Conquering Student Loan Debt with Brandon Barfield from the Student Loan Professors

Are you sinking under the weight of your student loan debt? Just breathe! Let's navigate the murky waters of student loan debt together. We sit down with Brandon Barfield, a student loan advisor from the Student Loan Professors, previously known as Doctors Without Quarters, who takes us through the ins and outs of managing your student loans. We discuss their recent rebranding, their dedication to serving the medical community, and their fervor for spreading financial education.

The cost of education is skyrocketing, and the need for financial literacy is more critical than ever. In our conversation with Brandon, we highlight the importance of understanding student loan options, strategic debt management, and the implications of enrolling in for-profit residency programs. We also dive into the politics surrounding student loan forgiveness programs and how they impact debt levels in the medical field. 

Brandon also provides a wealth of advice on managing student loan debt, discussing the differences between federal and private loans, introducing new student loan programs like the SAVE Plan, and shedding light on current legislation. This episode is a treasure trove of insights and strategic advice for anyone looking to better understand and manage their student loans. Don't miss out; let's face the debt dragon together!

https://www.studentloanprofessor.com/
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello everybody and welcome to the Off-White Coat
podcast.
I'm Errol Shortenamny and todaywe are joined by Brandon
Barfield.
He is the face of the studentloan professors, which is
formerly known as DoctorsWithout Quarters.
So without further ado, let'sget to it.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, thanks a lot.
Yeah, it's pretty exciting.
Doctors Without Quarters, Imean, we're not as big and
popular as we'd certainly liketo be with the medical community
, but I think we've gotten apretty decent brand awareness
since we started the company.
And so changing our name kindof a big deal, and I'm the first
one to admit the new nameprobably isn't as catchy as the

(00:48):
old one.
I tell people prettystraightforward, you know,
creative names are easy to comeby, but the ones that are not
are not.
It is really really hard tofind a dot com web domain that's
not taken, and so we listed outlike six or seven different
name ideas that we liked, andstudent loan professor was the

(01:11):
only one, literally, that wecould get a clean web address
for.
And so here we are with the newbrand.
Yeah, we did rebrand.
In fact, the new website wentlive this past week and
currently I just got off a callwe're currently working on the
redirect from Doctors WithoutQuarters to student loan

(01:33):
professors.
We're not taking down the oldwebsite and the new one.
You'll see if you check it out,it's actually dual branded.
We're not doing away with theDoctors Without Quarters brand.
It's you know.
Again, it's pretty popular andwe like it as well.
But the reason we're doing thisis that, you know, even people
in the medical community like Iwent to a hospital HR directors

(01:55):
conference a year and a half agoand a few directors even though
our signage is all up with thebullets on what we do a couple
of them stopped by.
They're like oh, doctorsWithout Quarters, so do you help
with housing?
Or and they just didn't get itPeople that if you're not a
physician, you just don't getthe joke about doctors without

(02:15):
quarters.
You're not a physician, youabsolutely get the joke about
being a resident and and ourname is always giving us a good
laugh and smiles.
I love opening presentationsbut at the end of the day, you
know, we want to grow like anyother company.
We want to serve more borrowersand some of the strategies we
employ, yes, they're physicianspecific, but many of them like

(02:35):
public service loan forgiveness,they're not there.
They reach across all degrees,many profession, and so, yeah,
we kind of want a name that'sgoing to be a little more
obvious as to the industry thatwe're in, and we want people to
come work with us so we can helpthem regardless of what they do
.
So ultimately.
That's why we change the brand.
We're we're still going to bevery much focused on the medical

(02:57):
community.
That's going to be probably 80plus percent of our business for
who knows how long, and wewelcome that.
But for that other 20 percent,those other borrowers that we
need help.
We want we don't want them tofeel like second class citizens
working with us.
And so we're excited about thename change, even though we
we're we're under no illusionthat some of the medical
community probably aren't goingto like the new name as much as

(03:18):
the old name.
And that's just kind of it iswhat it is.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Oh yeah, I mean Doctors Without Quarters is a
very catchy name, so I canunderstand where go from going
from that.
Like I feel like it would bevery easy, or it would have been
easy, for you to find yourdomain, like your web domain,
with that one.
But I have completelyunderstand the change up to the
student loan professors,especially with you doing so

(03:43):
many other things.
I will say, though, you have,you do have a pretty big
outreach on the medicalcommunity.
I mean, we spoke kind of beforethis, but you've you've done
things for my school my medicalschool was St George's.
You've done things for them.
A lot of my co residents yougave a lecture at like William
Carey and a couple other places,and even on I think I was on

(04:08):
Imra the other day, like on themain website, and I clicked on a
sidebar and it just had DoctorsWithout Quarters and I was like
, oh my God, he's everywhere.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, Literally just yesterday I sent a whole new
like page content, layout andtext for them to completely redo
their resource site, Becauseyou know wording things a little
bit better than they had it.
But yeah, I mean we worked hardover the years to get the brand
out there.
I mean not not just for ourcompany, but one thing about

(04:38):
student loan professor, we lovedoing education.
I love doing webinars andpresentations.
My partner I founded thecompany with, I mean, you know,
after a decade more than adecade of giving talks, you know
he was starting to wear them alittle bit and I'm like I'm not
there, I still.
My favorite part of the job isgetting in front of an audience
or getting on a webinar and justdiving into this stuff and

(05:01):
having people say, wow, I feelso much better than I did an
hour ago about my student loans,and that that's a pump for me.
That's the rewarding part ofthe job.
And so we work hard to get thecontent out there and the brand
kind of goes with the content.
So it's worked well.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Well, I'm hoping that by the end of all this, I will
also be happy about my studentloans.
I am curious, though, like howdid you, how did this all get
started?

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah.
So I mean, I won't lie.
I certainly didn't go tocollege with dreams of being a
student loan advisor Right, Idon't know that anyone does, to
be candid with you.
So I came out of the Army.
I did four years in the Army.
It taught me one thing Armylife is not my style, right.
I realized real quick that Iwas an enlisted soldier in the
Army.
I didn't have a degree yet, andthat taught me real quick the

(05:49):
value of having a college degreein general.
And so I majored in finance,always liked money and I like
talking to people, so I majoredin finance with the aspirations
of being a financial advisor andplanner sitting down helping
people.
I think I was a little naive tohow much sales is involved in
financial planning.
It's about 90% sales and about10% planning.

(06:10):
That's very unfortunate, butthat is the industry.
But I was lucky.
I went right to work for afinancial firm that wasn't big
into sales.
They had some good channels todrive clients and so I was a
assistant financial planner witha group based out of Atlanta
and for two and a half years allI did was hard core financial

(06:31):
planning reweighting people'sportfolios and running cash flow
projections.
It was mostly retirees with amillion dollars plus, and it was
all about making theirretirement strategy and their
assets and their investmentsworks of minimum distribution,
just all sorts of stuff, andjust learned a ton.
And then 2007, 2008, 2009 camealong with the great recession

(06:58):
and boy, financial job.
They were the first ones thatjust took a whack and the firm I
was at they were all AUM assetsunder management.
That's how they made theirmoney.
So literally, they saw theirrevenue get cut in half in about
a year period and, of course,we saw people get let go.
So I found myself jobless rightin the middle of the great

(07:19):
recession, and you couldn't finda job anywhere with the word
finance in the title.
And the one job I did land uponwas working in financial aid
for a big online school, and soI took it.
They gave me a free MBA.
You know, get free tuition whenyou work for a school.
So I think the MBA they gave mewas worth more than the actual

(07:41):
paycheck.
It was a pretty modest, prettyhumble time in my career, but
even that school went through abig audit and they it was a
nasty audit, they werefor-profit school, unfortunately
and so I found myself with, youknow, a couple years of
financial planning, a coupleyears of student financial aid.
I was like those don't reallygo together until low and behold
, one day I got an email from acompany that said hey, we do

(08:05):
financial planning for doctors,we primarily focus on their
student loans and we're lookingfor people who kind of
understand both worlds.
And boom, all of a sudden I hadthe perfect resume and
background, and so they hired meand, as their presenter and
your relationships manager, togo out and build relationships

(08:26):
with schools, and that reallytook off.
It turned out to be my knack Ilove giving the presentations
and developing the relationshipsand that went really, really
well, until they found out theowner of that company was
actually cooking the books he'sin jail right now and we were
all just like completelysidelined.
They had nothing to do with thestudent loan business.

(08:47):
The student loan business wasvery legit, but he was trying to
ramp up this other business onthe side investments and he was
cooking the books for that.
And when it finally went downit took down the whole enchilada
with it and once again I foundmyself looking for my next move.
But we had developed a greatreputation.

(09:08):
A lot of the schools that workwith us.
They wanted me, they liked thepresentations I'm giving and the
content was it's federal basedprograms.
We're not making up PSLF, it'snot some sort of scam.
And so my coworker and I, whowas also a presenter at that
company, we said you know what?
It's time to do our own thing.

(09:29):
And so we took all the goodfrom the old company.
We got rid of all the bad asfar as the service model.
And we shot the big financialfirm called Larson Financial.
We had bumped into them and alot of residency programs.
They had a really strongreputation with medical
residents and young doctors andwe said, hey, you guys need to
partner with us.

(09:49):
And so essentially they gave usthe capital we needed to start
doctors out quarters and thatwas early 2015.
And the rest is history.
This year we passed 10,000individual barbers, mostly
doctors.
About 87, 88% doctors is ourclient base that we've counseled
as of this past graduationseason.

(10:10):
So yeah, we've come a long wayof it.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
It's a story.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
It never was planned.
Certainly, you know, 20 yearsago.
This is not where I saw myself,but you can see the smile on my
face.
I absolutely love what we do.
It's not for the faint of heart, especially with these student
loan pauses and everything else.
It's been a tough three years,but man, I wouldn't trade it for
the world.
I really love what we do here.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah, what a glow up.
Because you have grown so muchit's hard to imagine that it's
only eight years.
Because it feels like yourcompany for one could not have
picked a better demographic togo for.
Because people in healthcare donot hunt the debt and have no
idea how.
I have no idea how I'm going toget rid of mine yet I'm hoping

(10:56):
people say get your money tomake money.
I've yet to figure out how thatworks, but when I do it's going
to be a game changer.
But it feels like you've kind ofgot a like you're just part of
the medical community now.
In general, yeah, everybodykind of comes and listens to
your advice.
I know a lot of people.
I mean, I followed you onInstagram just to figure out all

(11:17):
this stuff, like you weresaying, over the past three
years, with all the loan stuff,like you're one of my good
sources of information oncurrent information when it
comes to that.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
So, yeah, Young doctors are interesting because
you know you're so focused.
I mean the amount of study andthe amount of information you
guys pack into your brain over afour year period, especially
that first two year period.
Right, when you're on theacademic side of things, it
boggles my mind I could never doit, but at the same time, yeah.

(11:48):
So the most common phrase wehear from any borrower we sit
down with well, number one is ohmy God, did I really let my dad
get that high?

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
But number two, we hear it all the time I'm just
not good with finance, I'm justnot good with money, or you know
, it's just not my thing.
And honestly, I get it.
You're talking to a guy.
I literally thought I wasn'tgoing to graduate high school in
time because I could not passchemistry and I had to retake
second semester chemistry myjunior and senior year, because

(12:21):
the neutrons and the proton,they just didn't click with me,
and that's how I think a lot ofdoctors are.
With financial concepts it justdoesn't click, especially if
you haven't been formallytrained in finance, right.
And so we very much can we getwhere people are coming from,
and I get exactly where peopleare coming from, and so it's a

(12:42):
neat experience to be able totake obviously very, very smart
people but just kind of cluethem in to how certain things
work.
And it's a very niche.
We're not trying to make peoplefinancial planners.
We're just focusing on a veryniche area about how student
loans and student loan programswork so that people can make
better decisions.
And that's the beauty of theservice is.
The service is ancillary.

(13:04):
Some people take advantage ofit, some people don't.
The education is what we're allabout.
The old company was all about.
Well, you just pay us and we'lltake care of your student loans
.
And that's not what we do here.
We educate people on what theiroptions are.
If we went out of businesstomorrow, our clients would be
fine.
They know exactly what's goingon with their loaner payment
strategy and they just choose tokeep us in their back pocket.

(13:27):
And that's how it should be.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
You said it best it's like reading two different
textbooks.
We love one textbook, don't payattention at all to the other
one, and it can just be verydifficult because there's a lot
of hoops that you have to jumpthrough in medicine and so,
especially with the loans andeverything that you take out, or
just the school I mean schoolsare so expensive now in general,

(13:51):
it feels like give themwhatever they want and then I'll
focus on what I wanna focus onand then I'll look at that later
.
Then, when you look at it later, you're like geez, what did I
do to myself?
I didn't realize I was gonnapass this debt on to my kids.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Now she's kidding.
Yeah, we've started a newfinancial literacy course now
where schools have been askingus for over the years hey, can
you speak to my first year, mysecond year students?
I'm like, well, I can, but Idon't necessarily have contents.
We've finally built out contentand the first year session and
frankly, I think some studentsget bored with it because they
already kind of get the wholebudgeting, saving money concepts
, but some don't, and so thewhole first year session is just

(14:32):
about understanding howinterest rates work for
different types of loans, butmost of it's about budgeting and
just really practical tips tosave money.
And you get like this bipolarfeedback.
Like the feedback's like 50-50,this was boring, I can't
believe I had to sit throughthis.
And the other 50% is like wow,I'm so glad I sat through this.
You probably just saved me 50grand on my total student debt

(14:53):
tab over the next four years forthings I just never thought
about.
So again, it's trying to geteveryone to that same kind of
base level of knowledge sothey're better off the end of
the day.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
I can say for one thing, I at least appreciate all
the information and plus,you're very up to date with
everything that's happened inthe news and everything you try.
I mean, I've seen you put upmany posts, especially recently,
because it seems like everyother day the student loan stuff
is going.
They're either gonna forgive itand then they're not gonna

(15:26):
forgive it and then so you'vehad your work cut out for you
over the past couple of years.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
We have, and of course, the recent climate's
been challenging, right, becauseliterally stuff's popping up
every day.
No that I had a rude awakening.
I was finding that I wasn'tplugged in enough and I was
seeing headlines come fromdifferent sources and sometimes
we'd have borrowers reach out tous saying, hey, what do you
think about this?
And I hadn't even heard aboutit yet, and so I made a very

(15:55):
conscious decision.
About six, eight months ago Isaid you know what?
We have really got to step upour game, especially with this
rapid pace.
So I've actually got a regimennow and my team does of very
particular sites that we areliterally checking on a daily
basis, just scrubbing them forall the latest student loan news
, some of our news outlets, someof them the educational

(16:16):
websites, the legislativegovernment websites.
I mean, we really really tryhard to be at the forefront of
seeing what comes out and thenwe try to post it on social
media within about 24 to 48hours.
But we try not to send too manyemails unless it's something
really, really critical, likethe Supreme Court decision.
We kind of just gather it andthen we put it in our monthly

(16:40):
student loan updates, becauseone thing I hear about all the
time is just the ridiculousamount of emails medical
students and residents get thesedays, and people are telling me
I don't open half my emailsanymore, and so we try to send
no more than one, maybe twoemails a month because we want
people to actually read them.
So social media is kind ofwhere we try to stay really,

(17:01):
really up to date and then letour newsletters and marketplace
updates do the rest.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
That makes sense.
Yeah, I get so many emails thatI actually was notorious.
I'm getting better at it themore that my job depends on it,
but like I was notorious forjust letting emails slip through
the cracks every now and then,and because I just got so many,
yeah, I am very curious with allthe recent news that's coming

(17:28):
in and out.
Should I even really be focusedon paying the loan back
immediately when it?
Because I guess I have a littlebit of federal and private
loans and I am curious witheverything that's coming out and
the new presidencies andeverything else.
Should we be focused on thepaying off the loan immediately,

(17:52):
or is it gonna be forgiven oneday, or is it?

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yeah, now you mentioned private debt.
That's as you know, that'sgonna be on me.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
That one's gonna be on me.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Right, you're not gonna get those private loans
forgiven.
Though one thing I will pointout there's a difference between
loan forgiveness and someoneelse helping you pay back your
student loans, like a militarypayment or a national health
service core repayment or anemployer sponsored repayment
subsidy.
If you find yourself takingadvantage of those sort of

(18:24):
programs, usually they will payback private educational debt.
So if I had a chunk of privatedebt, and additional to federal,
I'd probably be proactivelooking at some of those sort of
programs.
But of course, the big programsyou hear about, like public
service loan forgiveness, isreally the big, big one that so
many physicians are positioningfor, and now we're finally

(18:45):
starting to see forgivenesshappening with PSLF.
It's just shot up in the lastliterally two years.
But the answer is and I hate tosay it because I like to be
conservative with my financialadvice, but the truth is that no
, you probably shouldn't berushing to pay back your federal
student loans too early in yourcareer because, statistically

(19:08):
speaking and I don't have hardstats on this, I'm just telling
you what we see with our clientbase you've generally got a 50,
50 chance of finding a job aftertraining that's either gonna be
government or nonprofit andqualify you for public service
loan forgiveness.
And the cool thing about thatprogram and we can get into the

(19:28):
weeds with it if you want, butwe don't have to but the cool
thing about that program istax-free at the federal and
state level and it completelywipes out all of your debt,
including accumulated interest.
And so the deal with that.
If you think through itstrategically, it's like, well,
if I think this is a possibilitynot even a certainty, if I

(19:50):
think this is a possibility, thelast thing I wanna do is be
paying as much as possible orpaying ahead on my student loans
, because if, lo and behold, Ido end up getting them forgiven
10 years down the road, or fiveyears, however long it takes you
, I'm gonna look back and I'mgonna be mad at myself because I
could have just kept that moneyin my pocket and had twice as

(20:11):
much forgiven right.
And so that's one thing that wecoach barbers on is if you
think any chance that loanforgiveness is gonna be in your
future.
I actually don't recommendpaying ahead, but that doesn't
mean you have to either.
You can always kind of put thatlet's say you got $1,000 in
your monthly budget as aresident, or even 500, and
you're only paying maybe 200 asa resident.

(20:33):
If you're an income-driven orpayment, I tell barbers to take
that extra 300 in their budget.
Pretend that you're made overpayments and maybe open up a
special savings account, titleit your emergency payment
account or whatever, pump thoseextra dollars into there, and
that way you've got that chunkof money sitting there three,

(20:54):
four, eight years down the road,when you do inevitably figure
out which direction your careeris going to take, you, you do
have the option to kind of, in alump sum, pay aggressively on
your debt at that time, and soyou're not behind the eight ball
.
And so what you're doing isyou're kind of and finance, call
it hedging your bet, right andso you're kind of hedging your
bet there to kind of get thebest of both worlds.

(21:15):
If I get forgiveness, great,I've maximized that strategy.
If I don't get forgiveness andI'm paying back my debt, that's
fine too.
I've essentially paid ahead inthe years that I could afford to
, okay that's really good advice.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, I definitely want to dive a little bit more
and we've got a lot to talkabout but I definitely want to
dive a little bit more into thepublic service loan forgiveness,
because I think that's a greattool.
I'm for one kind of going forit, mainly because medical
school and everything can beexpensive, and I actually chose

(21:48):
a program that I knew that in,because if you're in residency
anybody listening that is inresidency or like it counts
towards those 10 years.
One thing I didn't realize isthat you had to make a certain
amount of payments on the loan Ithink it's like 20 or something
payments straight up on theloan and and have the 10 years

(22:11):
and then you can get it forgiven.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Yeah, it does get confusing because, generally
speaking, when we hear youngdoctors talking about PSLF,
they're mainly talking about itbeing a 10-year program, and
Practically it is.
But here's what the rulesactually state you have to make
120 on time payments Whileyou're on an income-driven or

(22:34):
payment plan and While you'reworking for either a nonprofit
or some sort of governmentinstitution.
Now, government can be federal,state, local, even tribal
Calculation, and so they won'tlet you double up the payments
to be nice.
If you could like, make twopayments a month and make it a
five-year strategy, of coursethey.
That's not a.
They wrote that in the rules.

(22:55):
You can't do that.
So it's a minimum 10-yearstrategy and practically it's a
10-year strategy.
But I encourage borrowers.
The number of payments is whatmatters at the end of the day,
because there's a good chancethat maybe you work a couple
years in the private sector,maybe you just got some gaps.
Rentants we see borrowers allthe time.
They graduate residency in June, they take the summer off.

(23:18):
They don't start practice till,say, september.
Right, there, that's three orfour months.
That's gonna push them past the10-year mark, right?
Because if they were afull-time employee during that
four-month period, that does notcount for PSLF, and so, again,
you have to.
You have to understand therules, but as a general mindset,
yeah, it's roughly a 10-yearstrategy and yes, you've hit the

(23:41):
nail on the head, residencydoes count in about 90% of
circumstances.
I make that statement to saythere are a handful of residency
programs out there that are infor-profit settings.
Most notably your HCA is yourhospital corporation of America.
That's one of the biggestfor-profit hospital chains out

(24:03):
there, and they specificallylike to buy up hospitals that
have residency programs andStart up their own residency
programs, because you're theirmain recruitment pool, and so
that's unfortunate from a PSLFstandpoint.
Not that HCA is a bad companyI've never heard really good or
bad things about them but ifyou're in a for-profit residency

(24:27):
program, unfortunately yourtime in training is not going to
count toward PSLF, and thatcatches a lot of bars off-guard.
They match, obviously theyapply for match at the end of
year three, beginning of yearfour.
They don't hear us presentabout PSLF until a couple of
weeks before graduation andthey're like, uh-oh, mm-hmm, I

(24:47):
wish I would have been seekingout a non-profit training
program during my interviewprocess.
I wish I'd have had thisinformation a year ago, right,
and so that that is unfortunate.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yeah, and it's hard to go through all the literature
and figure out what programsallow you to do certain things.
I remember that I only knewabout this because my mom who
she had truck she had gone to anorganization.
She's an ER physician and shewas working and she had like six
years under her belt for PSLFbut then they, the ER that she

(25:21):
was working for got bought outby Apollo or one of those
for-profit organizations.
Yeah, and then it itessentially she never got to a
point where she was ever able to.
She never went to a differentplace where she could get that
all Paid off or work those otheryears for a non-profit, so

(25:42):
which she got it all paid off.
So one way or another it workedout for her.
But it was just a funny thingbecause I never thought that if
you worked for a place and thenit got bought out, then you
would actually lose that becauseit's not a non-profit
organization anymore.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, and we saw that happen so.
So we've always kind of knownif you're for, if your
non-profit gets bought out by afor-profit, then that that is
gonna change.
Pslf looks at who's cuttingyour paycheck.
At the end of the day, what isthe tax ID number for that
organization of a nonprofitfor-profit?
I'll tell you the one thatshocked me.
So I'm in Atlanta.

(26:21):
We do a lot of presentationshere at Georgia hospitals.
One is Memorial Health inSavannah and that was a
non-profit system.
They got bought out by HCA backin 2018.
I think I was shocked to learnthat not just did the
practitioners get impacted bythat, even the residents now

(26:42):
found themselves employingthrough a for-profit and they
lost their PSLF eligibility.
That program was sponsored byMercer School of Medicine in
Macon, georgia, which is anon-profit, and my understanding
was, in most situations You'retechnically paid through the GME
and the GME is Mercer and thatwas not the case, at least not

(27:03):
at this particular System, andso that was kind of an
eye-opener for me and, man, Ifelt certainly bad for those
residents because a lot of themWe've been speaking there for
years and a lot of them werepositioning for PSLF.
So that's the one thing youalways do have to kind of be
prepared for DSLF is never aguarantee, and when that
unexpected change happens withyour career or employment, you

(27:25):
got a big decision to make there, right.
Do I stay with this company andfind a different loan or
payment strategy, or do I find adifferent employment To
complement my loan forgivenessstrategy?
And of course, I'm never goingto tell a doctor change your
career path to get loanforgiveness right that you
didn't spend all this time andeffort becoming a doctor to let
your student loans dictate whereyou work or how you work.

(27:47):
The truth is we see more andmore physicians tell us every
day that they are making careerdecisions, at least in part,
based off their student loansituation.
It's come to that and that'sunfortunate.
But two, three to four thousanddollars it's a big part of your
financial decision points.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yeah, and it can be I mean insurmountable trying to
get it out, accomplish it all.
I mean hopefully by the end ofall of it I will be able to.
But I do have a question aboutPSLF.
If you have a gap, are youstill able, like, let's say, you
work five years, your companygets bought out by HCA or you're

(28:27):
in a resident, but then youstart so you work a year for
that profit organization andthen you switch to a Non-profit
and then you work those otherfive years.
Does that count?
Or you do you have to doanother 10?

Speaker 2 (28:41):
No, so you'll be happy to know.
So PSLF is written fairlygenerously.
You can have as many gaps inyour timeline as you need, as
long as you hit that total 120payments with 120 months of
working in a non-profit, agovernment environment.
Eventually you're gonna getthat forgiveness.
Now what I tell borrowers isthat there is a point in no

(29:05):
return, like if you're out ofthe nonprofit and you're working
in a for-profit sector Three,four, five years.
Of course you're makingpayments on your loans during
this entire time.
Eventually you hit a pointwhere mathematically, even if
you did get back under anon-profit, what would happen is
you would end up actuallypaying off your debt Before you

(29:26):
hit that hundred and twenty ofqualified payment.
And so you do have to kind ofthink about it mathematically.
Generally speaking, what we findit's it's that first job post
training, 85, 90% of the time.
When someone matches to anon-profit, especially if
they've got a longer training,say four years, five years under

(29:47):
their belt Usually they'regonna say okay, I'm gonna stick
with this job.
A lot of times that firstcontract is gonna be four or
five years.
Anyway, I'm gonna stick withthis job at least long enough to
lock in my PSLF, becomedebt-free, then the world is my
oyster right.
I'm not saddled with debt.
I can take my career anywhereand do anything, probably find a
job that pays more money.

(30:07):
They're oftentimes there arediscrepancies between non-profit
and for-profit compensation.
That's just reality.
But if they come out oftraining and they take a
for-profit job, more often thannot they're gonna abandon the
PSLF strategy at that point.
But that's not a hard-fashedrule.
We do hear, you know physicianstell us you know what.

(30:30):
I took this job because Ididn't have a lot of great
choices.
I needed to get somethinglocked in for now.
I'm only doing it for a coupleof years.
I'm definitely not planning tostay here any longer than I have
to.
Okay, that's a person I'm gonnasay let's keep the PSLF door
open.
Let's keep you on that incomedriven or payment plan and let's
see how.
Let's.
Let's circle back in a coupleof years To see where you're,

(30:52):
what direction your career isstarting to guide you.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
Okay, I guess it's a person-by-person basis, which I
guess it makes your job a littlebit difficult, because Every
person is gonna have differentwants and needs and you've got
different borrowers with eachone.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
But Jordan, this is probably a good time to tell you
.
For those who want to dive alittle bit deeper in PSLF and
hear me present it.
You know, formally,educationally, we do try to keep
at least one Webinar on oursite at any given time, either a
recent Webinar for graduatingPhysicians or one for for

(31:28):
residents.
We don't keep them up very longbecause, again, the stuff
changes so often.
I don't like to keep datainformation.
I just posted a residentwebinar.
I did it for Johns Hopkinshouse staff council a couple
weeks ago but I intentionallymade it kind of generic as an
on-demand.
That is on our website rightnow.
So thing by wants to formallysee how we present this stuff
and get into the fine print andthe details and the strategy,

(31:51):
you're welcome to go check outthat webinar.
Okay, some of the gaps here,for sure.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
What would the?
What's the website domain likeit?
Is it?
It's student loan, professorand doctors without quarters.
Either one can get you there.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
The place I'd prefer you find it is student loan
professor calm.
Okay, google is so new,google's not even like if you
punch in student loan professorour website one and come up.
It literally just went livethis week.
But if you type in student loanprofessor calm, it will come up
and there's a resource tab andyou'll see webinars.
Okay, resource tab and I cansee the link to that as well, if

(32:25):
you want to post it in some way, yeah, yeah we'll definitely
post it when you.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
Now that you've upgraded to like the new website
, you've got all this running.
Is there any differentFunctions to the new website
that is different than the oldone?

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Actually, no so, and even the old website.
If you just Google DWOQ, wewill pop up.
We're gonna keep that live andit's just gonna redirect to the
new one.
But you almost think you're inthe same place.
We intentionally duplicated theDWOQ website and we created and
then we dual branded.
So you see the DWOQ.
Internally they call us DWOQ,but doctors without quarters do

(33:02):
lumber fast.
You see the two logos thereside by side.
We literally made it a mirrorimage of the old site.
So a lot of barbers therethey're, the resources they're
looking for are gonna be theexact same place that they're
used to finding them.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
That's probably for the best, just so that people
don't think it's two differentwebsites, like they can yeah,
see it.
And then, once people getacclimated, then you can start
making it.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
I, literally I did not want to necessarily have to
change the name of our companyor change our website.
The people who know a lot moreabout Digital marketing than I
do, they told me they're likeyou can't have two sites running
with identical or similarContent.
You really have to kind of picka horse and write it.
And so they told me you got it,you got to go with one or the

(33:46):
other, at least for at least asfar as the URL, the domain goes.
You don't want both those sitesrunning at the same time.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
So that that was a tough, a tough decision for us,
but that, yeah, that's the waywe went yeah, I mean it
certainly makes sense and youknow with if you're trying to
get yourself out there andyou're, you're trying to reach
Other students outside ofmedicine and there is a lot of
other students or there's a lotof other people with student

(34:15):
loans that aren't just inmedicine.
I mean there's probably a lotof debt in the medical field,
but it's also all over the place.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
So yeah, well, I Tell you, it's quite shocking how
expensive some of the grad helpprograms are.
Getting the PA programs and thenurse practitioner and Just
like everything if it's, if it'sgraduate level and it has
anything to do with health care,the prices are getting insane.

(34:46):
A lot of things that used to betwo and three year programs are
now going on to doctoral.
You got PhDs now that arehaving to get four year degrees.
I mean, it's getting to that.
It's really, and I won't getinto the reasons behind it, but
there's a lot of suspicions asto why it's going that way.
But yeah, I mean, doctors aredefinitely not the only one
struggling with student debtthese days.

(35:07):
Not, they have long shot 100%.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
There was this whole push, especially in like my
generation, to go to college andwe all had the federal loans,
so it was like you could getinto college.
If you could get into college,you can go to college.
But then it seems like everysingle year that even since I
was in high school up, collegehas increased.
And I'm the oldest of seven, soI have a bunch of little

(35:32):
siblings, so I've seen all ofthem go and do the same thing.
And college was expensive whenI went, but then it's only
increased at every school, evenlike the public and private
institutions have just shot up,and so I think it's got
something to do with everybodybeing allowed to go to school,
allowed the colleges to increasetheir price.
Well, now they're just, I mean,they're almost for, they're

(35:56):
almost all for profit, I mean,or they make so much money they
might not be for profit, butthey're making hand over fist.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, and I don't tend to know the finances that
go on behind the scenes, but Ido find and your listeners that
are osteopathic doctors willappreciate well, maybe they
won't appreciate this, but atleast appreciate that we
understand what's going on.
We do find that most of themedical programs that are
popping up are osteopathicschools.
It's a lot of smaller, privateschools that launch an

(36:26):
osteopathic program.
We see a massive new buildingget built and obviously that's
expensive.
A lot of these schools, becausethey are private nonprofits,
they don't get the federalfunding in and the state funding
like your more traditionalstate medical universities do.
And so I'll put it this way whenI'm talking to, say, a UNC, a

(36:47):
University of North CarolinaSchool of Medicine, in my
presentations I'm showing debtlevels of like 250.
I used to say 200, but ofcourse those are gone up as well
.
When I go into most osteopathicschools, like an LMU or a
Pikeville or whatever it happensto be, I'm showing debt levels
between three and 400, becauseon average osteopathic schools

(37:10):
the cost of attendance and theresulting debt levels they cost
about 100 grand more, about 50%more, than their corresponding
allopathic programs, and that'sunfortunate, especially when you
see that, by definition, mostosteopathic doctors are going
into primary care, right.
They're not doing as manyanesthesias and plastic surgery

(37:33):
and things of that nature.
We are seeing more that aregoing into higher pain
specialties and certainlyemergency medicine.
You're not living too frugally,right?
Yeah, we've got plenty of yeahyeah.
But it is unfortunate when wesee that your family
practitioners and yourpediatricians are often coming
out with the highest debt levels.
But that's the beauty of PSLF,it's an obvious solution to that

(37:57):
.
But again, now everybody'sgoing to get it.
But those same schools we then,a few years later, we see them
launch the PA program and theother complimentary grad help
programs.
They tend to be a littlepricier as well.
So I have to bite my tongue onsome of that stuff.
I mean, we, like the schools,bring us in.
You'll never catch mebad-mouthing a school or
anything like that, but when itcomes to the plight of borrowers

(38:20):
, we certainly see what's goingon and we certainly get it.
It's not for the faint of heartand you have to have a plan to
deal with it for sure.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
Well, to protect your connections with the schools.
I won't rant and rave too much,no, but I went to an
international medical school, soI definitely understand that
huge jump, because those arealso very expensive.
They may even be more expensivethan the DOs, but not by much.
So it's a lot, it's just a lotto deal with.

(38:50):
I've also noticed that loanforgiveness to be one student
loan programs have become verypoliticized in the news recently
too, so it's like one place hasa stance, one doesn't, and so I
was interested if you couldspeak more on that, because that
seems more the general topic ofdiscussion.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
Yeah, and it's kind of a pet peeve of mine.
I'll keep it professional andneutral today for sure, but I
mean I've been doing this since2011.
Ok, so I've seen programs comeand go.
As I get older, I do get moreinto politics.
I pay a lot more to not justpresidential elections but
congressional stuff that's goingon, things people propose, and

(39:35):
I've certainly noticed thatstudent loans have become a
major podium stump, whatever youwant to call it topic.
Ok, they are not a secondaryissue anymore and regardless of
what side of the aisle thatyou're on, or even if you're in
the middle, there's one thingthat has become very, very clear

(39:56):
, I think, to everyone whofollows politics these days
there is a very clear stancewhere the Democratic platform
stands on student loans andrepayment of those loans, and
where the Republicanconservative platform is and
it's this simple the Republicansslash.
Conservatives basically have amindset you took out this debt,

(40:19):
you need to pay it back.
Yes, there are some barbers whohave financial circumstances.
They need different types ofrelief and they generally seem
to be for that, but when itcomes to this notion of mass
loan forgiveness or these newerincome driven payment plans with
the ultra low payments and therising poverty levels thresholds

(40:40):
.
They are definitely pushingback on that stuff.
They feel like a lot of thenewer programs are too generous
and that they're basicallyletting barbers off the hook too
easy and not making up peopleessentially pay back the debts
that they signed up for.
And again, I'm not sayingthat's necessarily my opinion,
but that it's very clear.
That's where that party standson the issue.

(41:03):
Now on the Democratic slashliberal side, if I'm allowed to
say it that way, some people getoffended when you say liberal.
I'm just kind of grouping thosetwo.
In general they're not alwaysthe same, of course, but on that
side of the aisle you see avery opposite mindset and
approach to student loans andthat they take the approach that

(41:25):
, generally speaking, collegehas become too expensive.
Generally speaking, collegegraduates don't make what they
should be making.
Generally speaking, as manypeople as possible should go to
college.
It should be part of theAmerican dream.
You shouldn't have to sacrificeyour firstborn child to pay for
it and it should be affordableon the front end and the back

(41:48):
end and of course the front end.
It's getting harder and harder.
They can't force the schools todo this or that.
You know looking for solutionsto force the schools to bring
down tuition, but one thing theycan affect is what it cost you
to pay back the loans, or shouldyou even pay back the loans?
And so what we've seenprogressively over the years,

(42:08):
with each new control ofCongress or any time we see a
new Democratic president in theWhite House such that we saw it
with Obama and then we've seenit now with President Biden we
see more and more progressivestudent loan programs roll out
that, generally speaking, aremore generous to borrowers, and
so things like bringing down theamount of payment, how much of

(42:30):
your income?
If you're on an income-drivenpayment plan, well, how much of
your income should your paymentbe based off?
How much should your payment be?
Should you have to pay back allof your debt, or should you
only pay it back for 20 yearsand have it forgiven 25 years,
or 20, 25, and then 20.
Now, with this latest save planfor undergrad borrowers who
don't have graduate level debt,they've got a range forgiveness

(42:54):
between 10 and 20 years basedoff how much debt they've got.
If you've got $12,000 or lessin student loans on the new save
plan starting next year, you'regoing to get loan forgiveness
in 10 years, not working in thepublic sector.
All undergrad borrowers with$12,000 will have their
remaining balance forgiven after10 years under this new plan,

(43:15):
and so we've never seen anythinglike 100% interest subsidy.
This is a big deal forresidents, One of the big things
about residents going throughtraining.
Yes, the income-driven paymentprogram is helpful.
They help you position forpublic service loan forgiveness,
but on average, your residentwould rack up $20, $30, $40,000

(43:36):
in additional interest.
They come out of training fouryears later with an extra
$50,000 on their student loantab.
Well, they introduced repay sixyears ago, seven years ago, and
they had a 50% interest subsidy.
This new save plan has a 100%interest subsidy.
So what that means is I can nowgo through training, keep my

(44:00):
payment between zero and maybe200 bucks a month is all it
climbs to one of these newpayment rules.
I'm not going to accumulate adime in interest.
This new save plan is probablygoing to save the average
resident 30 to 40 grand over afour year training program.
I mean it's really, reallygenerous what they're doing with

(44:20):
student loans.
Now, of course, all that intheory, depending on how you
look at it comes from thetaxpayers right or an adage to
the national debt.
So that's why that's why it'ssuch a huge debate.
It's not that people don't begenerous for borrowers.
It's just that some parties arefocused more on the cost of
programs or how you're payingfor programs than they are

(44:42):
whether or not the programs arereasonable or even justified.
It's a hot debate.
Honestly, I don't like to getinto it.
Our policy around here is hey,we look at what's available, we
help borrowers maximize theprograms available.
Our opinion on it, frankly, isirrelevant.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
Yeah, it's almost better to just have an objective
view as opposed to like asentimental view, because it's
very tough, because I personallywith me having the skin in the
game of the lungs hearing aboutall the different payment plans
and everything like every time Ihear about a better one, I'm
like, oh hallelujah, because thelast thing you want to be doing

(45:19):
is, I mean, as a medicalstudent, you are paying to work
in a hospital, You're paying togo to the school, which is in
due, you're accruing debt towork like 80 hours a week, if
you can, which it feels like youshouldn't have that the adding
interest on top of that.
But at the same time, themoney's got to come from

(45:41):
somewhere and so it's a real.
It's just so hot.
My uncles always told me neverto talk about politics at a
party, and it's such that issuebecause it feels like even if
the Democratic side chose togive loan forgiveness, the thing

(46:02):
about politics is the otherside has to choose the other
stance, even if you know.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
And that's why it's important for your listeners to
understand, regardless of wherepeople stand on the issue once
again is irrelevant.
You have to work with whatyou've got right.
So my best advice to yourlisteners and to all borrowers,
especially physicians out thereyou got to think a couple years
ahead and you need to payattention to who's in control.

(46:30):
Who's in control of the WhiteHouse, who's in control of
Congress.
So right now we've essentiallygot to split Congress.
That's a good and a bad thing.
It stops either side fromgetting doing things too extreme
, but it also means nothing'sreally getting passed.
So in the last several yearswe've seen very little come out
of Congress.
They are doing things likeimproving the student aidgov and
some other stuff, but when itcomes to big policies, congress

(46:53):
hasn't done much.
But what we have seen is rightnow we've got a Democrat
obviously in the White House andwe've seen that they are doing
as much as they can unilaterallyto make things like better,
generally speaking, forborrowers.
Now they're getting challengedfor that.
So I'm sure I don't need tobring your readers up to speed
on the Supreme Court decision,right.
I know every person with studentdebt was following that case

(47:15):
very closely.
What they probably weren'tfollowing was when they heard
the SCOTUS shot down Biden'scancel.
I call it forgiveness, I callit his cancellation plan.
Yeah, essentially what mostpeople didn't bother doing was
reading the actual opinion byChief Justice Roberts.
Go look that up and read it.
They did not mince words.

(47:36):
They didn't just strike downthis particular plan based off
this particular piece oflanguage in the law they broadly
made comments about.
Generally speaking, we don'tthink you've got the power to do
this.
We don't think this is whatCongress intended in the Higher
Education Act or the Heroes Act.
We think that it should beCongress that forgives student

(48:00):
loans.
Even Nancy Pelosi came out.
I'm sure she regrets it now,but even Nancy Pelosi came out a
couple of years ago and said no, the Congress, the president,
doesn't have the power to dothis.
Right, but that's not going tostop this administration, and
probably future administrations,from doing everything that they
think is in their power andmaybe even a little stretch
beyond their power.

(48:20):
They're going to roll the diceand they're going to try their
best to push some of thislegislation through.
Now we've got already hints.
The Biden administration cameright out at the Supreme Court
decision.
They knew it was coming.
Obviously, I think it waswithin 90 minutes of the Supreme
Court decision being public.
They were holding a pressconference rolling out the three

(48:43):
part what the media is dubbedas Biden's plan B.
But first thing on that agendawe are coming with another broad
based loan forgivenesscancellation plan.
Now, of course, they're payingattention to the opinion.
They're trying their best tofind more legal ways to make it
more subject to scrutiny andpush through that scrutiny the

(49:04):
next time around.
Things like negotiatedrulemaking, some procedural
stuff they're going through.
This time they didn't gothrough before.
I think we're going to see thesame.
There's going to be a lawsuitfiled.
Someone's going to find a wayto bring it to the court.
It's going to go back throughthe whole appeals process.
It's going to end up probablyright back before the Supreme
Court.
Now, I'm not an attorney.
I'm not an expert when it comesto the legality of stuff.

(49:26):
Obviously, the White House isgoing to think through this.
They're going to try their bestto make it pass the court
scrutiny.
At the same time, the court madea very broad statement when
they made their opinion.
Who knows how it's going to go.
The court may not even be thesame.
Makeup Adjustus could come andgo between now and then, but one
thing that's very obvious thisadministration and probably

(49:49):
future Democraticadministrations they are not
going to stop pushing.
They are very serious aboutproviding debt relief for
borrowers in ways that we'venever seen before.
So it's going to continue to bea hot button topic on both
sides.
And so back my originalstatement you need to pay
attention to who's in control.
So if you're graduating and allof a sudden you see a

(50:12):
Republican wins the White Housenext year or the right side of
the aisle takes over Congress,you better take advantage of
whatever plans you can get intoand get grandfathered into.
There's a good chance.
Some recisions are coming right.
They're going to do their bestto claw back the more generous
plans that are out there to makethem a little bit more let's
call fiscally conservative, forlack of a better term and just

(50:35):
less generous as far asborrowers go.
And man, I can't empathize withyour audience enough how
frustrating that is right.
When you're making student loandecisions, you're deciding how
I'm going to manage my debt.
Can I afford to take out thismuch debt?
Can I afford to take this job,I'm counting on loan forgiveness

(50:57):
.
How freaking difficult is it toknow that every four years or
two years or whatever, thatprogram may be in jeopardy or
the program is going to changedramatically.
The only sunny side to this isthat there is a precedent for
grandfathering.
Like they're doing away withthe pay as you're in plan next

(51:18):
year.
If they're not kicking anyoneout of it, they're simply saying
hey, we're giving you a oneyear full notice.
You can't sign up for the payas you were in plan 12 months
from now.
So if you want to get into it,you better get into it now.
Never once in the 12, I guessI'll go on 13 years I've been
doing this.
Never once have I seen evenproposed that the rug somehow be

(51:42):
pulled out from under existingborrowers trying to pursue loan
forgiveness or income drivenpayment plans or anything like
that.
No one is trying to be unfairto borrowers and so like when
the Trump administration andtheir budget proposal tried to
do away with PSLF that's nevergoing to happen.
But even if it did, there was anextremely generous.
It was like a year and a halfon ramp for that new provision

(52:06):
to go through Anyone who hadever taken out one loan, even
one year in undergrad.
They were going to begrandfathered in all the way
through school and they couldpursue PSLF beyond school.
That's pretty generous, and soI wouldn't stress too much about
changing legislation If you'realready, once you're graduated,
if you lock in certain programs,you're fairly safe at that

(52:27):
point.
But yes, while you're a student, changing legislation, it is
what it is.
When you graduate and you lookat your menu of options, that's
where you got to think aboutwhat's available to me now.
Lock in the best option.
If things get better, sure Ican switch over to a better plan
.
If things get worse, you justwrite out the plan that you're

(52:48):
on.
Okay, that's kind of themindset.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
It certainly is a lot to consider, but you actually
had a lot of really good advicethere, especially about you know
it's all about the timing andwho is technically in office.
Now I know as a student goinginto a resident you don't really
get to choose.
Oh okay, I want the Democratsin office while I'm in residency

(53:13):
, but when I get out, bring onthe Republicans.
You know you don't get tochoose that option.
But the advice of picking andchoosing your battles and paying
attention to who's in whatoffice, that's actually really
important, especially with itchanging so much.
I don't know if you've heardabout this and I may be a little

(53:35):
off, but I heard that aMichigan or a Michigan judge had
actually over or he ruled infavor of the loan thing as
opposed to the Supreme Court,which made no sense how Michigan
could agree to.
I don't know if you've heardabout this.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
Like the Michigan, I don't know if it's Michigan
specifically.
The big headline from the lasttwo weeks was that there was
another lawsuit file to blockmass loan forgiveness and that
confused a lot of people, sothat's probably the one you're
talking about, I'm sure it is.
What specifically theRepublicans are trying to block

(54:11):
right now is called the theincome driven payment, one time
account adjustment.
Now, this has essentially nobearing on current students and
very few residents.
What's happening right now isthey did the PSLF waiver for a
year and on the heels of thatthey announced what's called the
the one time account adjustment.
It's basically the same thing.
What they're doing is theadministration basically came

(54:34):
out a year and a half, two yearsago and they said you know what
?
We recognize these programs arecomplex.
A lot of people.
They were on an income drivenpayment plan but they didn't
have direct loans.
They had the older fell loansor they were working for a
nonprofit, thinking they werepursuing loan forgiveness.
But lo and behold, eight yearslater they found out they
weren't on the right paymentplan to qualify for forgiveness.

(54:56):
And so what the administrationdid?
They came out.
They said you know what?
We want?
To basically go back and givepeople back credit, regardless
of the type of loan you have andthe type of payment plan.
Maybe have some short paymentsor late payments.
If you've been in payment 20years, we think that's long
enough.
We think you deserve pay as youearn 20 year forgiveness or

(55:17):
whatever program applies, andthat's what they're doing right
now.
And so right after the SupremeCourt decision within I think it
was a week the first big chunkof forgiveness resulted from
that one time account adjustment.
These bars all of a sudden gotback credit and for many of them
it didn't just get them closer,it put them over the hub to get

(55:39):
either PSLF or income driven orpayment forgiveness.
And boom, the initial number ofthe Barley House rolled out was
like 800 million or 400 millionI can't remember the numbers
off the top of my head.
We put a blog up there on it tocover it and of course it made
all the headlines and it caughtthe Republicans attention and
then that's when they filed thelawsuit and it took a little

(56:00):
while to work its way through.
Honestly, that cat's out of thebag, that genie's out of the
bottle, whatever you want tocall it.
You can't go back to so many800,000, whatever barbers and
say, no, we're reinstating yourloans at this point.
That's done and, in fairness,the administration announced
this initiative a year ago andso if someone had issue with it

(56:24):
they should have moved muchquicker to take that to the
courts, not wait until peopleactually got forgiveness.
We knew the forgiveness wascoming, but, candidly, even a
financial advisor we got a lotof financial advisors that send
clients to us and ask questionsof us and a guy emailed me
yesterday is like hey, my clientis a doctor, just got this

(56:45):
email saying their loans havebeen forgiven under the one time
account adjustment.
Is this legit?
It looks like a scam.
And I said, no, it is legit.
But the first batch offorgiveness I think the second
batch of forgiveness actuallyjust happened last week is why
they just got that letter andeven he made the comment he goes
well, it seems very interestingthat a person making nearly a

(57:08):
million dollars a year Isgetting their loans forgiven
just because they've been inrepayment for 20 years.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
Some people call it interesting.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Some people call it unfair, some people call it
justified.
You know, again, our opinionsdon't really matter here, yeah,
but yeah, it's a big deal, butit's all a matter of perspective
.
It's a big deal for all call itolder borrowers that have been
in repayment for quite some time.
It has almost no impact at allon any of your listeners that

(57:37):
are currently in school orrecently graduated.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
Yeah, All of the listeners.
You're still going to pay yourloans.
You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Yeah, but again, there's so much going on it's
hard to just differentiate thisstuff, right?
It's so and that's why we triedour best to put stuff out on
the blog.
That breaks it all down andeven our blog says if you're a
student or a resident, you canignore most of this.
Don't even keep reading fromhere down.
I think I put something alongthose lines in that blog article

(58:03):
.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
Now you've been.
It's been super helpful, likeyou just said, it is so there's
so much to take in.
And it feels like becauseyou're very focused or at least
me personally and a lot of mycolleagues and everything you're
so focused on medicine and itfeels like you're drinking the
description is drinking from awater hose or a fire hydrant.

(58:25):
Essentially, you feel like youeither can't get enough medicine
or you are just flailing aroundto begin with and you don't
want to.
You want.
You've got so much to learnthat it feels like these things
just pass by like as littletickers and you're like oh crap,
I still have to, I still have aloan to pay back.
And then you're like okay,maybe it's forgiven, maybe it's

(58:46):
not, maybe.
And if somebody sent me anemail that said my loan was
forgiven, I would have thoughtit was like a Nigerian print
scam or something.
But the information that you'vebeen putting out and everything
actually has been very, veryhelpful.
I mean even your company andlike the information that was
given was how I got myinformation to like sign up,

(59:08):
knowing that I could do thepublic loan or public service
loan forgiveness while I was inresidency, and everything which
was very, very beneficial.
So I guess, yeah for one thankyou.
But I was really curious, likefor some of the listeners that
because I'm already in residency, but if they're about to like
begin their medical journey,we'll take it at base level,

(59:31):
like if you're about to beginlike college and or grad school
in general, what would the tipbe from you, like, what would
one of your biggest tips be forthem starting that journey,
financial at least speaking?

Speaker 2 (59:45):
Yeah, and we'll let the underlying condition there
be they can't pay for school,right, they have to take out
some sort of debt to fund school.
I do recommend the federaldirect loans.
A lot of people are askingquestions right now because
interest rates are so high.
This year I think it's 7.04 forunsubsidized loans.

(01:00:07):
For graduate school, I thinkit's one 1.5% lower for
undergrad we don't do too muchundergrad, but for grad plus
loans, which I'm sure you'refamiliar with, they are always
1% higher than unsub loans.
So for this year, for the 23-24academic year, interest rates
for medical students, forinstance, are 7.04 and 8.04.

(01:00:29):
And a lot of people are likewhoa, that seems really really
high.
They are high.
They're unprecedented high.
In the history of the directloan program we have not seen
them that high.
Is that fair or unfair?
Or shall I shop arounddifferent loans?
Well, first of all, if you shoparound different loans, you're
probably gonna find your privaterates are even higher.

(01:00:49):
Okay, so just figure that outfor yourself, shop it out.
See if I'm correct on that.
I don't spend any time shoppingout front-end loans.
We shop out refinance loans,which are even better than the
front-end loans typically, and Ican tell you they're higher.
But generally speaking, thefederal loans are competitive.
But as far as whether or notit's fair, when I was first

(01:01:09):
starting this in 2011, studentloan interest rates were fixed
6.8 for unsubs, 7.9 for gradplus and 8.5 for the older fell
grad plus, which they phased outthat same year and a lot of
students that was in 2010s,early 20s interest rates were
super low in the marketplace.
A lot of students werecomplaining, right, that this

(01:01:31):
isn't fair, and so thedepartment then looked at it and
said you know what you're right.
Let's take a standard the10-year T-bill, which goes up
and down with market conditions,and every May, with the T-bill
auction, what do T-bill rates goat in the month of May?
We're gonna set student loanrates based off that rate.

(01:01:53):
Of course, there's a fixedspread well, basically a markup
in there for administrative feesand well, I don't know, it's
just a markup at the end of theday, but there is a markup and
that way we'll use that as thestandard to set student loan
rates for the following July forthat academic year.
And that way, if market ratesare low, student loan rates are
low.
If market rates are high,student loan rates are high.

(01:02:15):
Well, guess what Market ratesright now are sky high?
Because the Fed is trying tofight inflation.
It is what it is.
Hopefully they come down nextyear.
Okay and we predict that theywill.
But even with rates beingrelatively high, I still
recommend the federal loans.
You've got these generoussubsidies, such as the new save

(01:02:38):
plan 100% interest subsidy.
That's crazy.
I still can't get over that.
You've got loan forgiveness.
You've got income-drivenpayment.
You got flexibility If you'renot making a ton of money after
school, you're not gonna bedrowning in student debt.
And just generally speaking,the federal loans have a lot
more provisions and flexibility.
Even the interest accrual.

(01:02:59):
It's simple interest accruing.
It's not compounding every year, every month, like a credit
card.
The rates aren't variable.
They're not going up and down,which that can be a good thing
sometimes, but generallyspeaking, fixed rates tend to be
better than variable in mostsituations.
And so there's origination fees.
The origination fees arecatching some hot water.
Your unsub-origination feeswill over 1%, your grad plus

(01:03:21):
origination fees like four andsome change.
A lot of people are asking whydoes the government need to
charge me an origination fee?
Right, I don't even know whatorigination fee is that seems,
that makes sense.
Origination fee is if I borrow100 grand for this semester.
If it's, you can't borrow 100grand unsub.
But just for example, if Iborrow 100 grand unsub, they're
gonna tack on a little over$1,000.

(01:03:42):
Oh, if I borrow 100 grand andgrad plus, they're gonna tack on
$4,000.
It's just a straight up feethat goes right on top of the
loan balance as soon as thatloan gets originated.

Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
It's a little time fee yeah.
That makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
But generally speaking, we I do still
recommend borrowers, good or bad.
I think that the federal loanshave the best overall potential
and of course, it's the onlydebt you have any chance of
maybe getting forgiveness oneday.
So I think it it needs to be apretty extreme circumstance If
you're funding your medicalschool, especially with
something other than federaldebt, because you do have that

(01:04:20):
forgiveness potential kind offloating around out there.
Whether your chances are loweror high, it's still a chance
right, you know it's been donemore than 20 years ago.
You're telling me, there's achance right, yeah exactly, and
so so we I do recommend thefederal loans.
Aside from that, borrow as lessas you have to.
You know, I made my openingstatement the number one thing
we hear from borrowers when wesit down on our consultations

(01:04:43):
man, did I really get let mydebt get up that high?
I wish I would have done this.
I wish I would have lived morefrugally the number one regret
for graduating medical students.
They look back and they didn'tlive as frugally.
There is a phrase you need tolearn right now live like a
resident.
I'm sure you've heard thatpoint.
Oh, yeah, right, george.

(01:05:03):
What does that mean?
It means I'm basically poorright now.
I need to.
I need to act my wage, if you'veheard that a lot of medical
students I'm not trying tolecture people a lot of medical
students living on borrowedmoney need to act.
Their wage Okay, your wage iszero, and just embrace it.
You're talking to a guy thatcame from the army.

(01:05:24):
I went through basic training.
I made like $25,000 a year as aprivate in the army back in the
day.
You wanna talk about livingfrugally and being basically
poor.
You just embrace it, right.
Everyone around you's in thesame boat.
So you look for cheap stuff todo and cheap stuff to eat and
you just embrace that time ofyour life and you know,
eventually you're gonna makegreat money.
But if you will have thatmentality going through school,

(01:05:47):
borrow as little as you have toand of course that's a result of
living you know a certain way.
I promise you you will be somuch happier when you graduate.
Even if the number is 350,000,you know you're like you know
what that number was gonna be400,000, but I did this and I
did that and I brought that barand I brought that total down.

(01:06:08):
I'm happy with that number,relatively speaking, within the
things that I could control, I'mhappy with that number.

Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
Yeah, that's very good advice because the living
like a resident is very true,because even after the first
couple of years out of yourresidency, or even when I'm in
residency, we can like moonlight, where we can go work as the
physician and actually get paid.
You know, kind of like what aphysician would actually make at

(01:06:38):
these other hospitals.
And to do that, you know, allof a sudden your income shoots
up Like I make my monthly incomein one shift if I do a
moonlight shift but also usethat money.
Still live like a resident.
Don't use that money to buy anew car, because it's really
hard not to keep up with theJoneses.

(01:06:59):
If you work in the ER andyou've got there's a spot and
all the spots are Lexuses or allthese fancy cars and you've got
this surgeon that parks besideyou with a big old Corvette,
yeah, and you know you don'twant your rinky dink car there,
well, you should just embrace itin a way, but it's coming right

(01:07:20):
those days.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
your time is coming.
You just have to be patient.
But my goodness, you guys spendso much time in training.
I couldn't imagine spending somany years waiting for your real
payday.
So I get the struggle is real.
I get it for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
I'm curious of like what for the people you know
that are still in school, likewhat their forgiveness will look
like in two to three to fouryears from now?
I'd heard things about like thesave program and stuff, but so
two things.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
back to PSLF.
That continues to be thegreatest opportunity for
physicians, especially now ifI'm talking to IT professionals
or dentists.
I did a webinar just last nightfor the American Student Dental
Association.
Maybe 5% of them will get PSLF.
That is not the forefront ofour conversation when I'm

(01:08:11):
talking to dentists, but forphysicians, because of how the
hospitals and other healthsystems are set up, it's still a
big deal.
By the way, when I say hospitalhealth system is the greater
terminology to use.
There's so much consolidationgoing on in the healthcare these
days that they're going likeI'm in Atlanta.
We've got four big systems here.

(01:08:32):
They're all nonprofit andthey're buying out all these
private practices and theirother hospitals.
So what we're seeing is moreand more physicians are finding
themselves working for these bigentities, which may or may not
be a good thing, but one thinggood about it we find more and
more providers in differentspecialties that are employed
now through a nonprofit whomaybe 20 years ago would have
been employed in a for-profitprivate practice setting.

(01:08:55):
So PSLF is gonna be on the rise.
I see more providers, generallyspeaking, especially physicians
, getting PSLF five or 10 yearsfrom now than I do right now,
and that's a good thing.
The numbers have already gone.
Before at the start of COVID itwas like just over one billion
or less than one billion hadbeen forgiven.

(01:09:15):
In three years time it's goneup.
I don't know what the latestnumber is.
It's like $40 billion that'sbeen forgiven under PSLF.
Like it just boom becausepeople finally hit that 10-year
mark where they've been theseincome-driven or payment plans.
Now, aside from that, like Isaid, the SAIT plan really is a

(01:09:35):
game changer and so probablywill be programmed that come
behind it.
Normally speaking we seephysicians use income-driven or
payment plans short-term duringtraining because you need that
budget relief, even if you'renot positioning for forgiveness.
And then they decide whether ornot they're gonna pursue PSLF.
And if you do, you need thatIDR, that income-driven payment
plan, to kind of get you that'syour vehicle to get you to PSLF.

(01:09:58):
So those two things kind of gohand in hand.
Again, if you check out thewebinar it explains that better.
But most physicians, if theydon't end up going down a
nonprofit, they usually abandonthe loan forgiveness and the
income-driven or payment plan.
At that time they do somethinglike a refinance hey, let me
just drop the interest rate onmy loan, do a SOFI or Laurel

(01:10:21):
Road or Credible.
There's lots of differentrefinances Something we helped
with for free, by the way.
Let me just drop my interestrate and pick a pay down a 10
year, a 15 year, a five year,whatever works in my budget, and
that's gonna be my loanstrategy, and you just check the
box, like it's kind of like amortgage.
Right, I don't look at thebalance on my mortgage most
months.
It's just part of my budget forthe next 20 years.
That's kind of your mindset onyour student loans when you

(01:10:42):
refinance.
Here's what I'm getting to,though.
As the income-driven or paymentplans become more generous,
we've been modeling these thingsout, like the save plan or what
they call IBR for new borrowers.
Some of those plans actuallymodel out pretty good long term.
If you've got $350,000 andyou're going into, say, primary

(01:11:04):
care, if I were to model thatout for 20 years, it actually
has you paying back less thanyou would pay on, say, a
traditional 10 year pay down.
The question is weighing themath savings versus the
practicality Is having to dealwith changing legislation and
married filing separate taxreturns and unknown income.

(01:11:25):
Like I don't know my income isgonna be 10 years from now I'm
gonna forecast it, but you knowwhat's gonna change.
There's a lot more work andvariables and uncertainty that
goes into that long-term 20 plusyear forgiveness strategy as
compared to, say, a refinanceand just set it and forget it
strategy.
Right now most physicians choosethe set it and forget it

(01:11:48):
strategy.
They say you know what, even ifI'm a pediatrician, I'm still
making a fairly comfortablesalary.
I can afford to pick a loanerpayment strategy.
Even if it's not the cheapeststrategy, in theory it's
affordable.
I've saved some money bycutting my interest rate and I
can afford.
That's one of life'sconveniences, basically that I

(01:12:09):
can afford and I'm gonna chooseto go that route.
Is that mindset gonna change asthe IDR programs become more
and more generous?
Maybe, I don't know.
I'm the first one to tellbarbers it's not all about the
math.
Right, you have to have arepayment strategy you're
comfortable with, that's gonnabe good for you long-term, that
fits your financial goals andvalues and just kind of where

(01:12:32):
you wanna be.
And again, that's a personaldecision.

Speaker 1 (01:12:36):
Yeah, it's definitely hard weighing all of the
factors that go into it.
I'm certainly glad that we havepeople like you that can
actually that understand it alot better, that can kind of
spread it, spread theinformation well and
understandable.
I hope everybody listeningtoday has been able to get
something from this conversation, because I mean I certainly

(01:13:00):
have.
I feel like I've learned a lotand you've been very well-spoken
on the topic.
I know you're a very busy man,brandon, so we won't keep you
much longer, but I just wantedto say for one, thank you.
Anybody that was listeningplease go check out
studentaloneprofessorcom.
Was that correct?

Speaker 2 (01:13:16):
That's it, or again, you can go to dwqcom too, and
that'll get you the right placewhen we're another.
So either way, use both names.
They'll both keep working forthe foreseeable future.

Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
And you're on Instagram and all the social
media.
It's under the new name thoughstudentaloneprofessor, right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
Yeah, most of our social media handles are SL
Professor, if you wanna searchfor that.
And one thing I learned thisweek is when you first search,
you have a lot of the searchplatforms.
They've got like a categorypeople, companies, videos you
have to search where it sayscompany or organization and boom
, that's when we'll pop up.
So I'm not super social mediasavvy.

(01:13:55):
I've had to step away outsidemy box because obviously if
you're growing any company thesedays, you have to be good on
social media and if I had my way, I would delete it all from my
phone, just to be honest withyou, because it's such a
distraction.
So I've had to learn a lotalong the way.
We got a good marketing team sothey keep me, they tell me.
What I need to know and thatwas one of the lessons I learned
about social media this week isthose categories make a big

(01:14:15):
difference when you're searchingfor stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
No, it's a lot to take in, especially, I mean,
with me.
I feel like I would delete itall as well, but people like you
, though, that understand theknowledge should be on there
spreading it.
So there's a lot of othermisinformation or things that
are being passed around.

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
So we're doing more TikTok these days and that's
something like I was never onTikTok, but the demographics
show that more and more of youand your peers are on TikTok.
They're saying young doctorsspecifically are spending a lot
more time on TikTok and so theytold us to get on there.
Frankly, it's been a lot of fun.
It's a lot more fun to justcreate a casual three, four,

(01:14:56):
five minute video than it is totype some blog and have it
edited.
So we've been trying to post upvideos at least once a week on
recent topics.

Speaker 1 (01:15:05):
Yeah, and I mean my wife specifically, if she wants
to look up something, or even ifwe were, like when we visited
Italy, places to go, she looksthat stuff up on TikTok and
they're like or you know, and ifI type in student loan
forgiveness, I'm sure on TikTokit will, your face will pop up,
but I hope so.

Speaker 2 (01:15:25):
I need to try that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
But, brian, it was so good speaking to you.
Thank you so much for coming,sharing the wealth and just
being an overall good sporttoday.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
Thank you, yeah, thanks so much for having me.
You know I do so many webinars.
Honestly, this is one of thefirst interview podcasts.
It's been nice just to have aconversation about student loans
and the environment and theplight of young doctors these
days and other borrowers, sothis has been wonderful for me.
I've enjoyed the experience andI wish you and all your
listeners the best of luck Again.
I know you know large.

(01:15:56):
You know six-figure loan debtis not for the faint of heart.
But there's good programs outthere if you just take the time
to learn them.
Whether it's through us or thegovernment resources,
studentloansgov is becoming moreand more robust.
They put a lot of effort intomaking that a better resource
for borrowers.
So just do your research, getthe knowledge out there.
It's out there and I thinkyou'll find that your student

(01:16:17):
loans don't have to be a bigburden not during school, not
after school.

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
I love it and go check out student loan
professors.
Thank you everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:16:25):
Take care Jordan break.