doing something really really I don't want to say sneaky but one email went out about it if you have an ffp loan you have until December 31st this year this year to apply to apply or you will never get anything forgiven this is a heavy word to say never okay but the administration is said you will never like the they're being using so what will happen is is if somebody's watching this in January good to know um you will want to if you have missed this information you will want to contact the Department of Education not your lender and see if there's any way that you can get an extension now what might happen which is important to note go to student a.gov for this update there may be an extension given because when we look at the data that's over 10 million people and we know that there's 43 million borrowers 10 million are going to be excluded from forgiveness forever because of their rule yeah and from a and from a standpoint like you said there is an election you want to have the most people involved that's a hard rule to put around election you can sway them around that but so the the the loan forgiveness the teacher well we'll get to the teacher loone forgiveness but the public uh the best program I think that exists yes it's still the same requirements right it's 120 qualifying payments 10 years of service and so if you have those things most people think they qualify yeah right and so I was under that assumption um and then when I was filling out the application there was a box right and the Box said and this is to my understanding I was like wait I don't know if I qualify anymore because technically I don't work as a teacher in abore do it that's why I want to clarify so I I I was like wait I don't qualify anymore and to my assumption because when I read the fine line it said hey if you're no longer employed then how do we do it so I didn't the first time I didn't do it well I did it earlier and then I didn't qualify for the first before Biden changed the rules then I I saw that line I'm like hammering you on that is because that thought is what's stopping everybody from implying so I wanted people to hear you say like so I read it again I just still feel like I want to just you know tell everybody that's listening it's not about what you feel or think anymore just submit because the there are new rules and what you don't know is what you're talking about is the rules that you could have missed was October 2022 they put a hard stop exactly but it's not a hard stop this is why I said they waiver you go on the website for a limited time time only the te pslf program has been extended that's what you're under but nobody's going to call you nobody text him and say hey Troy did you get that paper in so people did what they just let it go and forgot about it so I still got a chance you have a a fighting chance okay and so I also tell people because we are coming up on Biden loan forgiveness those that are eligible for tslf and I say these acronyms a lot and I say them hard so that I would hope that they go to student a.gov and type it in like if you type in Te pslf everything comes up you got to like literally go to your old employers like pull up on them get a wet signature and oh keyword Mel it certified Mel okay no stamps got you they throw them out it's 40 people that work here y'all like in theory like just I'm right I'm listening yeah so there's a couple of things now right because the Public service loan and the teacher loan forgiveness are two different things yeah right so if somebody works 10 years as a teacher right but they got the loan giveness from this K do they work in conjunction or are not anymore good question so if you a teacher and you could also get pslf it used to be before October 2022 you could do both but now you have to do one of the other obviously we want to do pslf they they're going to forget more and then I you know I get like like Tickle Pink about this stuff like so exciting yeah yeah so in July coming up now you can make uh they say you're going to be able didn't put say with number multiple payments on your pslf so I wanted to wait to tell you this on ear so like let's say uh you had two years left that's 24 months Everybody follow you don't have to wait 24 months anymore as of July let's say your payment only came out to I'm making this up 250 a month and you like oh I got you know however much in my savings you can make those payments a lot quicker now what I don't know yet is is it only that uh you know Troy can make five in a month month extra like we don't know if there's a number yet per month Lum Summit you can lump Su no and so what I read recently the other day it sound like it's going to be a lumsum situation yeah remember guys they're coming up and you see how it's perfectly timed for July we're coming up on what election yeah so here's my last thing and Sh I thank you for giving me the greetings grievance here because this is personal right and I want everybody to hear it because I'm going through it myself yeah you got you want to do the public s public uh service service loan forgiveness because you can get more forgiven if I did the teacher loan the max I can get is 175 yes so we don't want to so you want to go towards that now you're saying that there's a Biden loan so what's the difference between those so this is for everybody watching I'm want to use my phone for a second because I had to read this to you guys verbatim and you know I told you I think somebody black made this H you know Administration is looking different these days all right so these are the five groups that are eligible for bid and loan forgiveness number one again I did make this up and I'm not paraphrasing and I took this from Forbes so borrowers with current balances greater than what they originally borrowed everybody everybody okay most like 95% number two those who entered into repayment on their student loans 25 or more years ago so so they're changing it from 20 to 25 so more people yep yep all right next one students who attended programs of question questionable value you ever go to a school that was questionable um when I sent this to my team they were like did you make this up I'm like no I took it offline so that's some of those like them online schools that kind of disappear but they keeping it very blanket on purpose but that would be like an example okay all right number four borrowers eligible for existing relief programs including Public service loan forgiveness this you this you this is me who just haven't applied that's me no I'm being serious like that's you yeah that's me okay the last one yall ready for this one this everybody borrowers and financial hardship now what qualifies financial hardship though so the problem here is and this and the good problem is that my belief and I said this on my platform they made things so broad because they want almost every everybody to be eligible you kind of can find yourself in one of five right then number two is this an application again or is this General it has to be some form of application for you to be subjective like this then the last thing is um into your point number three this is why I think it's going to pass through so when they did the first round of bite and loan forgiveness and again I think everything's political anyway they put it through um what was the one that Trump had had said we can have the pandemic pause for I'm sorry I don't know that one I think it was the pandemic act there was a clause that a lot of things got passed through MH so they tried to attach long forgiveness to that but that's not what that act was for so the act that exists that they're going to put this program under is the 1965 act so it's called the 1965 Higher Education Act passed by Lyon B Johnson okay so I have a friend shout out to ebony she uh is a reporter for the White House and she texts me all the time and says what questions do I ask secretary Cardona I said you ask him these questions do you think that you're going to put Biden loan forgiveness again through the 1965 Higher Education Act he said yes so when it came out that's what they're doing this doesn't have to go through the Supreme Court this can just exist so what they did was they put a commit Committee of about 20 people together uh they influential leaders community members um good representation of minorities and they put together this parameter what I just read to you and this just has to now get approved but good news is not approved by the Supreme Court so that's good yeah so what is what do save save the save program so this is uh one of the best programs that I think is going to be very helpful and we even see the difference with our clients in payments so this is the new repayment plan it replaces the repay plan a lot of people got automatically placed into the save plan if you didn't get automatically placed into save plan is because they couldn't pull your tax information now they're just pulling it so it's good and bad thing but long story short this plan as of next year cuz I just checked everything again before I got here it used to be a 10% repayment it's going to go down to 5% right now it's still holding a 10% repayment um but the flexibilities of it they're now letting you say even though I'm married I can say that I don't have access to my spouse's information which is a big deal because if I have 150,000 in loans and we may combine 200,000 you think the whole money of the house is going to go to this payment and most people that's not the case so now they can say which is new than before I cannot access my spouse information so basically like can you avate me on just my information so it's a big deal to help with people's payments money M so and that's for anybody yeah that's going to be based off of income so The Sweet Spot is going to be if you make about4 5,000 that they increase that number used to be like if you made 30,000 if you make about $45,000 you will have a z payment if you are making 55 and most people make about 55 to 65 that's going to allow you to have like a $100 payment so we're really excited about it we see our clients are like are you serious I can afford that I can start with payment so we just hear the excitement over the phone because before they get on the phone with us their estimated payment is like $2,000 cuz it's just six figure debt now all these rep payments that have to qualify they they have to be part of a specific Pro program like I know before it was like it had to be like income based and saav is income driven yeah so same thing M so it bases on how much you make percentage of that is what you're going to have to pay yeah okay okay quick tip because a lot of people did really well in the pandemic financially maybe they had got a side hustle or side B whatever um if that is not your case anymore welcome to yeah you need to submit a past up you need to let them know there was a financial change you can put that it says what did anything change a lot of people skipping and hit no no it did change you're not probably making the same money you made when you did your taxes in the pandemic so you should let them know what you report right for your taxes so you should submit a pay St if that changes you would be surprised like we for example I'm give you a good example we have clients that are for example travel nurses you know nurses was you know running it up up in the pandemic cuz they they were needed now it's kind of coming down a bit kind of normal workflow and then one lady said to me she said girl she said I made 300,000 she said this year it's looking like 90,000 right she said how do I show that difference we had this Center pay Stu so if that income repayment was 5% of that we're talking about a huge difference in payment per month yeah yeah that makes sense yeah that's good enough um so what about borrowers defense forgiveness so this program is the fun is one of them all and like so the thing about this business um when I first started it not to be funny I was like I'll start a business that's consistent nothing's changing this stuff changes every week now thanks Biden Keeps Us relevant so borers defense is one of those programs that literally is changing almost every 3 to six months so Bar's defense if you went to a school that they identified there's about 200 schools that secretary Cardona said these schools were fraudulent for example University of Phoenix was on the list uh Dev was on the list uh IT Tech I don't know it sound like every commercial every commercial you ever watch was on the list no so if it was a if it was a for-profit school with a commercial check the list okay all right so when you see your school's name on the list you're probably thinking oh but I didn't go there no when I tell you this July they changed the rules again that said if you ever attended they're going to ask a little bit more questions need a little bit more paperwork you fill it in you send it off in about a year's time you're probably going to get forgiven and with this program they're giving you back the money you paid on your loans a check in the mail too now I thought it was kind of like BS I'm not going to lie but I have a friend who screenshotted me his it checks I mean checks because he paid for his education there so it's a really great program so while you're applying for these these programs and this because most people will say well I apply for it I'm gonna wait to see what the the you know the ruling is they stop paying all right what's what's your thoughts so right now we're in What's called the on ramp program on ramp means they just are anticipating people are not about to pay this year like it's the you have until September 30th 2024 to get your life together with your student loans October 1 2024 they will start to report to your credit credit they will uh you will be late you will be going back into default they'll take your taxes again not this year coming up but the following year 25 yeah so you have a year to figure it out so I say this with Grace if you need to go into forbearance go into forbearance because you have this year that's what this year is for however a lot of people don't have to put themselves into forbearance if your lender is Mia this example Melia is putting people into what's called an administrative forbearance because they can't handle all of the workload that's coming their way it's this is new they even are pulling in other lenders just think about that to do their work it's a lot of people so a Advantage is now processing all the the consolidations for moila right now so for forbearance means that I don't have to I'm putting a pause on the repayment of my loans now when I was in school and I don't know if this might have changed it's been a long time you had 6 months after you graduate at or completed what whatever schooling you had to begin paying the money back your loan back if not you would go into forbearance right are those rules still have changed are still the same or have they changed over the past still the same so you're talking about you were in school deferment so got use the right words deferment for six months six months and then when you was like I still can't pay you went into forbearance when I'm talking about what moila is doing is putting people into what's called an administrative forbearance which they cover the interest and still allow you to get months for pslf but those mon those those count toward because it's their fault basically the government is saying this is on us when there was a pandemic pause the government said this is on us so when we were in a pandemic pause if you had Direct Loans you were in an administrative forbearance during that time so this this pandemic pause was two and a half years we just started the longest two and a half years of my life so talk about that because I I would imagine that as in the your profession of you know teaching people about the import of student loans there are some people where you might have suggested hey there's no interest on the loan right now this might be a good time to pay it back yeah well what was that two and a half period like for you on your business oh well I remember when I got the news um I saw it on TV and I had to sit down for this one I said no put my glasses on because I couldn't understand what was coming up on the screen no student loan payments until it was like March um I think I called her first it was like shout out to Denise so I was like girl is this like a like a 30-day thing what you think like 60 days cuz every business owner knows what's in their cushion account like if I had to float my employees and all of that but when they did that that second extension for the year I said oh you know so now what I did was and and honestly I made a lot of money in the pandemic Pauls because I'm a creative so I said okay you don't have a payment you're going to learn about your loans you're going to fix other things so I had put out a student loan ebook now that's kind of radical for people to buy stud loone ebook let's just think about that for a second who wants to buy ebook around stud loans but what I did was I said meet me at 9 p.m. and I'm I probably am the one of the most consistent people on Instagram I teach every day more than most people I'm going to either teach you at 10:00 a.m. 9:00 p.m. or 11:00 p.m. sometimes I do two shows a day so what I was doing was I was building a community and we would had fun we would we started doing um we would do stud alone information first I start off like I'm a reporter then my next personality came on that's me I would put some glasses on some Gucci glasses and I would turn to Susan I mean it was just really fun times shout but here's what happened it made people actually care about their loans and their credit and then sometimes we would do Instagram speed dating and I said in order to join in remember how you do the lives with the different people you had to have a 740 credit score better I mean it was really good times now now you're like well how did you make money so what happened was in that time period I think it's because I was very like Hands-On I'm a teacher at heart you know that youed to you teach as a college professor I would say meet me at 9:00 Bond and friendly on zoom and we would log into our student loans together we would look at your credit report I'm like did you see this you should do this so it was just a lot of teaching happening but I had to shift my mentality as a business owner because his wasn't what was not going to happen I wasn't going to close my business because of something that I perceived to be as temporary MH now when we went into the next year I was like oh now we don't know when these loans are coming back um that's when I think I'm not going to lie I think I did get a little nervous but I also was very wise with the money I had made so when I made money off of digital products and I think I was one of the earlier people doing digital products before everybody started doing it shout out to my friend Nehemiah he called me like blew up my phone you got to have good friends that blew up your phone and he just said to me he was like you need a digital product out of everybody so when it came out it did really well um I grabbed a couple properties and I brought them in cash and what I did was I renovated them and I did the Airbnb wave now we know Airbnb is or isn't what it is now at the time people were looking for places to have like a little Escape during the pandemic so me personally I had to step out of the shell of the stone doctor so that things could be sustainable and I wanted to make sure like my team has been with me for over 5 years at this point I didn't want to let anybody go I don't want to go look for good people again so if I need to send some floating money we call it or just appreciate you money I needed to be able to generate that otherwise cu the student loan doctor business itself wasn't doing great in the last let's say year and a half but my Endeavors were doing good so when you see October 1st 2023 you know this is bad to say this but I was so excited when it was from whenever payment that is so bad I'm sorry y'all like when I tell you when you back in the game I was like wait minut and you know what I actually missed our clients and they missed us so we are like probably three weeks booked out at this point which is a good average we don't want to be that far booked out shout out to my amazing team I'm like cuz you know they work parttime most of them work parttime some work full-time the ones that work part time I'm like do you got PTO at your fulltime to handle this calendar of calls um so it's been really good to be so received back um I've even started a train program where I've been training other experts because the reality is this is a trillion dollar problem and I don't envision myself running a call center of staff I I don't want that that is not my sweet spot everybody knows what their sweet spot is I'm a creative but I don't want to be a manager in that sense let me ask you this um on the student loan side what's the on-ramp program so we talked about the onramp program is the one that everybody is technically in whether you ask to be in it or not you don't got to call for this guys if you was just to say next month I can't afford this payment I'm trying to figure out how now to do you don't have to call them and tell them the payment just will add up now some people can go into forbearance if you want to that you're not getting behind but you're not going to be penalized how do how do interest work rates work on student loans because I know it's like they're regulated yeah but there different right if it's federal student loan as opposed to private private okay so Federal interest rates are regulated and are announced every July private loans they're not regulated and they can change and it could be Whimsical based off of your income and stuff not your income it could be your credit let's say you missed a payment on your Macy's card your private loan could change your interest rate seen it happen yeah so like for people that's going into college or parents what what are best practices for them to actually no private loans don't apply for private loans so I have a philosophy and people don't like it but I'll say it like don't go to a school you can't pay for you can't afford and what I mean by that is it's like okay if it's in your plan to use a Federal Loan okay I'm with it because there are parameters to keep you safe financially but when we start talking about going to institutions that require you to use a private loan that may not be the best choice because that private loan is forever so is there any can you what's what's the difference between a federal and private Loan Federal loans just go there and then is there any where a private loan is actually more beneficial than a Federal Loan I haven't seen it so Federal loans are regulated by the government so this is where you have a certain amount that you can borrow every year even through grad school even through getting like a doctoral program but this is to protect you so for example when the pandemic happened we would have never thought we would had a pandemic right the government says we got your interest we've got your payment this is on us those that had private loans they didn't get a pause that was and it was really hard for us to hear those calls and those cries because there is nothing you can do when you have a private Loan in that sense there's no pause so a private loan is going to be beneficial if you have to close the gap and I just have to say this like if you have to go to that institution because a community college or a state college is not going to cause for you nine times out of 10 to use a private loan if you want to go to uh Ivy League school um if you want to go to HBCU and there's not scholarship present yeah a private loan closes to get yeah so cuz a lot of I mean even a lot of the IV leue Schools they're the funding from the government is very minimal so even I mean and some of the state schools because when we talk about affordability it it be it it's almost like that is the only option right because when a person fills out a fast for let's say they a middle class family and you know they bring in 150,000 we call it the sticky middle exactly so people who who parent are in that middle class they fill out the fasta right because in order to even get a student loan you have to fill that out first they'll tell you they're giving you $900 a semester but the tuition is $8,000 or 15,000 a semester there's a gap there and so this is when now it's like if I want to go to school the options are I got to come up with this money or take out private loans and so is your suggesting all right maybe if it's 15,000 this isn't the place for me yeah unpopular opinion and we'll see how these comments go I'm going to stand oning don't go cuz see you got to remember we're taking calls every day from people who are crying over decisions that they made 10 20 years ago that weren't wise we're talk like you should hear how these parents are talking about their kids like you can hear them going to another room or let's say the kids are grown now and she ain't even finished and now she want to be a bartender and and and so now even PE and plus zones are like the bane of our existence because it's like the worst Federal Loan possible what's what's a parent plus so Parent Plus Loans is when a parent gets involved and takes out money on behalf of their child but the interest rate is 8% and they only have one income driven repayment plan instead of it being like a 5% margin like we talked about it's 20% it's just the worst plan it's literally like a private loan again it's just protected and things of like a pandemic right but um to hear the the calls that we take like somebody this is true story um oh but I was so happy he just got forgiven he had 300,000 in Parent Plus Loans he had three kids that went to Ivy League educations he's a doctor so he thought that I can do it cuz I'm a doctor look they might want to be doctors right but the bill was on him MH so you know me I was like well are they doctors cuz these are older that's why he got them forgiven he's like no I'm like what do they do and then he was like you don't want to know one is only making 30,000 a year because he's a numbers guy he's making 350,000 a year he owes 300,000 I think he like 50,000 his own so let's say 350 but his kids are making less than 100,000 this was not a good investment but we can't say to our kids you failed me you know like can change your minds I I my parents had a Parent PLUS Loan thankfully it wasn't they all right yeah they got I mean so the first two years I went to school um again fast for was like $900 and it was that Gap so rather than trying to take a private loan we did The Parent PLUS Loan and it kind of eased the Gap but then the final two years it was like I had to I do it private because I didn't want to put more debt on top top my parents I've always been thinking about you know my family yeah and so but again those interest rates they climb and when you do private like you said it could be anything it could be like one thing yeah you didn't you you didn't pay like you said you and now the interest rate that started at% go to like9 I seen somebody go from 9% to 19.9 you know how much of a difference that makes it's crazy it's crazy so I mean for for young adults Who are 16 17 18 well 17 18 about to go to college and I know it doesn't sound sexy but Community College probably the the safest and most financially state colleges state colleges I'm okay for you to go where you want to go if somebody else can help pay in terms of a scholarship um and then the other thing is I think this is where parents and those that are going to be parents that are watching this show have to understand that there is still accountability there like for example what does scholarship Sunday look like at your house if your child is in high school you're probably like well we don't do scholarship Sunday we want to start so meaning you have to sit down with your child and say in junior year not really senior but more so junior year what scholarships are we thinking about applying for like did you did you write that essay can I read it for you because if we don't push our children to apply and we're not in that as a partner with them it will fall back on you as mom or dad or take them to the park and the thing that we see that we're most get a wicked jump shot right and if your child don't have no skills like that then they hopefully they're academic yeah right like like for example I knew I wasn't going to get no sports scholarship that's you know we're not going to do that but um but I'm smart okay so my mom got really really sick my junior year like she almost died so the plan we had a plan the plan was she was making at that time it's just me and her I'm only sh about 65,000 a year back in the 2000s that's pretty okay she she was going to send me to a state college and her plan was she was going to make payments for the difference of whatever I didn't receive from fast for right that was our plan we had a plan well when she got sick and lost her hering she had to retire early as a teacher the plan is now gone so I was like but the plan ain't here to stay in Philly so I had to do what apply for every scholarship known to men I can remember the day I knocked on my principal's door and I was like whatever scholarships I can be considered for I need to be considered they all knew what was happening with my mom I went to a small high school so on graduation day I left with 177,000 in scholarships when I got to school it didn't stop somebody still got to pay for this I knocked on every door there was this before websites and I'm not that old but I just knew I think people know you better on every Dean door I'm not making this up had my sneakers on that day and I wind up by the end of the day I was able to apply for a full ride so I got that oh but don't stop there because you need pocket money remember my mom is now not working she's deaf I got to send money home now cuz I'm I'm responsible college student now I got to get the scholarship for the books so if it was a flyer that said tell us about a traumatic experience you've overcome to go to college I've got several I'm from Philly so I wrote that up sent that in I got that 250 like when I tell you if you talk too loud about a scholarship I probably took your scholarship like I was I had to graduate so that and so when so when I meet students and parents that I don't have that dog or that understanding I'm like you got to have some money tucked aside because it went from my mind with a game plan to us having to rely on my grandmother who was a retired school teacher her retirement probably paid 40 three people in 40K is not going to put somebody through college even after that little loan they give you my mommy had no credit again she's not working so it was just so so much I remember that experience so when I talk to students like if I go to a high school for example or I'm speaking to a freshman class in college I'm going give you my story because something has to change somebody or something has to pay for this experience if you want it to be whatever you want it to be that that student alone that you're about to leave with life in the 20s and 30s aren't going to be as fun as you think so cuz when it's time to home buy we don't even talk about dating marriages like when it's time to sit at the table let's say um I'm like um like hey Rashad you know I'm interested Rashad got to you this is good Rashad Rashad you didn't do it on this episode but can you let the people know why you so quiet oh about the student loans yeah I didn't have student loans so if you guys ever go see the first one he was like sophomore year scholarship all right but let's just say we're about to date right and I know that you were probably ask or I don't even know if you ask people this but at some point the financial analyst and and conservative in you you will want to have a conversation about debt but if I'm sit across from you no you got a like story cuz it would be even better if you would CH in but like what if you wanted the data girl that had 300,000 in loans no let's just go there for a second so talk about sorry I took over y'all this let's go let's go there now let's go there how would that if I'm Da somebody have 300,000 loans how how does that impact me are you dating them yes or no now this is your this your I'm asking you saying are you going to date them if you know that well I'm full on hoodie well I'm asking is that going to have any impact on my life is it I don't think so probably not but what happens because my jobs AR guaranteed what happens if I lose my job well you said dating or marry somebody no but I I think we should date to marry what you think well you got to date before you get married you trying to say that I'm that marriage material no I'm just saying as far as I feel it like if you getting married right okay this is good because these are the Mar if you're married to somebody so how does that work your debt becomes their debt well it depends on how you were raising what you think so let me give you a good example and I'm only trolling with him for fun but when I actually do appointments I'm not trying to be funny men book a lot of Denise knows this appointments for women that they are planning to propose to I know when that woman's going to get a proposal before that man ever announced it why because he will call in listen I want to book uh my girlfriend I'm think about proposing but she got 100,000 and you know she a teacher but she don't be know about this stuff and I got to see her get on like it's called pslf before I propose like he wants to know that there's a plan in place before going that route because what could it affect it could affect if they were joing joint taxes taking the taxes it could affect uh default and if you get into we call it permanent default you in default for that 100K for ever so what happens if you don't pay his St Lo yeah default what does that mean yeah so after uh 270 days missed now we're going to go into what we call default now there's stages of default the first time you go in default you can get out you can do a consolidation well the program right now if everybody's listening it's called Fresh Start it's literally one click you probably will get out in a few months right but that's going to go away I think Denise in like a year about one more year so when that's done it's back to what it was before which is are you consolidating if eligible or are you going to do the nine payments could be $5 payments on time you know how many people don't make $5 payments and then they never get out so I met a gentleman and I was so excited when this Fresh Start program came out he was in a permanent default he burnt every option to get out twice two options consolidation $5 nine times M for 40,000 everybody following so he was in a permanent fought for 40,000 unless he came up with 40,000 and they didn't even want to take payments from him like it was bad like they don't care at this point he was like I could do 300 a month we need 600 like they don't have to negotiate with you at that point so I was so excited when Fresh Start came out because he was actually one of those people where he literally got what's called a fresh start he's out of theault now if he mess up again now that's his last but like what what exact cuz it's like all right let's say child support right if don't pay child support payments you can they forfeit your passport uhhuh they can um with take money from your paycheck y anday money pay in the worst case scario they can they can put you in jail yep so like I like what are the student loans taxes paycheck never able to buy a house so they they take they could take money out of your paycheck yeah they could take money out of your taxes taxes and then home buying for with a Federal Loan product like a FHA never be able to use it BHA no it's a Federal Loan you already burned them so and and um are there any student loans that don't require credit check for federal well Federal loans don't require credit check let's be clear like it's almost like the biggest loan that you ever get in America without a credit check you went to school you're eligible you have a high school dipl anybody can get it if you have a high school diploma it's just limited amounts limited amounts right protective amounts it's the the the credit checks don't come in until you're trying to do like graduate Plus Loans or private loans yeah you need it for private loans private loans for sure yeah I'm true story before my credit was good I had to get a graduate loan and it wasn't good so they denied it so I wrote an appe and I never forget her name was Kesha so I knew she was black kha was like um no worries I got you and she approved it shout out to kha I hope she still worked there yeah cuz there's no student loans for for grad school um well graduate Plus Loans or private loans oh yeah the private ones but they can say no to you so that's why the story was funny like dang I'm not going be a to finish my last semester and then Kesha you know a little letter yeah she approved it so how how much money do you need to go to college well where you going so Community College I guess what we talking about like 20 25,000 if we talking about state colleges now like 60 70 now are we year no total total total um are we talking about private institutions like HBCU might be like what do you say like 25 30 a year probably yeah and again it's all about your experience so my game plan was I didn't go to HBCU I went to a predominant white school shout out to Bloomburg University and they gave me a whole lot of scholarship and on the weekends I went to the HBCU so like for parents that's that has kids now you would say that you in order to you would if you want to pay for your children's education in cash in 10 years let's say you would need at least $250,000 on the safe side cuz that that would probably cover a private a top private school if that's where you want to go yeah now remembers there are certain Ivy League schools that are now saying if you make under I think the number is 60,000 a year according to your taxes they'll give that child a free ride so this is crazy right because when you think about all types of debt especially in business you can file for bankruptcy right chap this chapter 11 chapter 7 no are there any cases where student loan could be qualified in there more recently there have been several successful cases where bankruptcy and federal student loans have happened and occurred you see different uh politicians and lawmakers advocating for that so there is actually a and it's so new it's hard to speak on but there is a about a 15 20 Page packet that you can fill out to apply for your student loans to be included in a bankruptcy you have to go to a bankruptcy attorney in your state and you have to go to one that's qualified and if you are asking them questions and they don't even know that this pack exists don't pay them that's my rule of thumb but there are some good attorneys that are up to the latest information and it can be submitted now this is like as of of like the last two years yeah cuz I'm thinking 43 million people in debt yeah repayments are just starting mhm there's going to be plenty of forbearance and there'll be plenty of defaults and some people just won't be able to pay and so forgiveness programs are great but everybody won't qualify no and so some people are going to have to figure out another route and so I could in my mind I don't know if you probably agree I can see M legislation being changed to add this in it's actively being worked on um so I saw the packet I was like oh this is very so the questions they asked were like uh tell us about how your student loan debt would impact XY like so you have to have time you want to get a professional to help you answer those questions um and like I said very rare cases it hasn't been fully publicized but it is being approved now we're talking like astronomical student loan that like $430,000 though so that was one of the cases so um how does it affect your credit score well so it's still a debt and it's not a revolving line so it's so basically it's like U it's like a rock on your credit that's how I always explain it and when you start to pay on the principal like let's say you owe 80,000 and you put extra money and it starts to shrink your credit score goes up it's like oh it's getting paid down but the moment it comes off so to those of you that all got forgiven congratulations but we're going to also hear a negative turn in the next 60 to 90 days everyone that got forgiven their scores are going to plummet especially when you talk about 150,000 and forgiven 300,000 and forgiven so if they were hoping to Home by it's like could you do it like today or could you wait until you see what your new score is so what did so when Biden he tried to um have a bigger plan but the Supreme Court um blocked it right couple months ago what was that so but that that was all my opinion like that was the plan to be blocked so I'm not a lawyer and I knew that when I I read it when it came out I was like this not going to go through um we were hoping we were hopeful but the legislation it went under wasn't the proper legislation it was too much red tape too many opinions too many signatures needed so the new program is going to come back under 1965 Higher Education Act that's the one we think is going to be able to be passed under because lynon B Johnson already seal the deal how much would that well they haven't interestedly enough I know I read it to you but they haven't given out numbers yet okay but they have been sure to say that if you don't do by December 31st that ffp conversion they're going to exclude about close to 10 million people so do you ever think there's a time where just all student loan will be forgiven why would that be beneficial well we if people if it's a student loan crisis right and and you have millions of people who who just can't pay their student loans then that probably will have more of a statistically who can't pay their student loans who can't I'm I'm B you low income people I would assume middle class low what do they look like black people okay so here's the thing when we talk about the largest holders of student loan debt they're African-American women3 to 55 percentage wise or numbers wise well percentage of the borrowers in total who owns the most to loone Dead who has the most degrees is that group of people so it's interesting you remember when um they were talking about the number of forgiveness they were going to give out either 10 or 20,000 did you ever wonder why they ended at that number so statistically if they gave out 20,000 that cleared the population of White borrower white male borrowers yeah completely race yeah because they amount that they owed was around under 20,000 was under 20,000 so in I think the average I remember reading this the average was like uh $165,000 that they owed if they had at 20 that would clear the entire so let's just keep going cuz I've got time so now when you clear out all of these women black women with student loan debt and I know that other people have student loans that are black obviously but statistically now we put this population with no debt most agreed now they can become homeowners you say now it changes the whole landscape of Welcome to America so when you ask me do I think they're going to eliminate no why so you think that okay so it's um a trap pretty much I'm not saying it's a trap what I'm saying is this is where our community when we talk about the black community and I hate to just always take it to race but statistically just very glaring has to be wiser and be informative about borrowing practices now the challenge here is is that a lot of times when we look at this number that person is also the first to graduate in their family from college so we don't want to take the pride away from those numbers and the first to have a a graduate degree the first to have a doctoral degree so we don't want to take any of that Pride away but what I'm saying is now Mom grandom even let's say your grandom at this point how do we help your child and your grandchild not be in that same number and same boat one of the things that we're concerned about is if we see our clients get out of student loan Deb at like let's say age 40 45 we see that person going back in student loan dead at age 50 55 because of Parent Plus Loans because there's not a plan for their child or grandchild yeah so So the plan is really yes if you want to achieve the same goal all for it how do we do it more effectively how we do it more efficiently so I really love your platform right because if somebody is a black woman that's 35 and she's really tuned in the stuff you guys are saying and she's following some of your strategies um she's thinking about real estate um I hate when I you know use my friend over there but she has like we got like 10 properties she's a land she's a homeowner she's a a landlord she's a so she's changing a narrative for her daughter so you know her daughter shouldn't even have to know what a student loan is if we do this right because there should be enough cash loow income from her Properties or maybe when her daughter goes to school it's time to sell one that is college tuition so when we start changing The Narrative of how we think about our finances and our wealth now then we can set our children and grandchildren up differently so we don't want to make anybody feel bad about what they did or didn't borrow but what I'm saying is is the conversation has to change so that we don't see this cycle keep being repeated because I don't think there's going to be a wave of forgiveness to help out a significant leak group of population such can I go back for just like a second cuz you said something and I understood from the stand point of having loan forgiveness and that coming off of you know your debt to income ratio in a sense and your credit score plummeting right so most people wouldn't even understand that they'll think wait it got cleared my credit score short approved but it really doesn't can you can you just explain why there's no more debt to factor like not to be funny you you've had that debt probably for over 10 years years so it's used to your debt so now you take it off the board it's like oh how do we factor that into your mix into your score so now when you just take it off the board and what's going to be a shocker to people the next 60 days is it's not gradually paying itself down it's off right so when you held a 740 that 740 might look like a 640 all jokes aside because that was a heavy part of your mix that's going to be going now then somebody asked me the other day well how do I keep that score up you want the real answer you need a mortgage you need another debt similar to replace it of the same amount I would hope if you would do that it would be a mortgage morgage and not another student loan yeah you got to balance that out also the other part is from a tax standpoint sometimes when loans are forgiven does that go into your taxable income very interesting you bring that up so it is tax federally federally tax free until 2025 this is not a forever thing oh oh yeah do explain so after 20125 that's why it matters who gets elected too that might be texed this these These are what we call Provisions these are not laws so provision is in place until 2025 to say you will be tax-free let's say Biden gets reelected prudent loan he might extend it to 2030 right or whatever is his term in but that's a provision that's like that's like president to president so you got to understand the tax laws during that President's era certain States say I don't care what the federal government is doing if you get forgiven for 200k we're taxing at his income so what I would do I would probably move there's about 13 states I think it is and I don't know them off hand just Google it and you live in one of them and you know you got that letter I I got the move like I don't even know like I'm being funny and serious at the same time you're going to get taxed for that 200,000 in this example good to know good to know yeah and actually I had a client that was a true story like I had a client say she was like so I'm excited she was like but 100,000 tax she was like in my state she was like I don't know she was like I think I need to move back in with my parents they living so and so and I'm like well can you move like can we put that change of address in like can we file Texs at a new address because yeah she's going to get text mhm all right well it sounds so heavy today there you have it's a lot it's a lot my my last thing before we go you you talked about scholarships and I know kids and parents this is tough is there a place that that kids can go I remember when you used to go to your guidance councel they had this book of all these scholarships if you were left-handed there was a scholarship is there one place or concrete place that they can go for scholarships and grants cuz we know grants don't have to be repaid as well so I mean there you there are many places you can go it's just hard to shout out places that I think are still reputable um like the scolly app is one of my favorites if it's still around um I know like college girl um JP I think is her name uh she's awesome uh let me see HBCU money go on Instagram she is amazing with her work um I tend to post different scholarship strategies on my page here throughout because I know that they go hand in hand we don't get into it because it's just we don't have the capacity um what I will say is you know you want to identify your child if your parent watching this you want to identify your child's strengths early on and that's the scholarship money we're going to start gearing ourselves to like you going to know pretty soon is your child sports or academics is your child techie or not because there's so much money out there and there is really a lot of money there but here's oh and I do have to say this because I used to sit on scholarship committees everybody thinks they're not eligible women young ladies particularly always think they're not eligible I never forget I had a young lady that was trying to go for nursing uh the requirement was a 3.0 and some other things she had a way above all the other requirements she was Super Active she had a 2.9 so I'm looking at her application but she didn't do one last thing to apply so I called her personally I'm like hey her name was Jasmine I'm like I need you to put this in by midnight she's like no instead of 3.0 so there's a psychology here that women even with jobs they look at One requirement go ah not eligible men go I'm about to try anyway so we would see young men at our committee get scholarships over young women and I realized the psychology is a lot of young women would think because they miss one thing so she thanks me to this day she got the money it was like 10,000 because she just applied anyway because now here's what happens a lot of people don't know behind the scenes when there are private donors that are giving like the three and the 5 thousands however they are asking the committee's opinion so if I'm looking at Bobby who has a 3.2 but Bobby joined no activities in school but I'm looking at Jasmine who's a 2.9 but she was class president she was this she was this she was this I don't know I'm probably going to go with Jasmine because she still had good grades and she managed all of this stuff and then Bobby just was in school so then I have to tell the person who's giv the money my professional opinion would be let's go with Jasmine because we know when she gets to school and becomes a active member of her community at school she's going to do good and still add to the value of their Community oh that's a good perspective let's give it to Jasmine shout out to Jasmine yep don't forget to come pick up your pieces yes so that's a good example and that's how the that's how scholarship the minds of a scholarship committee works when you submit things like that especially when they're small informal they they want to look to see who's really doing the work because it's all about oh in schools this is a good one for schools schools want to give money to people that have shown proven history in high school of being active and value members like they want to put you on the billboard so when I went to Bloomsburg and got all of that money it's because I was a part of everything in high school so nine times out of 10 I'm gon to do what be a part of everything here in college you you can put me as an ambassador you might want to put me up there like you know the this is how schools think about when they give institutional money if that makes sense so my advice is if you're a high schooler watching this or you have a high schooler and you look at your child and your child isn't doing anything just going to school that's not enough what church committee can they join what nonprofit can they assist what do their weakend look like are they a leader any capacity and this is where I say it has to be hands- on parenting 9 through 12 because you have to make your child go and do something and I know that we're just like well he's a good kid he just be in the house on his phone well that's not going to cut it in this time when we're trying to give our money there you have it well another great episode a lot of information um how can people follow you definitely spend out of that 300K but we're just back episode I like that I gotta learn that tactics so let's talk about the sa FL we talk um you got 300 a lot 300 a lot you guys got to do a whole episode on it like a survey question um um you can follow me on instam you saying is real like you know I'm married so like I had that was later on in relationship it was like yo what what how much how much de so did you guys talk about it after marriage um before before before yeah cuz I mean I had be surprised most people talk about it after I had stud right so I need to I know where mine is at I'm like you know what you got so where you at so like you know so we know and what's going to be the plan right right what how how are we going to bring down this debt yeah so well most people don't talk about it till after surprisingly enough and then now it don't look so fun to be in this uh situation and I do think that people that have 300,000 should be able to be married that's not what I'm saying cuz I don't feel like those trolls what I'm saying is it's got to be a plan because because if this woman owes 300 I would hope her income would be to on the on part to support that maybe she's already a doctor in that case right so we know that there's there's something ambitious about this person maybe she can hold this job but if you meet this person that owes six figures and they don't have ambition and they don't yeah that's a different conversation so I'm I'mma let you ride though um you can follow me on Instagram the student alone we have a YouTube channel that's out um just type in the student alone doctor if anybody pops up other than you know little black girl that's probably not me they do duplicate me you know and I appreciate you guys there you have it thank you guys for rocking with us we'll see you next week peace peace
