[Cody] All right I think it's time for us to
get started with today's workshop.
Before I pass it back to Natalia
Abrams to get us started
just want to remind folks just one more
time that we are here to answer your
questions.
There will be a lot of information we
share today
so use the q and a box at the bottom of
your screen
to ask any questions. We will take
moments throughout the workshop to stop,
talk about these topics, and make sure
that we
clarify any of the important details.
So with that I'm going to pass it to
Natalia Abrams, the executive director of
Student Debt Crisis to get us started.
[Natalia]: Thank you Cody and we are also
today joined by Lindsay Clark
the director of external affairs at
Savi
one of our partners. Lindsay do we have
you on the on the call?
[Lindsay] Hi Natalia yes it's great to be here
with everyone and looking forward to 
to working with you all today.
[Natalia] Great, thank you so much. And today
we're really excited to introduce our
new student loan borrower outreach
program
here for folks in California and
frankly anyone that you know that needs
help with
their student loan debt nationwide but
we have brought together an entire
center for you all that includes access
to the workshops that you're on today
and also includes
use of the Savi tool which Lindsay
will talk about shortly and she has been
brought on
to be as a great partner Savi of ours
for
a while now but they've joined with us
in the student loan borrower outreach
program
along with Young Invincibles here in
California
and some other really great groups.
So we want you to have this
all completely free of charge to be able to
learn about your student loans, learn
about the repayment options especially
right now during COVID for many folks
that may have lost their jobs or had
reduced hours
be able to enroll in programs for free
and just kind of take a look at what's
there for you
in your own time because we know we're
going to give you a lot of information.
So we just wanted to say a little bit
about today's workshop.
So we are education and consumer
advocates; we're here to help you.
We're borrowers ourselves
helping you as student loan borrowers
but what we are not
are  attorneys or financial counselors
and we're not affiliated with the
Department of Education
and that's actually an important point
as you'll see when we talk about student
debt scams that
there are a lot of companies that will
lie to you and say that they are
affiliated when they're not
and so that's a disclaimer we like to
make but all of the information you can
find at the Department of Education's
website
or by registering with a Savi account
through
this great tool we'll show you very
shortly.
And then also most of this information
almost everything
applies to federal student loans and
we'll show you how to kind of figure out
whether you have federal
or private student loans and there will
be time for questions and answers
throughout the entire workshop
and at the end you can use the q & a box
and we will try to verbally get to your
questions throughout the workshop.
So we just kind of want to show you
what's going on
as a national snapshot
with student loan debt we know that you
probably know this
yourself that so many student loan
borrowers are struggling;
we have  four million borrowers
here in California alone
and 45 million in the country and we
know that
student debt has really become a civil
rights issue
and you can see this this snapshot that
half of
black or african-american borrowers are
behind on their loans
or black women who are the most
impacted group of people with student
loan debt
56% they have 56%
more than their white counterparts of
student loan debt and
the overall debt over a trillion dollars
of student loan debt is owed by women
alone.
So  we think it's important that
folks know we know that this is an
economic issue
impacting all of us but really it's a
civil rights issue as well
and we see that through this domino
effect
of negative impact on wealth;
we see that student loan debt prevents
home ownership;
more than half of first-time
homeowners
have trouble getting a down payment - I
know here in California
real estate's insane for so many people;
it just completely feels out of reach
and often due to our student loan debt.
And
so many folks, especially we
see here in California, are latinx
borrowers are more prone to
unemployment
especially during times of this
economic crisis that we're in
of COVID 19 crisis so we're
here
to help you with your student loan
debt we know that there's a lot of
probably other areas that we
wish we could help you with but if
we can help
 alleviate one of those issues
by
taking your monthly payment if you're
struggling to make it and
sharing also all of the federal updates
that's what we're here for.
So first we're going to just talk about
like how to find your student loan
and the basics of student loans because
often people do not know if they have a
federal or private loan
we're going to share resources with you
and there will always be important notes
at the end of every section. So here you
go:
what are federal loans, what are private
loans? So federal loans if you remember
way back when you applied for college
and you filled out a fafsa form
those are your federal loans these are
need based given to you by the
Department of Education
or if you're like myself with older
loans they may have been
given to you by banks but still connected
to the Department of Education
your interest is either subsidized or
not subsidized but
you do get you have available these
repayment plans
and hardship deferment and default
rehab
and public service loan forgiveness all
of those are going to be available only
for federal labs
and then you have private loans which
are often given to you directly from a
bank
they are based on your credit history
with those loans
your interest begins immediately and
they do not have the same
repayment options that the federal loans
provide. Here's an example of the
type of companies that you may be
dealing with
as you can see companies like Navient
service both federal and private loans
so just because
Navient is your servicer doesn't
automatically mean you have one type of
loan or the other
and we will show you  where to
go to make sure
 you have the federal loan.
So what should your federal loan
servicer do for you, what is their job?
So their job - they are contracted out by
the Department of Education
our tax dollars pay for these folks to
take care of our loans and we hear so
much from borrowers that they don't do a
good job but they should be
taking care of your payments and
processing them, they should be telling
you about
all of the available repayment programs
and what options are
the best for you. This is where we see a
real
failure with student loan servicers where
they often do not
put you into the correct program and
then they also should be sending you
communications and
currently right now during CARES act you
should have been hearing from your
servicer quite a bit
telling you and informing you of the
recent updates.
So even when you get to federal loans
it's not just so simple as federal
versus private; there's of course
different types of federal loans.
So they're grouped into three
groupings:
direct loans which are the majority
of them,
have been offered since 2010; however
there were some before.
These are the loans that are the most
generous - get you to the most generous
repayment programs and also will get you
into public service loan forgiveness.
You can always consolidate into the
direct loan program.
There are Perkins loans those are loans
given to you by your school
and then there are older federal family
education loans and these are loans that
were issued
before 2010. I mentioned a little
earlier
often these loans were issued by a bank
even though they were from the
Department of Education and for example
my loan came
from Wells Fargo but it was a Department
of Education loan, 
just to give you an example of what
that loan can look like. So those older
loans
there are still some repayment
programs for them; however depending on
where you're at in the process
some folks consolidate so they can take
advantage of public service loan
forgiveness or the more generous
income driven repayment options.
And so here's where you go to find your
information:
studentaid.gov is a Department of
Education website
and if you sign in here if you don't
remember your pin
it's fine you can create a new one
create an account or log in
and if your loans are here then you have
federal loans.
If your loans are not here then 99% of
the time
you do not have federal loans so
this is like a perfect place to start if
you're confused.
If you do not know if you do not see
or have any loans in the system then
the other way is to check your credit
report to see if you have federal loans
excuse me private loans.
So when you go to studentaid.gov and
enter your information
this is what you're going to see and
you're going to see the type of loan you
can see that in the upper left hand
corner
that says direct so you now have a
direct loan versus a ffel loan.
You will see how much you owe, how much
you've borrowed,
your loan status, if you have graduated;
if you're currently
in school and then if you'll see lower
down on repayment information
you'll see the repayment program that
you're in so this gives you a lot of
information and is very helpful
and a great place to start if you don't
know what type of loan you have
or are just starting to want to pay or
need to pay your student loans back.
As I said before finding private loans
if there's nothing at studentaid.gov did
you have a co-signer?
That's one thing that could easily be a
private loan .
Check your credit report really key
place that is where most private loans
will show up
and then of course you can always
contact your servicer and ask them
and as we said before it is their job to
provide you clear information.
So I'm just going to stop here on the
loan stuff and I know that a lot of this
is
probably new information to folks it's a
lot of stuff
don't worry we will send you
these slides as an
update and also just to remind you you
can always go to the new resource center
that we've built and the links will be
shared
in the zoom chat with you all and see
all of this and kind of take your own
time to understand it
because we do understand that it's you
know hefty material
and it's a lot to kind of sort through
so
don't worry you're not alone we feel the
same way.
And to add on to all that
information there are these
new COVID related updates of the CARES
act and
new executive action that directly
relates to student loan borrowers.
So with the current care act
this suspends payments for most student
loan borrowers
until September 30th and waives interest
meaning
interest is currently at zero percent.
This time currently counts towards
public service loan forgiveness
just to clarify this started march
13th and then it also accounts for
your income driven repayment program.
At this point in time payments all
payments should be
suspended and they're
not being reported for as excuse me it's
being reported as on
time on your credit reports.
So this halt is for those that are
delinquent or
struggling in default this halts
involuntary collections meaning you
should not have wage garnishments you
should not
have any social security withholdings if
this has happened to you you can always
contact us at info@studentdebtcrisis.org
we will also share
that link for those
that are in the chat. In addition that
you should not be receiving any
collection calls
until September 30th and also
students that have been forced to
withdraw from their college
can cancel their direct loan for that
period
that they needed to withdraw from school.
So then after congress passed CARES act
and extended it through September
30th excuse me the
president took executive action about
two weeks ago
and has now paused all payments and
interest
for the majority of federal loans I want
to be clear
about that there it is all
federal direct federal loans
and a family federal education loan
unfortunately about half were not
included commercially held
ffel loans and perkins loans are not
included in either the CARES
act or the executive action that was
about 8 million borrowers
there are borrowers that unfortunately
have all different types of loans so
it's very important to go to
studentaid.gov to see the type of loan
we know that some borrowers were not
included but for the 35 million
plus borrowers that were included you do
not have to pay
your student loan debt until january 1st
and right now you are not accruing any
interest.
Also this counts if you are still
working in your public service job
towards public service loan forgiveness
and towards loan rehabilitation programs.
For those of you that have been in an
income
driven repayment program if your
recertification deadline for the
repayment plan
falls in between this deadline it will
be pushed back
and we are still trying to gain more
clarity
on how long past that December 31st
deadline.
In addition this new executive action
will also
pause involuntary collection and debt
collections
until December 31st.
And with that I'm going to pass it off
to Lindsay Clark with Savi
who is going to kind of untangle all of
the stuff we're going to share with you
and show you a really simple way
for you to do it because like we know
that this is a lot and we're here to
help you untangle it
and very honored that this tool is
available to
all of the borrowers that are joining
this workshop free of charge. Lindsay?
[Lindsay] Great thanks so much Natalia
and it's great to be with you all. So
just as Natalia mentioned
I'm going to talk to you a little bit
about who we are at Savi and what we do
and more importantly how we can help you
as a student loan borrower
in a number of different ways but
most importantly to be able to
sort of quickly efficiently and
accurately enroll in some of these
programs that are going to hopefully
help you
to whether it's lower your monthly
payment or potentially
enroll in forgiveness. So if we go on to
the next slide
I'm just going to talk a bit about who
we are at Savi. We
are a social impact tech startup based
in Washington DC
about a block from the white house; we
were founded by two guys coming from the
policy and advocacy world
they actually helped write some of the
legislation around programs like
income driven repayment plans and so
they've been advocating and fighting on
behalf of borrowers for over a decade
realized how difficult it was to
navigate so many of these programs
and so decided to build a technology
platform to help borrowers
better understand this process but
navigate it successfully from start to
finish
you not only submit that application but
actually get enrolled in that program
and receive the  the benefit 
at the end
so really  end-to-end support 
through that process.
Our average user saves about $156
a month on their student loan payments
by enrolling in an income driven
repayment plan
which comes out to about $28,000 across the lifetime of their loan.
So this is just some of the savings
around income driven repayment
that Savi helps borrowers to take
advantage of.
So if we go into the next slide this is
just a basic overview of how the Savi
tool works.
Essentially we are going to collect
information around your tax filing
status,
your income, your employment - all of this
is to help us identify
the optimal repayment and forgiveness
plan that's eligible
for you as a borrower so we're going to
check your eligibility around these
programs
you're then going to be able to select
the repayment plan that we've identified
for you
if that's the one you want to do and
we sort of take it a step further
digitally enroll within a matter of
seconds
into this program. We complete all the
forms we pre-fill them digitally for you
we review them and make sure that they
get submitted to your servicer
quickly and accurately and the sooner
they're in the sooner that you can take
advantage of a lower payment
that next month. So if we go on to the
next page
perfect so these are some of the the
aspects
and features of the Savi technology and
platform itself.
We have a database of all of the PSLF
and teacher loan forgiveness eligible
employers in the country
all these school districts 
all of the 501c3 nonprofits
and government entities potentially if
you are eligible for something like
forgiveness
so we're going to be able to flag that
for you as a borrower and help you to
take advantage of that
we also help borrowers to sync their
loans automatically
so most of you I'm sure have anywhere
between five to six different student
loans
with different disbursement based
interest rates and all that all that
stuff if you knew that off the top of
your head I'd be very impressed
but most borrowers don't so we use
what's called a loan sync and we
actually use a
company called plaid which if you have a
venmo account or anything like that
you've used plaid to sync your other
financial accounts and it's going to
sync that loan data right over into the
tool
so we can basically have a sense of you
know your most recent and updated
information
and give you the most accurate
picture at what you would be eligible
for.
So this whole process of going through
Savi is really just a personalized
retainment and forgiveness plan that
we sort of show you at the very end
so if you want to go ahead you can
follow along while you're you're I'm
walking through this with you all right
now
to borrowers.bySavi.com and we'll put
that in the chat so you can
access that easily again for anyone on
the phone that's borrowers
b-o-r-r-o-w-e-r-s
dot by Savi b-y-s-a-v-I
dot com and this is where you're going
to be able to access the entire suite of
Savi services and technology
at no cost to you the borrower
absolutely no cost
and so this is really we're so
excited to be able to offer
this sort of premium level of services
to you all so that you can utilize
the technology
and get enrolled in these programs. So if
we go ahead onto the next screen
perfect so as I described earlier this
is just a quick look at that loan
sync
you're going to be able to identify your
loan servicer so in this case navient
if you have more than one servicer you
can you can sync more than one
enter in your username and password
credentials and it's going to sync over
that loan data in a matter of seconds.
You can also sync your private loan data
and so while the programs that we are
discussing here today are not eligible
for private loans it's still an
important part of your student loan
picture
and so you can sync that just the
same way you would your federal loans
entering in that commercial lender
whether that's Chase, Wells Fargo,
whatever it may be
enter in the username and password
and you'll be able to sync those loans
over the exact same way
it'll flag for our team that they are
private and we'll be able to follow up
with you
with with additional guidance around
those private loans.
And moving on to this last screen
perfect so this is a look at what the
the last sort of and final stage in the
technology the platform itself
looks like this is where we identify
your optimal repayments
and potentially if you're eligible
forgiveness plan so in this case we
identified the borrower could lower
his monthly payment down to 121 dollars
a month
so a savings of around $350. We provide
all the information around what type of
income driven repayment plan this is
so the borrower's aware of their options
and if they want to move forward with
that plan they can do so from that
screen.
So again that's borrowers.bySavi.com
I highly encourage you to to go and
create your free account
to try to get as far as you can in the
process and enter that information so
that we can be able to help you
in any way that we can.
Great this is a look at one of our our
newest features on the platform that you
are all going to have access to
this is what we call the borrower
dashboard. So when you create a Savi
account and then log back into that
account at any point in time
this is the first screen you're going to
see and this is basically a look at
exactly where you are in the process
around your repayment
and or forgiveness so this is our way of
of helping to be
as transparent as possible with
you the borrower 
making sure we've set appropriate
expectations. It also allows us to
monitor your application
and this is one of the great things
about Savi service
is that when we submit an application on
your behalf if that application is
taking longer than we
expect that it should to be reviewed by
your servicer we
are going to follow up and help sort
of make sure that your servicer
acts in good faith and that that
application has the desired outcome that
we wanted it to achieve
and we won't stop until it does so we
are really sort of advocates on your
behalf
and this is one of the ways in which we
help you to do that. It's also a way in
which you can contact one of our experts
so
whether at the bottom right hand corner
or the left-hand side you'll see contact
an expert
you can click any of those and if you go
onto the next screen you're going to see
sort of the full Savi support network
that is at your disposal
so whether that be via email via
designated phone line
or in the bottom right hand corner of
every screen in the tool
is that green support button you can
click that and either send a message or
chat with our support team
our support our in-house experts
are standing by ready and waiting and
really willing to help you
as much as possible and I highly
encourage you to take advantage
of them as a resource in whatever
capacity makes sense
because this is again a no-cost tool and
our goal is to really try to provide you
with immediate impact and benefit on
your student loans.
So again that's borrowers.bySavi.com
and that's where you can go to create
your account and access the Savi
platform at no cost.
And I think we can go on to the next
screen great so
now that you all are aware of the
Savi tool at your disposal
we're now going to talk a little bit
about some of the federal student loan
repayment plans.
So we're going to first talk about the
standard plan 
something called temporary hardships or
deferments and forbearances
and then we're going to go into a little
bit around loan consolidation.
So if we go into the next screen perfect
so
when everyone graduates they are
automatically put onto what's called
the standard plan all right this is sort
of the default repayment plan
and this essentially assumes that
you're going to pay that loan off
in 10 years and calculate your monthly
payment accordingly
all right so for many borrowers you have
a very high debt amount
and I will tell you I'm a student
loan borrower myself I have a little
over two hundred thousand dollars in
student loan debt
so I hope that makes at least some of
you feel better about your own situation
on the call right now
so that's that's how I like to try to
do that
so if I was to be on a standard plan all
right
and pay that loan off in 10 years that
would mean I would be paying
three or four thousand dollars a month
on my student loan payments
very very high amount and this is why so
many borrowers were struggling
to make those payments because they were
based solely on their debt amount
all right so that is the 10-year
standard repayment plan.
Moving on - 
many times for borrowers who weren't
able to make those payments
there are temporary hardships in the
form of deferment or forbearance
and I'm sure many of you might be
familiar with this I certainly have
taken advantage of deferment
forbearance
throughout the course of my
repayment 
but essentially it is a pause on those
payments 
while still accruing interest in
certain circumstances.
Now I want to make sure that
everyone's aware of the fact that
right now if you are eligible under the
CARES act your loans are technically in
an administrative forbearance
okay the difference between a normal
forbearance that you might enter into
because you're unable to make your
payment
and the CARES act forbearance that
you're under right now is that you're
currently accumulating no interest
the interest is zero percent right
whereas when you are in a normal
forbearance
that interest is accumulating and when
you go back into repayment
it's going to capitalize which means
it's going to be tacked on to the
principal balance of your loan
and you're going to start having to make
payments on that and this is
really why so many borrowers and I say
this myself
make the statement  I've been
paying on my loans for years
and the balance is the same if not
higher than it was when I
started and that's because of
capitalized interest all right
but again deferment forbearance are are
great benefits of federal loans
that borrowers can take advantage of
outside of this CARES act period
when and if they
are struggling to make that payment.
Moving on to federal loan consolidation.
Consolidation combines multiple
loans
of federal loans into a new single loan
with one monthly payment.
One of the reasons why you might
pursue a consolidation
is if you have a loan type that
does not currently qualify
for let's say an income driven repayment
plan or public service loan
forgiveness one of those loan types
happens to be the ffel
loan (f-f-e-l) which stands for federal
family education
if you have a ffel loan that loan is not
going to be eligible
for for public service loan forgiveness;
however if you consolidate that loan
into a direct consolidation loan
it will become eligible all right so
many times borrowers will consolidate
their loans in order to make them
eligible for some of the programs that
we're going to talk about here today.
You can also consolidate your loans 
in order to
to basically get out of default it is
sort of a get out of jail free card
and it essentially allows a
borrower to
create a new loan right away and
basically take that defaulted loan and
put it into good standing.
It can only be done once but
that is a way in which someone might be
able to get out of default.
You can only consolidate in general once
so if you  consolidate
because you want to make your loans
eligible for forgiveness or
that's the only time you can do
it right so if you fall into default you
won't be able to consolidate your way
out
you'll have to to go through a regular
rehabilitation.
So that's sort of the gist around
consolidation so it can be an effective
tool
in different scenarios for those who
want to become eligible for other
programs
as well as those who might be 
like I said in the default situation
and want to get that loan into good
standing as quickly as possible.
Okay moving on to income driven
repayment plans
now these are sort of the driving
focus of what we do here at Savi
because they are so powerful in a way
for borrowers to
to provide themselves with immediate
relief on their student loans
so we're going to talk about what they
are, some of the online resources
and the application process surrounding
income driven repayment or
IDR as I'll refer to it from here on out.
So what is an income driven repayment
plan? Well
I was telling you on the previous
screen that a standard plan
right with a plan based on your debt
amount well an
income driven repayment plan IDR is
based not on your debt amount
but on your income as well as your
family size and things like your tax
filing status.
So what that helps to do in many cases
for borrowers
is to significantly lower that monthly
payment for borrowers who have a
particularly high
debt to income ratio so your monthly
payment instead of being calculated
based on your debt amount
is calculated as a percentage of your
discretionary income
and discretionary sort of a fancy word
for gross income
so that means before taxes all right so
it's on a sort of a
sliding scale range between 10 to 20% of
that gross income.
It also takes into consideration things
like your
family size particularly child
dependents. For every child dependent
that you have
that's going to lower that monthly
payment by about $50
per child even unborn child dependents
if you just found out you were pregnant
that can count you can mark that as
an unborn child dependent on the form
and submit that and it will lower
that payment by another $50
so these are all some of the nuances
around IDR plans that borrowers are able
to
take advantage of to help minimize that
monthly payment.
There are different types of IDR plans
okay so
income driven is the umbrella term right
the the plans you see here in green or
the
names you see here in green are the
different types of income driven
repayment plans:
revised pay as you earn, pay as you earn,
new income based repayment,
income based repayment, and income
contingent repayment all right
I wouldn't worry too much about trying
to
dive head first into the
nuances and differences between all of
these plans depending upon when your
loans were dispersed and what
type of loan you have you're
going to qualify for a range
or certain  types of IDRs
over others.
One of the great things about the Savi
tool is that when you go through and
enter in your information
we're gonna be able to identify the
optimal repayment plan for you
without you sort of having to worry
about
 any of these sort of details
around  repay versus pay versus
IDR
it can get  a bit into the weeds
in a bit confusing
but  generally it might be
helpful to know that  at the
bottom end
a repaye is going to take about 10% of
that income
whereas ICR income contingent will
take about 20%
of that income.
All right moving on to the next slide
so this is a sort of a sliding scale
look 
at the 10-year standard plan versus what
you would pay on an income driven
repayment plan
so if your income was $30,000
or lower you would potentially pay
as low as zero dollars a month on an
income driven repayment plan.
As far as the standard plan goes that
payment is going to stay the same
regardless of your income
right it's going to be based on your
debt amount so $359 is going to
be that payment amount no matter what
your income is.
However on an IDR plan it's going to
fluctuate based on your income
so if your income is going to increase
or is higher
then that that monthly payment will also
be higher all right so
 the higher your income goes the
higher that monthly payment could
potentially go as well
so this is just a look at that
comparison between those plans.
Now how to qualify for an IDR plan
so the the primary plans that you see
right in front of you here
repaye paye IBR ICR okay
they are all for pretty much federal
loans
which which should have been sort of
clear no private loans are eligible for
any of these IDR plans
some however are only eligible for
direct loans
and that is repaye and paye okay and some
also have
a partial financial hardship requirement
as well
and that's paye and IDR as well as paye is
only eligible for
new borrowers so again these are some of
the nuances that I wouldn't worry too
much about.
What's great about the Savi tool if you
can utilize it
is that it will identify which plan is
going to be best for your situation
and your eligibility for you so you
won't have to worry about
trying to differentiate on your own.
Now as far as how to enroll in an IDR
plan
when you submit an IDR application 
you must
attach supporting documentation to
your income that can come in the form of
your most recent tax return your 1040
form
or a current pay stub. You submit that
application and your servicer
essentially takes a snapshot of that
income at that point in time
and locks in that payment for 12 months
all right
when those 12 months come and go all
right you will have what's called a
recertification
deadline and by that deadline you must
resubmit your IDR
application with updated income
documentation right
so it's been a year later has anything
changed so you resubmit the application
updated income documentation your
servicer recalculates that payment
takes that snapshot and locks it in for
another 12 months okay 
and you can repeat that over and
over right year over year.
That is essentially the process.
That recertification deadline is very
important okay
last year 56% of borrowers
missed their recertification deadline
and when you miss that deadline
two very important things happen. First
of all you immediately fall out of that
IDR program
so the next month payment is going to go
right back up to that standard plan
amount which for many people
is going to be a lot higher. And second
any interest that you accumulated over
the course of that year which could be
a lot especially if you were trying to
minimize that payment as much as
possible
any interest is going to be capitalized
and tacked onto your principal balance
so I know Cody can speak from
experience I I'm going to tell you about
my experience here
but it's that is something that you
really want to try to avoid.
Many years ago before I started working
at Savi and know what I know now
I was on an IDR plan I missed my
recertification deadline because I just
didn't think much of it I didn't think
that there were consequences
and I recently looked back and saw that
within 48 hours of missing that deadline
I had fifteen thousand dollars in
capitalized interest
tacked onto my principal balance and
that's why my loan balances have
not gone down but  if anything
increased over the years
despite making payments on those loans so this is
entirely avoidable and this is also
something that Savi helps borrowers to
do.
Two months out from that deadline we
reach out to you to start to collect the
necessary documentation around this
application.
We complete the application for
you, submit it on your behalf
make sure that payment is as minimized
as possible
and make sure that it is accepted by
your servicer and that you are
pretty much all set to go well before
that deadline
even becomes a concern so this is one of
the ways in which Savi's monitoring and
submission really helps forward
to avoid anything like this happening
in the future.
Now one of my sort of favorite terms
because I think it is so important
for all of you to be aware of
is the application abyss and
essentially
this is what happens and I'm sure many
of you might have already experienced
this I know I have
when a borrower submits an
application
whether it be for an income driven
repayment plan or maybe
for a type of forgiveness program and
doesn't hear back - crickets from your
from your servicer.
Sometimes borrowers simply
forget that they even submitted it to
begin with
but certain applications should only
take a certain amount of time
for example under normal circumstances
an IDR application
when you submit that should take no more
than two weeks
maybe four weeks tops to be reviewed by
your servicer okay
and so if it's taking longer than it
should
and first and foremost it's important
to be informed and aware of how long
these processes should take and
that's where we can help you and come in
you have sort of things at your
disposal
to escalate that situation in the
form of a complaint
whether that's through the ombudsman
system or the cfpb
but you have the ability to 
trigger a review of your account and and
force your servicer to essentially have
to address
your application of the issue. There
are so many obstacles
as far as the the services are 
concerned that can cause these delays
and the servicers have been sued left
and right
for sort of negligence and malpractice
around these things
and so this is also where Savi 
helps borrowers as sort of an advocate
and we not only monitor to make sure
that that application
if it's taking too long we'll
help to get on the phone with you and
your servicer
and figure out what's  what's
going on but
when we submit an application for a
borrower we have a 99%
acceptance rate because we know how
exactly to solve that application
we make sure that there are no clerical
errors that the forms attached are
correct
et cetera it's very easy to attach
the incorrect form
or perhaps leave a digit off your social
security number
and they will reject your application
for the smallest thing
all right so there's so much involved in
this process
and it really is helpful to have some
type of resource  whether it be
the Department of Education
student debt crisis or the Savi tool to
help you
enroll in these programs in a way
that doesn't feel like a full-time job
right
that you can sort of  your
student debt shouldn't define you
we want to get you on these programs but
it shouldn't take up all of your time.
So now there are alternative options to
income driven repayment plans.
So these are extended repayments
graduated repayment and extended
graduated
that was a bit of a mouthful so these
are all different
repayment plans that are based on your
debt amount okay
so these are sort of under the standard
plan umbrella
and what these essentially do is they
push out
your payment horizon
to 20 to 25 years and then
therefore essentially
lowering that monthly payment. Again it's
still based on your debt amount
so in the extended repayment it simply
pushes that out over a longer period of
time
lowering that payment. On the graduate
repayment
it pushes that out but in a way that
your payments increase
every two years slowly but surely you're
inching up and paying more
each  every two years and
then extended graduated as you might
have guessed
is a combination of the two all right so
there are other options besides
income driven repayment that might end
up actually being a lower monthly
payment depending upon your situation
and this is again being informed of
your options is
is where you  the best place to
start right
because it's not just necessarily going
to be one solution over the other
you want to make sure that you're you
know you're addressing everything and
choosing the best one for your
particular situation.
So here is the repayment plan checklist
you can visit studentaid.gov
and use their repayment calculator or
you're able to do this
over the phone with your servicer you
can contact your loan servicer
and they can send you an application to
submit for an IDR plan
or to get onto an extended or graduated
plan 
and this is how you can submit that
application or
you can visit borrowers.bysavi.com
and we can help you to do this 
right away today
and get your get your applications in as
soon as possible
all right so you have many options
available to you like I said
the borrowers.bySavi.com is going to be
a way
for you to also engage our support
experts
if you have any questions or need any
assistance.
And last but not least we're going to
talk about
loan default all right so what federal
loan default is
what some of the consequences are for
defaulting on your loans
and what your options are as far as
getting those loans back into good
standing
and that's around loan rehabilitation.
There is hope!
Just being aware of those options and
acting quickly.
So moving on to the next screen federal
loan default
essentially is triggered once
you've gone past 270 days
past due technically as soon as you are
one day past due
you're considered delinquent all right
but it's not until 90 days
of not having made a payment does the
service a report
to your credit on your credit score
and then it's not until 270 days past
due
that you are technically now in
default all right.
Now keep aware if you see that little
sort of that
star below there if you have a perkins
loan okay
they can technically put you in default
after one day of missed payments
all right I'm not saying it's
necessarily likely but
there are certain stipulations around
certain loans that you want to make sure
that you're aware of particularly if you
have that perkins loan.
All right so default is going to be
triggered after that 270 days.
Now if we move on to the next screen
what happens when you are going to
default what happens after those 270
days?
Well technically at the point of
default
your loan becomes due in full so they
will send you a very scary letter that
says
well like for example if it was me
Lindsay you have $200,000
due  next month right on that
loan it's all due in full
you then become ineligible for financial
aid
all right you're ineligible for any
of the repayment plans that we've talked
about here today
you potentially or you're definitely
going to have your this reported to the
credit bureaus
you potentially could become
ineligible for sort of military law
enforcement or other potential jobs
you also potentially could have your
drivers or
professional license revoked for being
in default on your student loans
and then I would say probably these
might be the worst two
sort of the consequences not only
could you potentially have up to 40
percent
in collections fees added on to your
onto your loan balance right
if it wasn't high enough already but
the worst sort of case scenario
of a default is when you
are experience a collection in in terms
of wage garnishment
your social security is being withheld
or your tax return is being withheld.
Wage garnishment is going to take
15% of
every paycheck all right every paycheck
and once that goes into effect
it is at least four months before that
can be stopped
four months on a rehabilitation before
that can be lifted so that would be four
months
where every paycheck of yours 15% is
going right
towards those student loans so we really
want to try to help you to avoid getting
that
that point and and really it
there's no sort of saying whether you're
going to go into wage garnishment over
tax withholding it's all dependent
upon your situation and
one day that letter can just
come in the mail and you definitely
don't want to to be surprised 
and  want to have a plan of
action. So how can you
rehabilitate a defaulted loan and get
it back into good standing?
So you're able to do this through what's
called default loan rehabilitation this
is a federal process.
Essentially you must make and agree to
make
nine payments over the course of 10
months
you work with a collections agency to
essentially determine a monthly payment
amount that is
reasonable and affordable and what they
usually do is
they take you through and you fill out a
form in which you indicate
all of your expenses okay all of your
household expenses things like that
at your income and from this this form
they're able to try to give you as low a
payment as possible
normally from borrowers I've worked with
it is as low as five dollars a month
okay they're not trying to to make this
a difficult payment for you to make they
want you to succeed in this
right so if you pay five dollars a month
for those
and make nine payments okay you can
basically rehabilitate that loan
and get back into good standing all
right you can be eligible for future
loans you can be eligible to enroll
in income driven repayment plan you can
be eligible for
forgiveness as we're going to about to
talk about on the next screen all right
all it takes is just initiating that
process
for rehabilitation
and particularly right now on the cares
act it's very important to know
if you were paying attention earlier
that
you are able to rehabilitate a loan and
have these non-payment months
count towards those nine months so if
you
are concerned that you might be in
default in any way I highly encourage
you to reach out
to us and I have provided our
support information
because this will likely require a
phone call but we will want to help you
initiate that
rehabilitation as soon as possible and
help you to take advantage of this
period of time.
So with that being said I'm going to
turn it back over to Natalia and Cody
and hopefully maybe we'll take a little
break to answer some questions that I'm
sure you might have after that section.
[Cody] Thank you so much Lindsay for going over
these repayment programs
unfortunately
these student loan
repayment programs are very complicated
there's a lot of nuance I think
that's why we're so grateful
that your team at Savi has put
together this much easier
to use tool much easier to understand
resource and that's exactly why we've
brought this Borrower Outreach Program
together
we really want to help distill this
information so thank you for that.
I am going to take some questions I see
a handful of them have been submitted in
the q & a box.
If you have not entered your
question but you have one
please do so now we will
address additional questions at the end
of the workshop
but I have a question here this is
from Debbie
and Debbie was asking "what if you want to
enroll in an income driven repayment
plan
but it's not a repayment plan that you
currently qualify for
is there something that you can do
about that?"
[Lindsay] Hey Cody it's Lindsay. So sure
depending upon what your current loan
situation or type is
and what type of repayment plan income
giving payment plan you'd like to
qualify for
so for example if you have a
ffel loan you're currently only eligible
for an income based or IBR repayment
plan.
If you consolidate that okay into a
direct consolidation loan
that loan will become eligible for all
the different types of
IDR plans okay on the other hand you
could have a loan
like a parent plus loan and if you were
to consolidate that loan
into a direct consolidation loan
even though you've consolidated it it is
only going to be eligible
for an income contingent repayment plan
ICR
so again there's sort of a lot of
nuances around
 corrective action you can
take depending upon the loans you
currently have
so you're going to want to sort of
 enlist Savi's help
and when you go through the Savi
tool we will flag for you
if corrective action would be necessary
in order to potentially take advantage
of additional savings.
So it sort of it's going to vary based
on your situation and from case to case.
[Cody] Great, thank you so much Lindsay. I've had a
lot of questions here
also about income driven repayment
plan
during this COVID crisis I know
Natalia you mentioned that the COVID 19
suspension of payments continues all the
way until December 31st
but why should I guess a student loan
borrower consider
income driven repayment plan right now
even if they may not
currently have a student loan payment
due?
[Natalia] Yeah that's a great question Cody, thank you
to whomever asked that.
So I think right now  yes
you have a zero dollar payment and zero
percent interest
these are only slated until January 1st.
I don't know about you but for me I feel
quite broke after
the end of December with the holidays
and so that's not when I want to be
repaying my student loan debt
so what these income driven repayment
plans do especially for those folks who
have lost their jobs
or have less hours due to COVID or any
reason
you can enroll in this program and set
your payments for
a year and so that way  if you
did it today
you'd know August of next year instead
of
January you would be repaying your loans
you also know that at least through
January you'd be at zero percent
interest
so it is a cheaper time to be in these
programs because you won't have interest
accruing at the beginning
we don't know what will happen beyond
January 1st as it pertains to student
loans
so the other thing is that we already
see a lot of issues and problems with
student loan servicers
and if all of the student loans come
back online at the same time in January
I could see it being a big old mess and
so because of that
 one might want to consider
doing this early getting it out of the
way and then you just don't have to
worry about it come the first of the
year.
[Cody] Great thank you Natalia. I see a
question here that I think is also
somewhat related and also very important
but
Laura was asking  "When should a
borrower enroll in an
income driven repayment plan?" and I
answered to her in the chat box and I
want to share that with everyone here.
A borrower can enroll in an
income driven repayment plan at
any time and so if you're facing
unemployment
or reduced income especially during
times like COVID
you can enroll in these programs
to lower your monthly payment and
also
if your student loan does not qualify
for CARES act benefits
these student loan programs are still
available to you
so this is a great option for borrowers
and
on top of that lastly if you experience
a disruption to your income when
you're already enrolled in one of these
programs
you can recertify your income and adjust
your monthly payment at any time
so these are very flexible options that
really respond to whatever needs you
have
in the moment and we know many people
right now are facing difficulties.
All right I'm going to take one more
question in this section and then I will
jump into some of the other programs
that are available to federal student
loan borrowers.
Let's see here...
Actually I've had a lot of
questions Lindsay this is probably great
for you all
just because of the complications you
faced
dealing with student loan services and
how you've worked to fix that
but a lot of people ask me in the chat
box:
"What should they do if they get
inaccurate information from their loan
servicer
or if they went to the Department of
education and the repayment tool wasn't
correct the repayment estimator at
the Department of Education
where else can they go to get
accurate information and what can they
do?"
[Lindsay] Yeah that's a great question and you
know many times borrowers
 don't have the luxury of being
aware that that they're being given
inaccurate information right so
first and foremost if you're
able to tell that on your own then you
know that's
that's great but one of the things
about Savi and sort of our advanced
technology
is that we catch these mistakes all
the time
and we are  if you whether
you want to go through the Savi tool
and compare
 what you're getting
from one to the other
but you're always able to either call
your servicer
and have that sort of reviewed on the
phone or you can work with Savi and we
can sort of help to
escalate your case through the ombudsman
system file that complaint
and have it reviewed by a third party 
and within 15 days that servicer will
have to respond so
if you feel like you are getting a
really inaccurate  they're
coming back and saying that this is a
payment that you're eligible for
and you feel that that truly is
incorrect that's one way in which you
can do that
and  our support team at Savi
helps borrowers do this all the time
so I really would  at no cost
allow us to be able to help you
if that would be helpful to
to you
in getting that taken care of.
[Cody] Perfect. With that I'm going to just
encourage folks one more time if you
have a question to
submit it in the q a box
and we'll try to address it at the end
of the workshop. I am looking at the
clock I know things are running a little
behind we encourage everyone to
continue to join us
for just a little bit longer I'm going
to cover our federal loan forgiveness
options which I know
are valuable to a lot of borrowers
working as teachers or public service
employees. So with that I think we can
jump right into the federal loan
forgiveness programs.
For many years the idea of
student loan forgiveness
was complicated it was misleading to
some borrowers
there was just a lot of confusion but I
am here to say that there are loan
forgiveness options available to federal
student loans
if you meet some interesting
requirements I'm going to explain here.
Now one of the one of the questions
we get often from borrowers is
"How do loan forgiveness programs work
especially if you already
are interested in lowering your monthly
payment in an income driven repayment
plan?"
and the good news is that these programs
work hand in hand
and in fact if you want your student
loans to be forgiven
you likely will want to enroll in an
income driven repayment plan because it
will
lower your monthly payments and will
maximize the benefits you receive
from one of these programs so don't
think that these are
exclusive programs you can be enrolled
in an income driven repayment program
as you make progress towards student
loan forgiveness.
And the first program I'm going to cover
is a more
focused program for teachers this is the
teacher loan forgiveness program.
It exists on two tracks there is loan
forgiveness in the total of five
thousand dollars for full-time teachers
who work in low-income schools or
education agencies
and these are teachers that work at
elementary and secondary schools.
There's another track that is 17 and a
half thousand dollars of teacher loan
forgiveness
and this is eligible for again full-time
teachers
working in low-income schools and these
are for math
and science teachers as well as special
education teachers at the elementary and
secondary school level.
Now like many of the programs there are
narrow qualifying factors that you have
to meet
for teacher loan forgiveness. You have to
have a federal student loan
that was used for undergraduate studies
only
so that means a student loan that was
offered to parents to pay for a child's
education
cannot qualify graduate loans for
graduate students do not qualify
and perkins loans and private student
loans do not.
Throughout the workshop you're going to
see that loans that are in default do
not qualify
that's why it's so important to make
sure you enroll in the programs that
keep your monthly payments affordable
because borrowers who fall into default
lose access to these programs.
And like we mentioned before if you have
a loan that does not currently qualify
you may be able to consolidate into a
loan
that does qualify that's where
consolidation can become
a helpful tool for borrowers.
And the second factor for teacher loan
forgiveness is
guaranteeing that your employer
qualifies. So there is a list
online at the Department of Education
that is the annual directory
of designated low-income schools for
teacher cancellation benefits.
This is a directory of all the schools
that are properly recognized as a
low-income school
that qualify for this program so we
encourage you
to look there see if your current
employer qualifies.
There are some borrowers there are
teachers in an education agency
those are a newer addition to the
program so time
working at these agencies after the
2007-2008 school year
qualify and unlike other programs where
we would tell borrowers to contact the
US Department of Education
this program directs folks to contact
their
state education department for more
details so you could contact the
California Department of Education if
you lived in California
whatever your local agency is.
Now that program covers teachers there's
another program that
covers up to 25% of the workforce
and that's public service loan
forgiveness.
Now if you're a public servant and you
make 120 monthly payments
while meeting the qualifying factors I'm
about to explain
then you can have all of your remaining
debt forgiven
and it's tax-free so this is a program
that is by far the most generous
federal program when it comes to student
loan repayment and forgiveness.
Now the problem with public service loan
forgiveness in the past has been
that there are qualifying factors and a
complicated way of about
applying for the program and so here are
the basics of public service
loan forgiveness.
The first qualifying factor is that you
are repaying
a federal direct loan so if you have one
of these other federal loans
like a family federal federal family
education
loan, an ffel loan, or a perkins loan
that does not qualify towards public
service loan forgiveness.
That is exactly when you would use
consolidation to create a new loan which
would be a direct consolidated loan
when you see direct in front of that
loan  it qualifies for public
service owned forgiveness.
The second qualifying factor is "does
your employer qualify?"
Now the reason that public service loan
forgiveness
is eligible to 25 percent of the
workforce is because
it includes anyone who works for a
government
agency - that can be state federal
municipal and local government - 
and it also includes anyone who works
for a charitable organization
501c3 and that includes
anyone who's employed by these agencies
or nonprofits so you could
theoretically work as a building
maintenance professional
at a government agency as long as that
agency is your employer you qualify.
And then lastly which has been a thorn
for many borrowers
you have to be enrolled in a qualifying
repayment plan
and that includes the 10-year standard
plan and
all of the income-driven repayment plans
we discuss.
It does not include however the
alternative repayment options which
include extended repayment graduated
repayment
extended graduated repayment and it also
does not include the typical deferment
or forbearance
periods. As Natalia mentioned the
administrative forbearance that's been
applied because of the COVID 19 pandemic
does qualify so that can be a bit
confusing with the language there
but those are important details. So if
you meet all three of these requirements
and you make 120 monthly payments you
can
apply for public service loan
forgiveness.
Now the problem is you have to come to
the table proving that you've made
all of these payments while qualifying
for 120 months
so you can see there we say submit an
ECS
annually - that's the employment
certification form
this is a federal form that's at the
studentaid.gov website
it is not mandatory for public service
zone forgiveness
however it does help you document all of
your
qualifying times so that when you go to
apply at the end of 120 payments you
have the documentation that you need.
So if we go to the next slide I just
want to reiterate what does qualify for
public service loan forgiveness.
As you see there all direct loans
qualify
those are direct loans for students
direct loans for graduate students
direct parent plus loans for parents and
any direct consolidated loan.
All levels of government employment
qualify 501 c3
nonprofits qualify and if you go to
the Department of Education's website
there are other
critical public service careers that do
qualify that are
related to health care childhood
development
public safety things like that. And then
lastly the repayment plan you have to be
in either your 10-year standard
repayment
or enrolled in an income driven
repayment plan to qualify for public
service loan forgiveness.
And to just add additional clarity here
are the things that
do not qualify for public service loan
forgiveness.
Again the older federal family education
loans do not qualify
perkins loans do not qualify loans in
default
and private student loans all are
ineligible for public service loan
forgiveness.
When it comes to employers we hear from
a lot of folks who work as government
contractors
if your employer is not the government
or is not a 501 c 3 then you are not
eligible
even if you work on government projects.
Labor unions
501 c4s also do not qualify because
these are
considered more advocacy oriented
organizations.
And lastly for those who work for 501c3
excuse me for
non-profit charitable excuse me
non-profit religious institutions
you can qualify if your work is not
religious instruction so the time spent
on the pulpit does not qualify.
And then lastly just to reiterate all of
these other repayment options
do not qualify for public service loan
forgiveness.
So I mentioned that a lot of borrowers
 would have
been eligible for public service loan
forgiveness but they found themselves in
the wrong repayment
plan. There is a fix for you
there was a temporary extended public
service loan forgiveness program passed
by congress
it's first come first served and it's
got limited
funds but if you met all of the public
service loan forgiveness requirements
except for you were in the wrong payment
plan
this program works for you. The steps are
that you have to submit
a public service loan forgiveness
application and you have to have been
denied because of your repayment plan.
If that is the case then you can request
a reconsideration
by emailing this email here it's
t-e-p-s-l-f
at my fedloan.org.
Fedloan is a student loan
servicer that handles all public service
loan forgiveness
requests and they are responsible for
handling this program as well.
Now this program is very unique in its
design so I encourage you to visit the
Department of Education's website at
studentaid.gov to learn more about that.
So just quickly here is the loan
forgiveness checklist  we always
encourage people to visit the Department
of Education's website
verify that your employer qualifies and
use that employment certification form
to keep documentation
enroll in a qualifying repayment plan so
that you don't
miss out on loan forgiveness just
because you chose the wrong repayment
plan
and then continue to work full-time for
120 monthly payments
once you have done so you can apply for
the program
and until and then from there you may be
accepted if you meet all the
qualifications.
And  as another reminder the
Savi tool
helps borrowers enroll in all these
programs and helps
you follow up with the paperwork that
you need so you can visit
borrowers.bySavi.com
to use their tool to enroll in any of
these programs as well.
Now we always include this one warning
because of
the promise of student loan forgiveness
in the federal program
there are a lot of scamsters out there
that have used the idea of forgiveness
and debt relief
to take advantage of borrowers. You'll
often see
a bait and switch that includes
messaging like immediate loan
forgiveness
or urgent deadline approaching these are
not the type of communications that you
will receive from the Department
of education or that you will receive
from your loan servicer.
Other illegal practices include charging
you upfront fees before
before initiating a service claiming
to
work on behalf of the Department of
Education
and promises of loan forgiveness that
sound good too good to be true
all of these are the kind of things that
are red flags for what we call a debt
relief scam
and we want to just make you aware that
these things do exist.
You can contact the Department of
Education your loan servicer
and trusted folks like student debt
crisis and Savi
to answer any of your questions you do
not have to pay for one of these
scam services.
So that wraps up all the education we
know it's a ton of information so I just
want to remind people that
all of today's resources and today's
presentation
is brought to you by our student loan
borrower outreach
program. So the student loan borrower
outreach program is working to develop
workshops tools and
one-pager handouts that we can give to
borrowers to help them learn about these
topics on their own
and we're crafting them over time to be
as effective
as possible so I encourage you to visit
part of this project which is the
student loan borrower resource center
you can visit the website there it's 
bit.ly/BorrowerResources
and if you visit that website you can go
to the next slide and you can see some
of the resources we've compiled.
We've put together one pager subject
summaries
these are little documents that explain
all the complicated topics we've
discussed today
those cover income driven repayment
plans public service loan forgiveness
cares act relief COVID 19 updates all of
the above.
We also include on that website access
to the student loan
aid tool by Savi so again that
is the automatic enrollment tool
that Lindsay told us about
you can visit bit.ly/BorrowerResources
to see that.
And also we will be including all of our
workshops
that we are hosting this was recorded
today we will hopefully get that online
in the coming days
if you're interested in seeing this
workshop you can also email me
after today's workshop and we'll make
sure to direct you to the right
location. And lastly because we are
crafting these tools over time we're
improving them every day
we really need feedback from folks
who've attended today's workshop
if you could give us input in the
borrower feedback survey
it would be extremely helpful to us and
it would be helpful
to us to help borrowers in the future so
that survey
is at the website that I shared with you
all you'll also receive a link in a
follow-up email to today's workshop
that will direct you there please it is
so important to us to hear from you and
we create tools that are as effective
as possible.
So with that I know we've run a little
long but I think we can address a few
more questions that I've seen
come through thank you all again
for submitting your questions.
Let's see here...
This is a great question from Tiffany
Natalia I'm sure you can answer this
because we've worked on this
topic for so long but "When a borrower
wants to enroll in an income driven
repayment plan
and they're using their income what
income are they using here is this
last year's income that was filed at the
IRS
is this current current income based in
last week's paycheck?"
Tiffany's just trying to understand
how her repayment plan will be
calculated.
[Natalia] Yeah absolutely and I think
Lindsay
please feel free to add on as well but
you
if anything has changed at all you can
go right now  if you lost
your job yesterday
you are able to change your repayment
status.
So you need to do a and you have to do
an annual check
every year say that's the reapplication
process
where they will verify your income
through the IRS
but if you don't have that you are still
able to
take advantage of the program right away.
And Lindsay if you'd like to add to
that?
[Lindsay] No I mean I think that that says it all
 I think that
ultimately knowing that this is an
available option
is the first step and then like I
said whether you do it on your own or
you you
utilize Savi's tool either way
but
make sure you take advantage of your
situation as quickly as possible.
[Cody] Yeah and Lindsay I know you've talked
about it in the past before so maybe you
could add to this as well but
 borrowers may have had a decent
income last year
and now all of a sudden they're facing
reduced income or unemployment
I think you've explained in the past to
other workshops like what kinds of
forms of proof can a borrower submit
to show that maybe they're facing
hardship today that they weren't facing
two months three months or a
year ago?
[Lindsay] Yeah that's a great question so as far
as supporting documentation
that is sort of allowed when you
submit this IDR application
two forms I should say
either your
most recent tax return so that 1040 form
okay many times borrowers will submit
their w-2
that actually is not an acceptable
form and
your application will get rejected so it
can't be your w-2 but
your most recent tax return or
your current pay stub from within the past 90
days and this is the one that many
borrowers are unaware of
and so for example the borrower that
you described in that situation Cody
whose income has been  impacted
or decreased more recently that wouldn't
be reflected on last year's tax return
but it would be reflected in
a pay stub from the past 90 days and so
that's why they make that option
available
so we can use a pay stub submit that
with your application and they will
essentially extrapolate
your income from that one sort of 
 monthly payment so they'll
shackle it for the year so for many
borrowers who again who have had that
decrease
in their hours or their wages et cetera
submitting a pay stub is going to be
the best option
to get on an IDR that's going to most
accurately reflect their income
and hopefully minimize that payment as
much as possible.
[Cody] Great thank you so much another great
question here
about income driven repayment plans and
I love to see these questions because
it's from a current student
but this student is going to graduate
and
they're they're aware that after
students graduate their program they
don't have to make student loan payments
within
six months but
they want to know since they there is
currently
relief for student loan borrowers do
they need to take any steps to make sure
that they're
included in the suspended payments that
are offered by the CARES act?
[Lindsay] so Cody I can try to take a stab at this
one and Natalia could jump in it if you
know you catch anything that I might
be saying incorrectly but
I believe if you are your grace
period is within this time frame so
we'll end
before December 31st you will still
be able to take advantage of basically
you won't have to go into repayment
until January
but I think  you would just want
to make sure
regardless of what your options
are going to be come January
right so  you're going to
have no payments through the end of this
year
but January essentially looking at
an income driven repayment plan
especially if you are a new grad and
maybe last year
didn't  even have an income you
could be eligible for as low as a zero
dollar monthly payment
for that  next 12 months so
that could be really beneficial for
a new grad going forward.
Please feel free to
add where I might have sort of 
missed anything Cody or Natalia.
[Cody] I think that's great and I'm 
again I'm just so happy to hear that
people who are currently in school
are recently graduating
are are thinking about their
student loan repayment that is
something that's newer as people
become more aware of this topic and
earlier on so  good for you for
being proactive about this and thinking
about your student loan payment.
That's the last question we have here
so perfect timing I think we can end
today's workshop.
Again just a reminder for folks to take
a look at the email that they receive
following up to this workshop and please
take our borrower survey
help us create the best resource we
possibly can.
Thank you and have a great day, bye bye.
