Boston Student Loan Lawyer

Law Office of Adam S. Minsky

5 Reasons Not to Refinance Your Federal Student Loans

| Articles Cosigners Default Income-Based Repayment Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Pay-As-You-Earn Private Student Loans

Student loan refinancing has been a hot topic during the past several years. Trendy new companies – like SoFi, Earnest, LendKey, and CommonBond – have been offering slick refinancing products to entice borrowers. Major banks and credit unions have also jumped in, sometimes offering tantalizingly low interest rates. The best loan products are generally marketed to doctors, lawyers, and other high-income professionals who tend to have large amounts of federal student loan debt, but great earning potential and excellent credit.

A lower interest rate is often the central reason to explore refinancing; after all, a lower interest rate will save you money in the long run, and could lower your monthly payments, as well. But that’s not the only thing borrowers should be considering. Turning federal student loans into private student loans through refinancing can have major, irreversible consequences, and it’s important to know what you might be giving up in exchange for that lower rate.Read More

BREAKING: Budget Targets Loan Forgiveness and IDR Programs

| Articles Current Events Default Income-Based Repayment Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Pay-As-You-Earn Policy & Reform

The Trump administration released a budget blueprint yesterday, outlining how it wants Congress to address government spending. The proposal calls for sweeping changes to student loan programs – reforms that would have a major national impact. Here are some specifics:

  • Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) would be eliminated.
  • Current Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) programs like Income Based Repayment (IBR), Pay As You Earn (PAYE), and Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE) would be eliminated, and a new IDR plan would take its place. This plan would have payment amounts somewhere between PAYE/REPAYE and IBR, with a shorter repayment term (15 years) for undergrads and a longer term (30 years) for grad students.
  • Subsidized federal loans would be eliminated, meaning all federal loans would accrue interest at all times, even during periods of in-school deferments.

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Student Loan Law End-of-Year Review

| Articles Current Events For-Profit Colleges Income-Based Repayment Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Pay-As-You-Earn Policy & Reform Private Student Loans Taxes

Well, 2017 has been quite an explosive year, hasn’t it? And there’s been a lot going on in the world of student loan law – so much, in fact, that it can be a bit overwhelming to keep everything straight. So as we wrap up this year, here’s an overview of what went down for student loan borrowers, and some hints of what’s to come in 2018.Read More

BREAKING: Major Changes Proposed for IBR and Loan Forgiveness

| Articles Current Events Income-Based Repayment Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Pay-As-You-Earn Policy & Reform

News outlets are reporting that the House GOP has drafted legislation that could reshape the entire federal student loan system.

The bill is called the “Promoting Real Opportunity, Success and Prosperity Through Education Reform Act,” or the “PROSPER Act.” The full text of the proposed bill has not yet been released, but an outline of the proposal was released to the media. Here’s what we know (and what we don’t know):Read More

4 Avoidable Student Loan Forgiveness Mistakes

| Articles Income-Based Repayment Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Pay-As-You-Earn Student Loans 101

Student loan forgiveness is not a myth or a fairy tale. There are actual, legitimate programs that can provide partial or full forgiveness of your student loans – if the right conditions are met.

But it’s those conditions that often trip people up. A recent New York Times article provided real-world examples of student loan borrowers who thought they are on the path to loan forgiveness, only to find out later that they weren’t at all. I see this all the time in my practice, and it’s usually because people don’t fully understand the required criteria for student loan forgiveness programs (mostly due to the fact that these programs tend to be complicated, and student loan servicers do a pretty terrible job explaining them).

It’s important to take the time to understand these programs and determine whether or not you meet their requirements – because if you don’t, you may be in for some major disappointment later on. Here are the most common mistakes I see people make when it comes to student loan forgiveness. Read More

5 Steps to Start Tackling Your Student Loans

| Articles Default Income-Based Repayment Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Pay-As-You-Earn Private Student Loans Student Loans 101

It’s time to start liberating yourself from your student loan debt.

We’ve got a true student loan crisis – there’s over $1.4 trillion in student debt, and that number keeps on rising. The average undergrad leaves college with nearly $40,000 in student loans, and over 7 in 10 recent graduates are in the red. Twenty-five percent  of student loan borrowers are in distress – meaning they are in a suspended status, behind in payments, or in default. And things only seem to be getting worse.

With this as a backdrop, it’s easy to become paralyzed. The loan balance figures and payment amounts can be distressing. Figuring our your repayment options can be overwhelming. It doesn’t help that loan servicers often provide incorrect or misleading information. It’s easy to feel like you’re lost.

But ignoring the problem isn’t going to make it go away; student loans don’t just disappear. Even if there are only imperfect solutions out there right now, it’s important to take stock of your situation, figure out what your options are, and optimize your student loan management approach. Only then can you start getting on the path to student debt freedom. Here’s how you can get started.Read More

Updates on Trump’s Student Loan Proposals

| Articles Current Events Income-Based Repayment Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Pay-As-You-Earn Policy & Reform

It’s been a whirlwind week. Last week’s leaked budget documents from the Trump administration showed proposed cuts to critical student loan programs including Public Service Loan Forgiveness, as well as major changes to income-driven repayment plans. The proposals sparked panic; hundreds of thousands of student loan borrowers have made major life decisions – selecting specific careers and specific repayment plans – in reliance on the continued existence of these programs. To have the rug pulled out from under them would be disruptive and unfair, and would likely be the basis of viable legal challenges.

After just a few days, we have some important updates on some of these reforms. Some good news, and some bad. Read on.Read More

BREAKING: Trump Budget Proposal Ends Public Service Loan Forgiveness

| Articles Current Events Income-Based Repayment Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Pay-As-You-Earn Policy & Reform

President Trump’s budget proposal calls for the elimination of funding for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. The program allows for borrowers who are repaying their Direct federal student loans under an income-driven repayment plan while working full time for a public service employer to have any remaining balance forgiven after 10 years of qualifying payments. The first wave of borrowers eligible for forgiveness under this program will be applying later this year.

While this is certainly a time to be extremely vigilant, there are two things to keep in mind before panicking:Read More

Student Loan News Roundup: April 2017

| Articles Current Events For-Profit Colleges Income-Based Repayment Income-Driven Repayment Loan Forgiveness Pay-As-You-Earn

There’s a lot going on right now in student loan news. Let’s get right to it.

New York State Will Offer Free College – With a Catch

New York is poised to become the first state in the country to offer free college tuition to its residents. Families who make $125,000 or less would be eligible for tuition-free college at all SUNY and CUNY campuses. This has the potential to benefit up to a million families. But there’s a catch – students who benefit from this initiative will have to live and work in New York for several years after graduating. If they don’t, the “free” tuition will be converted into loans that must be repaid. This has some borrower advocates concerned.Read More

Four Secret Quirks of Income-Driven Repayment

| Articles Income-Based Repayment Income-Driven Repayment Pay-As-You-Earn Student Loans 101

Many federal student loans are eligible for income-driven repayment – a type of student loan repayment program that uses a formula to create a uniquely-tailored monthly payment for borrowers based on their income and family size. For most of these plans, borrowers can enroll for up to 20 or 25 years (depending on the specific plan), at which point any remaining balance gets forgiven. This repayment period can be reduced through programs like the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

There are currently four major income-driven repayment plans, each with their own unique programmatic requirements and quirks: there’s Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR), Income-Based Repayment (IBR), Pay As You Earn (PAYE), and Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE). Each plan uses a different formula for calculating monthly payments; but some of the plans also have unique characteristics that differentiate them even further from each other.Read More