Episode 4: Law School and Loan Forgiveness

In Episode 4, we talk to a government prosecutor who originally took her role as a way to pay down the more than $300,000 in student loans that she accrued while attending law school. Now, after six years of making what she thought were qualifying payments, is praying she gets loan forgiveness after taking a job in public service. She explains how it might be possible that her application for public service forgiveness may be rejected.

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Transcript

Nikki: I’m Nikki Nolan and this is A Matter of Life and Death, a show about people in the United States and their student debt. Today’s episode, “Law School and Loan Forgiveness.” Due to this person’s job, they’ve asked to remain anonymous. They are a lawyer, and we talked about student debt and its personal impact on her life and her hopes for loan forgiveness through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

This is her story.

Welcome. Thank you so much. Let’s get into those. How much debt do you have?

Anonymous: I am currently at $335,812.66.

Nikki: Oh my God. That’s the biggest number so far.

Anonymous: I actually have these loans from my graduate degree. I’m a government attorney and I went to one of the most expensive law schools in the country. And unfortunately it didn’t not get too much money from them to the complete degree. And until I did take out FFEL loans and public service loans.

Nikki: Wow. Yeah. All mine is also from Grad School. Did you- so was it a two-year program? Was it, I actually know nothing about your program or your degree that you got.

Anonymous: Law school is three years and that means six semesters, or more if you’re me and you decide that you want to do a summer program , which is something I really wanted to do. And that’s probably also what led me into paying a little bit more. But then again, there were many benefits to that, and I also traveled on the school’s dollar. I got to go live in different countries and that was pretty phenomenal as well. It just all pays out in the end and now I’m stuck with the bill.

Nikki: Yeah. Do you enjoy what you do?

Anonymous: Well, I love being an attorney and I do feel that I was definitely a nerd. I loved law school- not many people say that- but I did love every moment in law school. I loved my programs and I loved the school that I went to. Had I been offered another place, which I did actually, I was offered money at other schools, I probably, if I could do it over again, might have gone to those schools just based on the fact that I am more than a quarter of a million dollars indebted to the government. Knowing how great and grand my loans have become, it’s very daunting sometimes to say that with a straight face and smile.
So once you get out of law school, what they don’t tell you is that you have a grace period of about six months after you have to start paying back your loans.

I graduated in May and by November , I was repaying my loans. It was actually back then that there was a change in the program where you could consolidate undergraduate loans and graduate loans as well. And fortunately for me, I didn’t have that many undergraduate loans. I only had a private loan that I had already paid off and that was actually something that I didn’t even realize I had until my mom kind of put me on notice that she had taken out a loan in my name. So, one of those things that you don’t realize is when your parents are helping you out- my parents didn’t help me out through undergraduate and I did get a scholarship and undergraduate. I went to a private school for undergraduate, and I also loved my experience there. so I didn’t really feel the weight of debt because I had parents who were very helpful and supportive, but also because I got scholarship money.

So it wasn’t until I started taking a hold of all of the debt that I had taken out in my name for my graduate school, because my parents did not help me with that, and I started realizing how things were actually working. And how that undergraduate loan even affected how my graduate loans would be consolidated. Fast forward to November 2012, I started paying back my loans, which back then I believe they were maybe $220,000. So we’re six years after that and already, in interest, I’ve accrued almost a hundred thousand dollars.

Nikki: Yeah. So you said that like, oh, going back to what you said before, why did your undergraduate private loan transform how you could consolidate your loans later on? I’ve never heard that before.

Anonymous: Well, there was a shift in the law and I’m not exactly quite sure, but when Sally Mae and Freddie Mac started getting in trouble for how they were consolidating loans or not consolidating loans, there was a little bit of an uprise and unfortunately I don’t have all the information as to why it happened, but I’ll tell you that the specifics as to how it was explained to me when I was first going through Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac, and try to figure out who was actually going to be my loan holder, because then that at that time too, they were also kind of shifting as to who actually I’m paying my loans back to you. It ended up being Sally Mae and a representative, who I’m sure maybe had no more than three years of experience, is telling me now that I’m going to owe this much and I can’t unfortunately consolidate my private loan with my FFEL loan. So that was something that was a change in the law. And I can’t remember exactly for what reason. They never really quite explained it to me. They just said, look, you can only consolidate your educational loans in graduate school, not from undergrad.

So I started out in public service. I was a prosecutor actually. So of course I was a government attorney and that’s where I started my career. And in starting my career, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t getting paid much. That was really the trade-off, is that you get all this great trial experience, but, you know, depending on what state you’re in – and really not even depending on what state you’re in- prosecutors really don’t make much. They’re overworked. They’re underpaid. And then at the end of the month, they have, this big, huge student loan to pay back to their law schools.

So I actually have a combination kind of like you Nikki, I have combination of direct loans, FFEL loans- or as you had. And I had, I think, a Stafford subsidized loan. So what was nice about my consolidation is they consolidated everything for the most part , but I still have what they call the direct subsidized consolidation loan, and a direct unsubsidized consolidation loan.

Nikki: Yep.

Anonymous: I don’t know what the differences are. I just know that I get two accounts every time I go into FedLoan and I look and I see, okay, I owe this much on the direct unsubsidized and this much on the direct subsidized.

I pay an interest rate of 7.375%. I wish I could pay less.

Nikki: Yep.

Anonymous: I was paying less on my private loan, which is why it had no real difference. And that’s also why I think part of the reason why they couldn’t consolidate is because they didn’t want to give me that lower interest rates.

I do feel that education wise, I am very happy with where I ended up. I love doing public service and I can talk a little bit more about public service loan forgiveness, which is why I took the job I did.
Nikki: It sounds like you’ve done a lot of research and, and you know, a lot about the, the federal loan forgiveness program.

Anonymous: Yes. So you have, you have all these different statistics now, the public service loan forgiveness program- I’ll give you a few numbers here- but roughly I think it’s about 440,000 people are currently in public loan service forgiveness. Actually, I’m sorry, that number is closer to 500,000. I think it’s 494k as of 2017. And that’s a total number of borrowers who have one or more approved public service loan forgiveness employment certification forms.

So truthfully told there’s probably more about 500,000 of us. What was nice about the Obama administration is they really were aiming or at the very least this was, in a way, a nice loophole for those of us who had really big student debt and who wanted to work in public service, it was an initiative for most people to take on jobs that they wouldn’t necessarily have taken on because of the salary. And so I took it on knowing that, you know, within 10 years or, you know, maybe a little bit more, given that I didn’t realize what payments would count and wouldn’t count.

One day I was late on a payment by a day. This is when I first started. And of course, you know, I feel like you become an adult. You know, maybe I was an adult before grad school, but really an adult after I realized how many loans I had to pay and how I had to be on time.

And one of the things that I found so, so crazy is because I was a day late that payment would not count. But then I also paid my other loan, you know, another, I guess I paid the full amount. So the 400 at that point, I think it was $234 a month, right? So I paid like almost $500 because now my amount was a little bit higher because it was two months, but that didn’t count as two months.

It counted as one month under my public service loan forgiveness. And again, that’s 40 payments. So you pay for 10 years. I don’t know if we said that before, but just so everyone’s aware of public service loan forgiveness means that after 10 years, which would be 120 payments, you would then be able to be forgiven with one lump sum. That’s pretty much my experience as to why I went into the program. And again, now-a-days, I don’t even think that program will be existing anymore. And because of a few different situations, now that the Trump administration has made clear, they don’t feel that this loophole should exist anymore.

For the most part, and I can get into that in just a bit, but I wanted to let you know that’s how my people are currently finding this. And so the first group of people who would have been forgiven under the public service loan forgiveness program- that would have been from 2007- and so in 2017, many people went to go do their loan forgiveness. And a lot of them are still in litigation because not all of their loans were actually forgiven.

Nikki: Oh, yeah, I heard about that. Oh my God. It’s yeah- that’s what – they are the barometer for, if this is going to work.

Anonymous: Right. There’s also a few different tax loops now and that’s one to say that once you’ve had those loans were given in one lump sum, they might count it as income now. I’m not sure what the current status is of that . And so now if you do get, if it were my case $330,000 worth of debt forgiven, they counted towards your income.

And so now you’re paying taxes on that income. And before you used to be able to take out, I think a tax plan, you know, a repayment plan for those taxes. Now, I don’t think you can, and so that’s just like another bite into your finances right after you feel like you’ve gotten this weight taken off of your shoulders.

Nikki: Yeah. This, this plan is really wonderful, but then most people don’t realize that some or most of it becomes taxable income to you. So you might end up paying like $90,000 in interest or something like that. Yeah.

Anonymous: Yep. And it’s, it’s just, you know, when it comes to graduate student loans, about 40% of the $1 trillion student loan debt was used to finance those graduate and professional degrees. So now you’re looking at what I think is another unfortunate circumstance of what happens when people decide to go to grad school.

And I’m not saying that we don’t need doctors and lawyers. Of course we need doctors and lawyers, but you’ll find that- I think here’s the shift. Here’s where we realize, you know, things are becoming, so over-saturated. College degrees now are just- I don’t want to say that they don’t apply any more, but really just because you have a college degree does not mean you’re going to get a job in this day and age.
And so the worst part is, is that now people feel like they have to go to grad school in order to feel like they’ve been successful, in order to feel like they could be qualified for other jobs. And what happens is that then you’re overqualified for some jobs and you’re not getting the jobs that you would have gotten if you hadn’t gone to grad school, or if you just kept working in the actual field of your choice.

And so it’s just an interesting dynamic that’s playing out mainly because of the job, you know, the saturation factors when it comes to jobs and people wanting more higher degree. But with higher degrees comes a lot of higher debt. And now nearly, I think, 1.4 million undergraduates are private loans- I, this from, I think, 2011 and 2012 according to Student Loan Hero, but that specific number has increased significantly since 2011 and 2012 when they did that study.

So, it’s on the rise and that’s the problem that we have now is that, you know, you have to start taking out loans immediately. And so if I were to go back and really talk to anyone who is thinking about going to law school, well, the first thing I’d probably ask them is why do you want to go to law school?

But then the second thing I’d ask them is, if you’re going to go to law school, where are you thinking of applying? Because it is really what you make it and you know, to do it over again, I would have said go to the school that’s going to get me the most money, the most scholarship, because it’s just sometimes not worth dealing with this. Because this, again, just becomes another responsibility that you have to think about when you’re making every decision in your life later on.

Nikki: Yeah. So let’s go into that. Like how has this impacted decision-making. I’ve already heard from you that you’ve gone into public service because of the loan. You might’ve taken possibly another path. You, you love what you’ve been doing, but, they’re sort of like things, has it impacted you.
For me, it impacted me ever thinking about buying a house or at some point in my life, when I hit 30, I was like, ‘Hey, maybe I want a kid.’ And then all of a sudden I was like, ‘Nope. Not going to have a kid.’

Anonymous: Well, I’ll tell you that there are plenty of decisions that I’ve made based on the fact that I had loans, and one of them definitely pertains to my actual employment. I don’t want to work for a private company or go into private practice because it’s just not worth it to me.

One, you know, government work is very stable. Meaning that, you know, there are less reasons for you to get fired. You really have to be pretty bad at your job to get fired in government work. But at the same time, you know, knowing that there’s stability there and that there’s always a paycheck has always been great. And the fact is, is that that paycheck goes to my public service loan forgiveness.

And hopefully, you know, I don’t have to pay off a lump sum. Especially because if you go into private practice, one of the bigger things is that you end up paying more. Now, and I had to go into forbearance this last month, and that’s because again they just didn’t really give me the heads up that I was going to need to re-certify very quickly. Otherwise I would have to pay what the full amount was. Guess what the full amount was- it’s $3,987. That’s per month. And I can’t afford that. So in terms of my, you know, bi-weekly paycheck, that would have been it. I would have been done. That’s all that it would go to. I wouldn’t have any money for my mortgage, and I’ll get to that in a second.

But it is one of those things where I recognize immediately that I would have to stay in public service in order to get these loans forgiven. And now I’m six years in, but not quite in terms of my actual payments, probably about five years in . And that’s because of just little things, like I told you about where, like for instance, if you pay a day late, that payment doesn’t count towards your loan forgiveness. If you pay twice in a month, those payments don’t count. It only counts as one for loan forgiveness. So it is definitely the, the work aspect is one of my decisions. But even then, you know, when you start taking a public service job, you don’t realize that, you know, getting paid- I used to get paid actually monthly. One paycheck.

And that was awful knowing that all of my bills would be due in terms of credit card bills, in terms of my loans. And it scared me half to death cause I would live paycheck-to-paycheck as a, you know, in my late twenties going into my thirties . I was eating ramen noodles. And that’s actually something that, like, I kind of flaunted sometimes. But the truth is that you can’t really afford too much. You can’t go out as much. It’s one of those things where you’re continuously thinking about having to pay it. I like to pay things on time and I like to pay my credit card bill all in full. So you have to think about, you know, certain things.

And I’ve been really fortunate. I’ve had parents who helped me with my gas bill, you know, because I couldn’t afford gas in my car. Or of who’ve helped me with, you know, I got into a car accident recently. It was about, it was last year actually, and my parents, it wasn’t even my fault I was parked. Someone ended up hitting my parked car at a parking lot as they were pulling out. But it caused some damage and of course I couldn’t afford it. So I was lucky to have parents who were helpful enough to, you know, kind of loan me a few hundred dollars just to pay my, you know, like my car, to fix my car.
It definitely has affected my way of thinking. And I want kids, so one of the things that I’ve now thought about is like, how are we going to do this? And I got married last year. Luckily I had parents to help me pay for that wedding and not have to pay all out of pocket for that wedding as well. But it made me realize, you know, with even my husband’s salary- and he’s actually the one who bought the house. I didn’t want to buy the house because I was afraid of how it was going to affect my debt . And how it’s going to affect my credit.

But one of the things that we found is he got a better interest rate just by applying for the house and for the mortgage by himself, not without me. I mean, can you imagine them looking at my debt and if we’re married, knowing that that debt now is something that you assume once you get married? It’s kind of, it’s kind of insane. It really is. It definitely makes you kind of realize that, you know, bringing in another person to your life is such a great thing. It’s a blessing. But at the same time, when you explain to that person, by the way, I have a secret to that many people don’t know about. And the secret is, is that I actually owe about a quarter million dollars to the government.

You know, it would make me run away thinking about it in another way. But you know that these are your loans and that this is something that hopefully will pay off. And you know, god forbid they actually take away this program. Aa lot of us relied immediately on this program in deciding to take public service jobs. I could have taken- I got offers from private firms where I would have been making six figures. Just knowing how much I’d have to pay, you know, I decided not to do that so that I could get my loans forgiven.

Yeah. Can you imagine if they decide that this program just shouldn’t exist anymore, and all of us kind of have these contract claims out. We had reasonable reliance on the fact that this program was here and that’s the reason why we did that. Otherwise we would have taken other opportunities to pay off our debt quicker.

It’s just, you know, one of those things where, even when you get married, trying to explain all these little details and why it matters- it’s a big deal. My husband still at this time, probably reminds myself, I think at one point I was paying my loans and I had to pay it from our joint bank account once.
And he said, well, why are we paying it from the joint bank account? These are your loans, right? And I’m like, well, technically they’re your loans too now.

Nikki: Surprise! It sounds like having like a secret that’s exactly, sort of, how it felt for me. And why I started this podcast is that, like, it’s almost like depression or something like that where sometimes things are stigmatized and they shouldn’t be because we really need to have a frank conversation about this. Because it is getting outrageous. Like 44 million people in the United States have student debt and that’s just outrageous.

Anonymous: Yeah. And then you talk about delinquency, which is something that many people don’t want to talk about, but where, you know, people who lose their job, people who, for whatever reason- I’ve never been in that position, but, you know, knowing that there are people who really can’t afford to take many risks because of the fact that they might, you know, lose a job and then lose their way of, you know, paying off their loans. One of the biggest things to now know is that I think it’s like 11.2% of those student loans are delinquent. And what happens to that? You know, what happens when someone decides to claim for bankruptcy? It’s just, it’s just kind of this dodgy thing.

I’m now on the REPAYE plan, which has given me just a slightly lower amount that I have to pay every month, as opposed to income-based. It was so upsetting to find out that. I wasn’t informed the income-based repayment was not my lowest plan. Was not the lowest payment that I could make.

And so even changing over to that plan, this is one of those payments that didn’t count by the way, I had to change over. And I had to pay $5 one month and then I had to pay the up-bridge of whatever the amount was that would have been, you know, what I would have paid if they told me initially that that rate would have been, you know, what it was. But again, there you go, three months doesn’t count.

Nikki: Yeah. It’s three months. That’s how long it took for me. I went from income-based as a Pay As You Earn one. It took three months. They didn’t inform me about the $5 thing. And then all of a sudden mine also ballooned up to like, now you owe $2,000 and I was actually paying $6- $600 a month.
But, it was, it was shocking. I got a survey recently from them that was like, what is the best way that we could communicate with you? And I actually didn’t have a good answer for them because I’ve just like, everything you’re doing feels wrong.

Anonymous: Well then even just trying to calculate how much you get or how much you have to pay back on those repayment plans. When I got married, that was another thing that they said, well, now your husband’s income counts for how much you make altogether. And I thought, well, that’s really unfair. Because if I were just to have filed my taxes separately, you would only be paying- or charging- me a certain amount. And the truth was, there are ways now, and I won’t exactly disclose how, but you can say that you are unaware of your husband’s income. So the truth was, I told them, I said, look, I don’t have that information. I’m going to file it like I would file separately.

And now, because of that, I’m still getting my same payment. But, you know, had they told how they had, they been told that my husband has some more income and knowing even just from the small increase that I got a few years ago on my salary to now, it’s, it’s almost kind of hysterical how that payment could go up to $432 just because they say I have a thousand more dollars of income a month.

Actually, one of the things that I think I wanted to touch on actually, because this is talking about – and I, I, and I get it cause I think I’m just so absorbed about the facts that surround the public service loan forgiveness program- and that’s only because, you know, I get these things every day. Every single day. You get these emails that are just bombarding you about what you can do as a person who is in debt and what powers you have.

Cause really we have none, but the more people who speak up, kind of like how you mentioned, the more people who speak up and the more people who sign these petitions and, and that kind of thing, it really does apply part of the voice. And I think I might’ve said this, that Obama didn’t start the actual public loan forgiveness program.

That was actually started under president George W. Bush in 2007, but really Obama, like, tried to push the program and started to really create more transparency under his administration. But, you know, from there it’s just been so crazy how, like, you know, 7,500 people have asked for their loans to be discharged, and I think fewer than a thousand are expected to qualify. And that actually is coming from a report that I think I read at CNN. It’s insane that this is what we deal with. You know, it was meant to encourage people with student debt to remain in lower paying jobs that serve the public.

And here we are, public defenders, prosecutors, social workers, peace court workers. And we can’t get our loans forgiven. It’s just, it’s just one of those things where you continue to hear the Department of Education say that they’re unable to say whether or not, you know, these people have been approved or rejected in terms of their discharge. And we want to know why.

We want to know why. If only a thousand people are deemed eligible over the first year , then that’s only 15% of how many people who’ve actually applied to have their loans discharged. Why is the number so low?

Nikki: Oh my, that just sounds so incredibly devastating, especially like, you are six years into this. And like you’ve been doing everything correctly. And, and to- that’s just- it just feels so unfair!
Anonymous: Not wrong. It’s wrong. And I think that, you know, when you talk about your payments that you think are going to count towards 10 years of this program, you know, it’s just, you think about 10 years of feeling like you’ve wasted your time.

And I really hope that’s not what I’ve done. I, you know, I’ve had some really amazing experiences doing what I do. And I do love what I do, but, you know, in terms of how much it is financially cost me and mentally cost me. You know, and it, and it brings on physical, you know, physical pain that you don’t even realize that you’re just like, I can’t afford this because I have to pay roughly $330 for something that I don’t know if they’re even going to really, you know, forgive me on later. It makes you in a, in a state of indifference. And in a season of uncertainty, you get paranoid.

Nikki: Yeah. Yeah. It’s not, it’s a very uncomfortable feeling.

Anonymous: I’ll end with this because I think that at the very least it is something that people should be aware of when it comes to whether or not they’re going to take public service jobs. And that’s because the Trump administration, as of February of 2018, has proposed ending the public service loan forgiveness program for new borrowers. I know the congressional budget office has estimated that that program would save the government about $24 billion over the next decade.

But really, that’s where they want to save it? It kind of makes me just sick to my stomach knowing that that’s where they think they’re going to come up with their savings for education. It just, it really rewrites a lot of things that I knew to be good about going into public service. And now, you know, you’re going to see a lot of deterrents. So it is something that unfortunately new borrowers have to be aware of if they want to take a prosecutor job, if they want to take a public defender job, if they want to take a teaching job that their loans might not be forgiven and you’re going to have to be paying just as much, if not more than people who’d be making six figures in private practice or in a private job.

Nikki: That makes total sense. That’s why I ended up going to the going to public- or private service with a private loan was because in the long run, I think I would have ended up paying close to half a million dollars if I’d stayed in the FedLoan Servicing sort of loan program and, and not being in public service. Like I would have half a million dollars.

So when I decided to go into private service, I was like, I need to prioritize my loans because like the interest rate is insane. Why can’t students get a 4% interest rate? Why is it? I know that they are more risky.

Mostly cause we’re not supporting students to get good jobs because maybe there’s not a market for the amount of saturation that we have.

Anonymous: Well, that’s another- that’s also just another kind of vicious cycle that I think happens when you are, you know, a panicked borrower. You have education loans and you know, it’s just some settling to know that this is really your life and it does affect other ways in which people give you money for other things that normally you get money for. But I think, you know, just because you decided to further your education, you shouldn’t be penalized. You know, a wide variety of jobs that comes from everything like I said- teachers, doctors, lawyers- you know, it just, it makes it just so daunting that, you know, you can’t buy a house, like you said, right out, knowing that, you know, they’re going to look and say, well, you have a certain amount of loans already. We’re afraid you’re not going to be able to pay back also on your house. You know, but it’s, well-meaning in that to really pick and choose, you know, do you want to have a house and kids, and a successful life later on? Or do you want to continue to kind of put off those things, knowing that you have to pay back a certain amount of debt? And I feel like many of us are put in that same position where, you know, you’re always thinking about it.

It is one of those things where I try not to think about it anymore, as much as I used to. And that’s because it’s just a quality of life now. You know? Money comes and goes. And as long as I put aside certain amounts for those payments every month, I still try my best to take trips and to live my life the way I would without this debt.

Does it mean I can afford like every single thing under the earth? Absolutely not. And luckily I think really what is, I’m fortunate and I, I haven’t really talked about this too much, but I am very fortunate to have parents who make good money and who were able to help me and support me when I weaned off of them. and then also had to wean back on because of my loans. Not many people have that. Not many people have that support. So I couldn’t imagine doing this without my parents, who again, have been just so understanding about what kind of loan uncertainty I’m going through . And that’s one of those situations where, you know, it’s disheartening when you know that someone else probably doesn’t have that same situation.

Nikki: Yeah. we need to build up education around student debt that is accessible to parents that might not have this information, or it might not have access to the internet. There needs to be like a lot more education that comes from the government, which they will not do. So…

Anonymous: Well, I can tell you that there is comfort in knowing a few things. Students and past students are making their loan payments. And for those who aren’t qualifying, a lot of people now can get a lot of information from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It’s actually crazy how many complaints they’ve been receiving about loan servicers offering incorrect information, which is I think where a lot of this stems from. I don’t think that somebody, by the way, who only had like six months of experience, should be the one to be talking to you on the phone and telling you what you need to know.
It’s unfortunate that there’s just so much misinformation out there and that’s so many people who are counting on this, and, and are, are, you know, counting on getting some help from these people are just going to be flatly rejected based on a technicality. So one of the things that helps anyone to here and continue to here, it’s really just being- I hate to say this, but a little bit of a nagging asshole, for lack of a better term. You have to literally call every day, all day. You know, they only have, by the way, one fax number. By the way. Depending on who you’re with. But most of them only have one fax number that you can call in order to, or that you can, you know, send your information to, and that fax number ends up being busy.

So it’s trying to figure out, you know- a lot of the things are actually done by snail mail. Can you imagine just them losing a, you know, letter? It happens all the time, but really it’s just double checking, stepping back and making sure that everything is really- I hate to say this, but it is CYA on your part.
That’s the only way that this actually gets done, right?

Nikki: Yeah. You really have to step up. Like, send your- if you send something in the mail, make sure it’s certified and that they have to sign for it. Like things like that to, to really make sure they get it and that you have proof that they got it was what I had to do when they lost one of my, my pieces of mail.

What have I not discussed that, that maybe you want to discuss?

Anonymous: I would say that one of the main things that I think is important if you are a college student and you’re thinking about going grad school is really asking your reasons for why you want to go to grad school. And again, it can be that you’re the biggest nerd. It could be that you want, you like school. It’s because you need it. You need a specialized degree. I get it.

I want people to be more attentive and to be more mindful about why they’re going into the programs that they’re going to. Not just to complete it, but because they want to do it. Which, you know, obviously it doesn’t really feel too much with student loans, but it does have that, you know, once you kind of feel that you have your purpose and that, you know what you’re going to be doing, you’re not going to feel that you’ve wasted away your time or your effort knowing that the consequences basically ringing up student debt and student loans.

So that’d be the first thing I’d say. And then the second thing I think I would tell people is, you know, depending on what field you’re going into undergraduate degrees nowadays are just so- I feel like they’re thrown to the wayside. I feel like, you know, so what? Everyone has their undergraduate degree.
So if there’s a way that you can do it cheaper, I would. And I think that that is information that I wish someone would’ve told me. Look, if you get more scholarships at this school than you do at that school, college is what you make it. If you want to be in the top 5%, in the top 1%, you can do that. And you’re going to get the same opportunities as you would if you would have gone, maybe not to an Ivy league school, but you know, perhaps in the middle of the road schools where it wouldn’t have mattered. And if you got more money from that school, go ahead and take the money. Take the money because the truth is, is money is not really offered any more these days.

So scholarships are great. And, and really trying to lower as much debt as you could possibly be in when you get out and you’re an adult in the real world. And then going forward on graduate degrees. Obviously I have a lot to say about law school and whether or not, you know, it’s even- Sometimes when I hear people say, oh, well I don’t know what I want to do, but I think law school will just be a good thing for me to do. It prestigious. Or, it’s, or, or, you know, it’ll help me land a job one day.

I don’t think that’s really the situation anymore. I don’t think that that’s actually really the scenario that we’re in. Where it used to be that maybe, you know, 20, 30 years ago. Now-a-days lawyers have just as- just as tough of a time, if not tougher, really competing with their colleagues and getting those great jobs.
But, at the same time you say that if you are going to go to law school, obviously going to top tier law school. you know, something obviously in the top 50 would be great. That’s what I did. But then you find that sometimes your rankings drop, and then you’re upset with your law school because they didn’t really do what they were telling you they were going to do. Which was to keep their rankings up. So things drop and you just don’t expect those things . So it really doesn’t matter what law school you go to if they’re not an Ivy league. I don’t know.

I think it really matters about what you want to do, finding the right connections, and then making it what it is, because I know plenty of people. Plenty of really smart people who went to not the best law school, but still had a great experience, ended up graduating in the top 5% of their class and got better jobs than, or better paying jobs than I did. So, you know, it just depends. It really just depends. But I guess it’s those are the things that I can communicate to those people who aren’t in debt yet, and who are really thinking about what they want to do with their lives. It really is about being more attentive, especially in this day and age where there’s so many technicalities and so many things that people are not really thinking about. Because you don’t, you just don’t think about those things when you’re going through the motions. I think it’s worse for people who might have more supportive parents than others, because now you’re really not thinking about it until like afterwards, when it really becomes upon you to start paying back your loans.

Nikki: Yeah.

Anonymous: I think it really does go for other parts of life, about being mindful and being aware and, you know, just like I said, being attentive to what it is that you’re doing on this earth – whether that’s work-wise and life-wise. But money really rules everything, and it does affect your way of life, so be cautious.

Nikki: Yeah. I think that’s really, really good advice. If you could go back and tell your, yourself before you were in debt, just like one piece of advice, what would it be?

Anonymous: That’s a big one.

Nikki: You can take your time.

Anonymous: Uh, wow. I, I, you know, honestly, like I, I’m taking such a long time to answer this question, but I think it’s because it really goes back to what I was just saying. All the advice that I would have given other people, I wish I would have known when I was, you know, 26 and about to start paying off my loans. I would have gotten into the program earlier. I would have, you know, because again, I didn’t right away. So even though some of the payments counted, some of them didn’t count.

I don’t know. I guess really, if I could go even further back, maybe deciding to go to a different law school. I know that like my road, I wouldn’t want to change my road because I’m so happy where I am right now in terms of life. And, you know, I am not one to say that everything happens for a reason, but I do feel that there are certain things that, you know, where perhaps another door closes a window opens and yada, yada. I’m not trying to be cheesy or corny, but like, you know. So I don’t want to change my path. I wouldn’t want to change my path, but, you know, had I been smarter, maybe I wouldn’t have been in so much student debt.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, there’s really not much that you could have- and that I’m saying that out loud, actually I realized there’s really not much I could have done more. The only thing I would say is maybe from the very beginning of understanding money, understanding, you know, how loans are being repaid and how interest payments made a difference. You know, one thing, like I said, back in 2012, when the law changed apparently I could have done something that would’ve made, everything lower. Would have been easier to consolidate. And I never did it because I didn’t know that there was a deadline. You know, like those kinds of things make you just kind of want to kick yourself in the butt every single time you hear that. You’re just like, wow, I could have done this, but apparently because of the technicality I didn’t, and now, I have one un-subsidized consolidated loan, one subsidized loan. It’s really just becoming familiar with all the terms that you just didn’t realize you need to know. Whether it’s a Perkins loan or, you know, like I said, uh, the FFEL loans or, you know, direct loans. All of those things really matter. And understanding how things are forgiven and also how things are done, because there really just isn’t transparency. There’s no class that you can take.

Maybe there should be. Maybe there should be a class that you could take on how these programs and also how these loan servicers work. But you know what’s sad is even with that being said, their own people don’t know what they’re talking about half the time.

Nikki: That’s also the problem. Yeah. That you don’t know who you can go to for good and accurate information. Well, thank you so much for your time today.

Anonymous: All good. I’m happy to be here. And really , I feel like this is really therapeutic, almost. Talking about things that normally I don’t even like talking to my husband about because it just makes him red and crazy when he realizes like how much we have to pay back. But, um, very therapeutic and I appreciate your time and having me on.

Nikki: Matter of Life and Debt is produced by me Nikki Nolan.

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