Navigating Student Loan Debt with Meagan Landress McGuire

If the thought of student loan debt makes you want to crawl into a hole and hide, this episode is for you!

Student loan debt is overwhelming for anyone, but especially for chronically-underpaid teachers.  If you’re in the boat of feeling overwhelmed, you are not alone.

In this episode of Real Teacher Talk, I sat down with student loan expert, Meagan Landress McGuire to discuss how to get started tackling this daunting topic.  We chat about how to navigate between your different loan forgiveness options, what the new forgiveness program could mean for you, and how to possibly get a refund on loans you’ve already repaid.  She also mentions how to get more support if you’d rather just hand things over to someone else!

Teaching is hard enough without having to add a whole other burden to your plate. My hope for this episode is that you feel supported and less alone when it comes to thinking through student loan debt and forgiveness options! I’m always cheering you on!

Resources Mentioned:
Where to connect with student loan experts like Meagan
Student Loan Planner Youtube channel
Student Loan Planner podcast
Blog category about student loans for teachers

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Transcript

Kristen Donegan  00:03

Hey, everyone, thank you so much for being here, we've got a really special guest episode today with Megan landrus McGuire. She is the perfect person, if you are in a position right now where you're trying to figure out what to do with your student loans, and maybe the debts piling up and you're not sure what the options are, this is the episode for you. So Megan is a student loan expert who's consulted with 2500 people on this is wild over $450 $450 million in debt. And then she helps people navigate the repayment options. I wish I had someone like Megan, when I was going through this, because I had no idea what to do. So Megan, thank you so much for being here.

00:51

Oh, goodness, thank you for having me. I look forward to chatting about student loans with you.

Kristen Donegan  00:56

$450 million. And that's wild.

00:59

Yep. And there's trillions outstanding. That's just like scratching the surface. Oh,

Kristen Donegan  01:05

my goodness. Now, how did you even get involved with this work in the first place?

01:11

Yeah, so I started my career in financial planning. And I had a passion for working with younger people, people right out of school, because that's where I was in life at the time. And, you know, the traditional financial planning industry is more geared towards retirement planning and investment planning, which is great that, you know, everyone needs that at some point in their life. But I was working, working with a lot of folks recently out of school out of grad school with mountains of student loan debt. And there just wasn't anyone answering those questions about what to do with the student loans. So I got really curious, and I started looking more into the complexity of the student loan world and learned that it is overwhelming link. Oh, yeah. Uh, huh. Oh, so I got really excited about how much impact I felt like I could have if I specialized in that area. And I've been doing that ever since. So it's, it's been definitely a ride, because there's been so many changes, so many announcements over the past even two years, but really enjoy helping people navigate the big elephant in the room that has student loan debt.

Kristen Donegan  02:26

Right? Because like retirements, great, but when you're drowning as it is right now, you're like, that's not even something I'm even thinking about.

02:33

Like, I can't even think about that until I deal with the student loans. So that's, that's where I come in. Totally. So

Kristen Donegan  02:39

it sounds like you enjoy then what you're doing.

02:42

Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm a big numbers nerd. I really like solving problems. And student loans are a big problem that I can help solve.

Kristen Donegan  02:50

I love it. Well, a lot of teachers, maybe like myself are wondering, like, when I start hearing student loan stuff, or numbers stuff or financial stuff, it drives my husband crazy, but I just tune out. Because my it just my brain. I don't know if it doesn't want to process it. But it's just like, very confusing for me. And so there may be other teachers out there feeling the same way where you feel paralyzed to even get started. So can you talk a bit about teacher loan forgiveness? And if it's different from other things that are out there right now?

03:26

Yeah, that's a great question. Because there is two relevant programs, I think out there for teachers. And they get confused between each other all the time. Or maybe the assumption is that they're the same thing. But they're very different programs. So there's teacher loan forgiveness, and there's public service, loan forgiveness, or PSLF. For short. Got it. So teacher loan forgiveness is the requirements to get loan forgiveness through that program, is you have to be a teacher, a qualified teacher working for five consecutive years, and has to be in a title one school. So a high need area, and you have to have federal loans. And if you're teaching you meet those timing requirements, you get 5000 of loan cancellation if you work any subject, but if you're in math, science or special education, you can get 17,500 canceled. 

So it's a quick hit, you know, just completely right off the top of the balance, it may satisfy the whole balance for someone who's got lower than 5000 or lower than 17,500. So that's a good program. I like to talk about public service loan forgiveness a lot though, because PSLF if your balance is larger to where the 5000 or the 17,500 wouldn't be enough to pay it off. PSLF is a better bang for your buck. And what I mean by that is it is 100% of loan forgiveness after you've made 120 qualifying payments, which is about 10 years, if you were completing it is, it's about 10 years. But thankfully, the requirement there is that you just have to be on an income driven plan. So the payments based off of a derivative of your income, making it affordable, no matter what your balance is. So those are kind of high level view the differences between those two, but let me know if you'd like me to drill down further.

Kristen Donegan  05:31

No, when you said that about teacher loan forgiveness, that must have been what I did, but it was at the time was called an apple grant or something like that. I don't know if it was California based or whatever it was, but it helped, it helped in my situation. So what would a teacher do right now then maybe who's just out of school? Or maybe they're not even close to the 10 year mark? Like, where do they? Where do they start?

05:55

Yeah, so if you are someone who borrowed after 2010, you probably have the right types of loans, meaning there's different types of federal loans out there. But if you borrowed after 2010, it's likely you have the right loans. So you would just want to make sure you were on an income driven repayment plan. And many people have not been in repayment for the past like two and a half years because of the COVID forbearance, that there has been on federal student loans where they just kind of shut off payments, shut off interest. So many people haven't had to enter repayment in a long time, but you'd want to make sure come January 2023, you get on an income driven plan. And then you could submit what's called an employment certification form. 

And this is done through student aid.gov. Everyone who has federal student loans will have access to this account, or to this website, you complete the employment certification form, verifying that you do work in a public service capacity, and get it signed by your employer, send it in, and then that tells the federal system that you're pursuing that program and they go back and they retro actively count up any of your prior payments that you've made. As long as you've been on an income driven plan in the past. If you haven't been on an income driven plan, then it's possible you're starting from now. But it's probably much better than trying to pay the loans off. So it's still worth looking at.

Kristen Donegan  07:27

This gives people hope, or someone who's like me who's like, I don't know where to start. So you've given you've given the people. Boy, now do you know if teachers who've been paying towards their loans will get any sort of money refunded?

07:43

Yes. So there was also a one time cancellation? Well, so two, two ways refunds could potentially happen right now. So first, is there is a one time cancellation that was announced about a month ago, so maybe September of 2022, where Biden had come out and said, Hey, we're gonna cancel 10 or 20,000 of student loan debt. And if you have the direct loans, federal loans, you'll be eligible for that if your income was less than 125,000, if you're single, or 250,000, if you're married or head of household. So you do have to apply for that. There's an application live on student aid.gov for that right now. Anyone can apply. It is held up right now in court, though, honestly, it is actually getting applied. So we're optimistic about it and seems like we're pushing through. But definitely submit an application regardless. And you can do this in addition to public service, loan forgiveness or teacher loan forgiveness.

Kristen Donegan  08:53

And that's great news for teachers, because teachers we know are underpaid as it is. So this is one area maybe for that. That can come in a little bit handy, right?

09:02

Oh, yes, yeah. And if you've paid, so let's say you've paid and you would have gotten 10,000 forgiven, but you paid it down to like 5000 in the past couple of years, then you'll get a refund. They're gonna look back for refunds as far as March 2020, to see if any payments have been made since then. And then if so, you'll get that refunded. And you could do that regardless. So that's the second part. So the first part is the cancellation. You can get refunded if you had overpaid. And then the second part is just anyone in general. So if you're someone who's thinking, oh man, I should have been looking at teacher loan forgiveness or I should have been looking at Public Service Loan Forgiveness instead of paying my loans back. Same story with the march 2020 deadline or the timeline, you can go back and request a refund for any payments you've made since March of 2020. And it's really helped me a way to get money back Yeah.

Kristen Donegan  10:00

Now do you have any student loan advice for teachers who may want to go back to school and you know, get their masters or some sort of advanced degree?

10:11

This is very common, I see this quite a lot. So what I would suggest doing is, especially if you're going to be borrowing for this upcoming degree, it makes sense just to put the rest of your loans like your undergrad loans, probably into the in school deferment, there's no really well, this might sound crazy me saying that there's no real benefit to paying on your loans while you're in school, because you won't be getting credit on the new loans that you're borrowing towards PSLF. So when you borrow loans, every loan has their own payment count towards PSLF. So your older loans could be getting closer to forgiveness, if you kept paying that your newer loans can't get credit until you graduate on them. Yeah. So it might just make sense to hold off on paying at all until the whole balance can be eligible working towards PSLF going forward. But that would be what I would suggest to do if if you have to borrow again, coming

Kristen Donegan  11:08

up. Got it. That's helpful. I wish I knew about that when I went and got my master's. Now, if you work, or do you work with a lot of teachers, are you working with all types of people,

11:21

all types of people, but teachers are very commonly folks that we're working with because of public service loan forgiveness, like how much opportunity there is for teachers to get access to forgiveness. Now then,

Kristen Donegan  11:34

what are the biggest questions? Or what do you hear most often from fellow teachers about student loans?

11:40

Hmm, I think it's the biggest questions are honestly just should I do teacher loan forgiveness or PSLF? Because you do have to choose? You can't do both at the same time. So if you do teacher loan forgiveness and get the 5000 or the 17,500, the next year, you're starting over with your PSLF payment count those five years can't go towards the 10 years left. Oh, okay. So that's a big question that teachers have. It's what's the better bang for my buck, buck? Uh, huh.

Kristen Donegan  12:13

Yeah, I see. I see where you're going with this? Yes. Now, I know you offer a service, right? With the student loan planners. What does that do? Or what is how can that help teachers?

12:31

Yeah, so student loan planner, we're a website, we're a consulting company. So there's about nine of us now on the team. We're all student loan planning consultants. All in the financial planning industry all specializes in student loans. So very, very educated in that field. But we offer a one on one consultation service. So if you're someone who has struggled to get access to these programs, or this is just something that you're not interested in learning about. Like me with taxes, like funny enough, like I'm in the finance world, I don't want to do my own taxes. I will delegate that to someone

Kristen Donegan  13:12

else. Yeah.

13:14

Yeah. So if that's you, you need some help, you want to make sure you're maximizing all of your options, then we do offer a one on one consultation. That's an hour with one of us on the team, we walk through your specific situation, you and your spouse if you both have student loans, and we really drill down into what the best repayment path is going to look like for you. So that means what repayment plan you should be on how much that would be how that compares to other options that you have available. We'd answer the teacher loan forgiveness or PSLF question for you. So really gives you a plan of action. And then you have 12 months of email support from us afterwards. So they love that. Yeah. So I think it's very comprehensive and gives you the peace of mind to know that you're on track with everything.

Kristen Donegan  14:02

So it's like someone they're holding your hand along the way. So you don't have to figure it out on your own. Yeah, so where can they get more information? I know, we'll link everything in the show notes. But where can they go right now? They're like, I need this

14:16

immediately. Yeah, so student loan planner.com. Just visit our website. If you wanted to book a one on one consultation, you can under our Need Help tab. We also have a ton of free content on the website too, specifically for teachers. So you could go to our like blog section and find articles all about teachers and student loans. We have a podcast, we have a YouTube channel, so all that stuff. If you want to drill down into it one weekend, you know we've got you covered on the free side and the paid side if you want the assistance so

Kristen Donegan  14:54

I love that stuff because that's where I just copy and paste and send it to my husband and be like here. Just tell me what this means and what are our next steps should we do? Now my last question for you Are there government benefits for people that have student loans, aside from student loan forgiveness.

15:14

So I will say within the federal system, there's a lot of repayment options available, which that can sound overwhelming. But I think that's really valuable. Because I've, you know, I could talk to a room of 100 people, and everybody's plan might be slightly different. And so that's maybe a scary thing to think about how many options there are. But it's also a positive thing, knowing that any way we look at your game plan, like we're going to find an option that's going to make sense for you. You just have to know how to use the tools and move forward with that plan. 

So I think that's an empowering thing. There are income driven forgiveness options that even if you're not a teacher working in like a school district setting, so if you're a private school teacher, like not eligible for these programs, there's still income driven options that can make the payment affordable, we can maybe look into refinancing, which could help reduce the interest rate. So there's lots of opportunities, it's just a matter of what's going to make the most sense for you specifically,

Kristen Donegan  16:18

that's really helpful. I appreciate you being here, giving teachers kind of a starting place and making something that maybe feels maybe it's just for me, but heavy and overwhelming, a little bit more manageable, so that you can get this taken care of, because I know probably for so many teachers out there with loans piling up, it must feel like a burden, some kind of or it's just like, oh my gosh, I don't know how I'm going to do this. And it's just like that thing that's always there. Just piling up like all those ungraded papers and things that we talked about a lot on the podcast, where it just like, gets your anxiety going. So we will leave links and all the things for you guys to use this for your life, share with your teacher, friends and your colleagues so that you don't have to kind of figure this out on your own. So Megan, thank you so much for being here. And just really helping teachers. I'm glad you love what you're able to do and make a big impact to make life a little bit easier for everyone.

17:17

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'd love that you said share this with a teacher share this with someone like there are options out there. So you don't have to feel alone. Your colleague does not have to feel alone. This is a big burden that a lot of people have but definitely one that we can tackle.

Kristen Donegan  17:34

Yeah, no one tells you about this when you're we're doing all this, you know, in your undergrad like Oh, money, right? Sure. And then you're like, oh, yeah, I gotta pay it back. How's that? Oh, I look back at my college days. Well, everyone else thanks so much for being here. Make some time for yourself today. You deserve it. You work so hard, and we will see you next week.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

teachers, student loans, loans, loan forgiveness, public service loan, people, paying, payments, options, programs, student loan debt, working, megan, income, question, forgiveness, refunded, piling, balance, borrow