All this talk about changes within the federal student loan system, I didn’t want to give the impression that nothing can be done with private student loans. Just today, we have a client who accepted an offer to save $165,000 on his private student loans! And this was not a…
As we are getting closer to a repayment start date, I wanted to briefly mention that there are several things that should be considered before choosing to refinance a federal student loan: Income Driven Plan availability – the new Repaye program will have an incredibly low payment with ultimate forgiveness…
Bankruptcy is not only for discharging credit cards! New DOJ procedures allow us now to discharge federal student loans attesting to an undue hardship. We are co-presenting a webinar for the American Bankruptcy Institute on February 27 outlining this new program and helping our colleagues identify clients who may be…
New IDR Terms Announced! Sorry for the delay in getting this out, Covid has put me behind a week or so. The new IDR Plan expected out in July before the payment pause ends will not exactly be a new plan. Instead of confusing borrowers and making yet another IDR…
Under the new provisions allowing a Debtor to attest to an undue hardship, a consolidation pre-filing would be viewed as evidence of good faith – this is the box that may be checked: engaging meaningfully with a third party they believed would assist them in managing their student loan debt.…
We are seeing forgiveness every week, more likely every day, now, but many are still waiting… Interestingly, the huge spending bill being discussed by Congress right now does not include anything additional to Federal Student Aid. What does this mean? Well, the FSA has to modernize its National Student Loan…
This is not recommended as bedtime reading, but sometimes it does help to go right to the source when trying to figure out what the new rules are and how they may apply to your loans. The Final Regulations go into effect July 2023 and can be found here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/11/01/2022-23447/institutional-eligibility-under-the-higher-education-act-of-1965-as-amended-student-assistance…
Here’s a news clip on this topic that ran yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77xsEU7rFM0 It’s a good short 2 minute summary of what this means and well worth a listen! I haven’t seen this in the news much and we really need to get the word out because in my 30 years of…
When is it time to ignore calls versus doing something about them? If you are being harassed or threatened collection actions on old debt, there are many things to consider. First, a legitimate collector is required to send you something in writing within five days of the initial contact under…
Federal student loan paused again till June 30, 2023 or until 60 days after a final disposition of the lawsuits that are currently blocking student debt relief — whichever is sooner. Working on a bankruptcy summary now — lots of new tools to add to our toolbox to help…