On this episode of the Best Life Podcast, Tony is joined by Andrea Irvin and Amber Miller who are both Partner Experience Managers for GreenPath Financial Wellness. We discuss what student loan payments resuming means for borrowers, what options are available, like studentaid.gov and their Loan Simulator, and who to talk to if you’re struggling to make it all work.
So, if in your wildest dreams you’d like to tell student loans you’re never, ever getting back together and would rather have a blank space where your student loan balance is listed, this is the podcast for you.
More resources and education can be found at altra.org.
Best Life Podcast – Ep. 19 Student Loans
(Tony Beyer)
Hello and welcome to the Best Life podcast where we here at Altra Federal Credit Union are helping you live your best life. I'm your host, Tony Beyer, thank you so much for tuning in. On this episode, we wanted to talk about a big change that's affecting millions of Americans, and I'm not talking about Taylor Swift at NFL football games, although that is fun and, well, who knows…may be a future topic, we'll see. But that's happening right now, maybe not quite as fun, student loan payments are restarting after being on a pause for a while. So, to talk about what this end of the student loan payment pause means for borrowers, what options do those borrowers have, and to help us make sense of all this and help out student loan borrowers, we welcome Amber Miller and Andrea Irvin, they are both Partner Experience Managers for GreenPath Financial Wellness, welcome to the podcast.
(Andrea Irvin)
Thank you
(Amber Miller)
Thanks Tony
(Tony Beyer)
I know you're both are so incredibly busy and thank you for making the time to talk about this really, really important topic, but right off the bat, I wanted to ask you what is GreenPath Financial wellness?
(Andrea Irvin)
So, Green Path is really an extension to Altra. I like to think of us as sort of a sister company. So, whenever you, people at the credit union, staff, or your members are in any kind of financial stress or maybe you're making a decision that might impact you financially, we're a great resource that the credit union can refer your people to you. We are a nonprofit consumer credit counseling agency, essentially. We've been around since 1961. We're accredited by the Council on Accreditation. We have a membership with the Better Business Bureau. We're an NFCC certified all of our counselors are HUD certified. Yeah. That’s who we are.
(Tony Beyer)
So, you're helping people as well as what you're doing. So, to be on the Best Life podcast, I think there's no better place for you both to be and we really appreciate it. Off the top of the show, we mention that the student loan pause is being unpaused, unfrozen and going back into effect. What does that mean for for Americans? And I was hoping, Amber, you could tell us a little bit about how we got here after the pause and what student loan repayments returning means.
(Amber Miller)
Absolutely. So, it's been a long journey over the last three and a half years. The payment pause officially went into place pretty early during the starting days of COVID. It was in, I think, mid-March 2020. So even before we knew what this always going to look like, that was actually one of the first kind of big decisions that was made. And at that time, interest paused. Payments were no longer due. There were several times over the last three and a half years where it was stated that those payments were going to resume and then something changed. You know, another wave came up or a legislative decision was made to kind of kick that can down the road. And here we are now where those are officially no longer happening. The payments are resuming. And so this is something that was actually ordered by Congress. It was looped into one of, I think, the spending bills that was passed with that decision that this for sure is going to come to an end. And these payments are going to resume. So last month in September, interest resumed accruing back on September 1st. So, whatever the interest rates were for each individual's individual loans that kicked back into gear after that three and a half years of no interest, and statements started going out and the first payments are due right now in October. So, the statements are going out 21 days in advance, at least of your first bill in due date. So, if your bill is due later in October, you may not have received that statement quite yet, but it's come in as we're into October now. And what this means for people is a lot of stress. Here at GreenPath, we have had nearly twice as many mentions of student loans when we look back at our intake calls in August and September compared to the first six months of the year. And when we looked at the people that had student loans, looking back at August, we found that 48% of our clients who had student loans were already in or within $100 of a budget deficit and we estimate that as many as twice as many clients will be in a budget deficit once those student loan payments actually resume. So, we all know things have gotten more expensive, interest rates have been rising. It's been hard enough to make ends meet over the last couple of years, adding these student loan payments into the mix is not something that a lot of us are able to just do easily. For my household, we suddenly have a $400 student loan payment between my husband and I do. That's on an income based plan. We both work for nonprofits. We're not making beaucoup bucks over here. So, this is something that is really a financial strain for a lot of people. You know, when we're looking at 43 million student loan borrowers resuming payments at once, this is historic. We've never been in a time where that many people have had a payment come do all at once and it's not coming at really an ideal time when we look at the state of the economy in the world around us.
(Tony Beyer)
Right, exactly. And the previous episode that we had of the best Life podcast, we talked to Jackie Urban about some, you know, strategies and how we can deal with inflation and how we can deal with debt. And you can check that out on our website, altra.org or wherever you get your podcasts because you're listening to us right now. So, when it comes to all those people with their student loans resuming, what are some options are where can borrowers find out what options they may have when it comes to repaying those loans in an attempt to possibly try to make those a little bit more affordable? What resources are out there and available?
(Amber Miller)
Absolutely. So, the first thing I want to say is you are not alone. If you're stressed about this and you do have options. The key thing, though, is communicating and finding those options and getting those options agreed to. Student loans are not just going to magically go away. If you kind of put your head in the sand and hope that they go away. I wish it was that easy, but communication is really key here. So, the best resource that I would recommend anyone and everyone go check out is the Loan Simulator at studentaid.gov, you can log into your student aid account so it will have your actual student loan information there. It'll ask you a few questions about your student loans, but also about just your financial goals in general. You know, are you working towards anything? What are you concerned about? And it'll walk you through there, get a little bit of financial information from you, and then it will actually recommend a student loan repayment plan for you based on your situation, your goals, your answers to those questions. And there's a button you can click to view and compare all plans. I absolutely recommend everyone clicks that button and takes a look at everything, but it will give you the details side by side for all of the different student loan repayment plans you're eligible for, and it will show you the payment amount. It will show you how long it would take to repay it under that plan, how much you would pay back in total. If you're eligible for like Public Service Loan Forgiveness or one of those programs, it would show you some information there. But you can look at that side by side. You can click in and get more information and it's a fantastic resource to review all your options in one place, look at everything side by side and determine what option makes the most sense for you.
There is a brand-new income driven plan called the SAVE Plan that has just been rolled out. The Department of Education has really focused on making this a little bit more streamlined and really trying to expand the number of people who are eligible for a $0 or very low dollar income based payments. So, it's absolutely worth checking out. If you're stressed about making a payment, explore your options. Use that loan simulator to see what you might be eligible for.
(Tony Beyer)
Excellent. And we'll put links to everything that we talk about in our show notes so you're easily able to find them. Talking about the Student Loan Simulator, the SAVE Plan and things like that. But I guess it's comforting to know that, you know, those that are stressed about student loan repayments starting up, that they are not alone. And it's very, very true. You know, millions and millions of millions of Americans are experiencing this right now. And then when it comes to say something like public service, you know, loan forgiveness or something like that, in the future like that, still that program is very much still out there and very much still an option for for borrowers. Is that correct?
(Amber Miller)
Absolutely. And the current Department of Education Administration is taking steps to make that program a little bit more functional, I guess, for lack of a better word. It's been around for a while, but it's been pretty challenging to meet all of the requirements in some cases. So, there are some steps that have been taken to hopefully make that program work a little bit more the way it's supposed to. So absolutely still available if you're curious about that, you can use the employer search tool to find out if the employer that you work for, or maybe have worked for are maybe considering going to work for, is eligible for that to see if that's a program that you're eligible to take advantage of as well.
(Tony Beyer)
Excellent information. And yeah, if you're able to get some of those loans forgiven and, you know, help others at the same time, that's a win win, I think for many. Any other resources or any other ways or places or things that people can reach out if they are struggling a little bit?
(Amber Miller)
Yeah. As far as the student loans, studentaid.gov is really the main one, but I'll throw it over to Andrea to talk a little bit more about how GreenPath can really support people with this or with other similar concerns.
(Andrea Irvin)
I would say the best thing is to use GreenPath itself as a resource. We can connect members with our financial wellness experts that can look at their student loans. We can look at a credit report with them so we have that information and go through their budget to also kind of see how those payments will fit into their budget and if there's any other areas that they need to make adjustments to make it all work, we develop action plans so, if there are specific steps and there's other resources that we find in conversation, we can include those in the action plans for them as well. So, there's a lot of resources available. Just calling GreenPath is a good step to get to more of them.
(Tony Beyer)
Absolutely. And we have links to GreenPath Financial Wellness on our website at altra.org.
And if someone's just having trouble trying to make their payment, you know, are they able to reach out to, say, their servicer or something like that to try to make something work if they're if they really don't have any other options because this is a big change for many.
(Amber Miller)
Absolutely. Yes. And student loans, federal debt is a whole different ballgame. Those aren't just going away, typically, even in bankruptcy, there is very, very limited options. So, coming up with a plan is super, super imperative here because these will continue to be a headache for you if they're not resolved. So absolutely. My first recommendation is start with that loan simulator, see if you're eligible for a $0 or a low dollar income-based payment. If you're not, maybe it's a temporary hardship, maybe something is going on right now that it doesn't lead to that income plan being an option, but you're like, “I still can't do this right now,” you may be eligible for a forbearance or a deferment, which is something that you would go through your servicer to apply for. That would be a temporary time period where you don't have a payment or don't have a full payment due to allow you to get your ducks back in a row and get things back on track and then go from there to get those payments resumed.
If you're not eligible for a forbearance or a deferment, you're not eligible for an income-based plan that's affordable, The Department of Education has announced a temporary on-ramp period over the next year for people as these payments resume. I think it's kind of a combination of knowing that there are still some people out there who aren't aware that these are resuming, or don't have their communication methods updated, but also, just knowing that this is a huge financial burden for people to take back on. There is a one-year time period starting from now. So, i believe through October 2024, where if you don't make your student loan payment, or if you don't make your full student loan payment, it will not impact your credit negatively. Hear me saying that this payment is still due. Your interest is still accruing. If at all possible, make that payment. This is like a last case resort, but know, that you've got a little bit of flexibility there from the credit side of things to get ducks in a row if this is just not going to be something that can happen for immediately. But again, if at all possible, your servicer is very likely to have options for you if you're feeling the sting of this, that communication is just key.
(Tony Beyer)
Yeah. And like you said studentaid.gov is going to have that information and you're able to log in and do that. Yeah. This a big change for many but it's nice to know that there are options and there are people to help and you don't have to go through all of this alone. So that's all the questions that I have for you both Andrea and Amber, are there any questions that I haven’t an asked or anything that you wanted to talk about here at the end? Or we could bring it back to Taylor Swift at football games, sure, there we go. Just trying to make it light. We'll see how that that joke ages.
(Amber Miller)
Yeah, I think the one thing that comes to mind is even if you're thinking like I don't think i have any options here, like you're feeling like you've explored stuff still reach out to GreenPath. Our counselors are really great at getting creative and making sure that you know about options that you may be didn't know exist or had never considered. So, even if you feel like you've explored all your options you don't think that there's anything GreenPath can do for you, the very worst thing that happens is you talked to us for 30 minutes, it's completely free. It's confidential. You hang up the phone knowing that you're doing everything, right? There's not a single thing that you could be doing different. You can pat yourself on the back and go along confidently knowing that. The other option is that you find out that maybe there's a path you didn't know about or hadn't considered, and this is like the game changer for you. So, it's really a win-win, it's free. It's confidential. We're here to help, we're not here to judge, but we are really great at getting creative and helping explore options that you may not have known about. So, please reach out. We are here to help. We're in partnership with Altra here to really just do what we can to make you sleep a little bit better tonight with student loans or with anything that's stressing you out, financially.
(Tony Beyer)
Yeah, we've got our Financial Coaches and in many of our offices and then GreenPath as well as an extension there. So, there's a lot of people to help and there's a lot of resources out there as well. I really appreciate both of you taking the time to talk to us on the podcast, we appreciate you, taking a moment to do that. Thank you so much, Andrea and Amber.
(Andrea Irvin and Amber Miller)
Thanks for having us.
(Tony Beyer)
On this episode of the Best Life Podcast we spoke with Amber Miller and Andrea Irvin who are both Partner Experience Managers with GreenPath Financial Wellness.
That's going to do it for this episode of the Best Life Podcast presented by Altra Federal Credit Union. We appreciate you taking a moment to learn how you can live your best life. If you have a question or a topic you'd like us to cover, send me an email at tjbeyer@altra.org and who knows, it may even make it into a future episode. Don't forget to follow the Best Life Podcast, pretty much wherever you get your podcasts or find it on our website at altra.org.
Thanks again, be well, and we'll talk to you again soon.
