Student Loan Scare

When Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness was repealed, I knew that there was little chance that it would ever be reinstated.  That became even more apparent from the negative comments that President Trump made about student loan forgiveness when he took office.  Thus, in the spring of 2024 I paid off the small loan that we had taken out for Meg when she was in college.  The interest rate was extremely low, but I figured that Trump would increase the rates or start charging fees for any outstanding loans.  I was also glad not to have to worry about the loan anymore as I hate having monthly payments on anything.

I didn't really think much about the topic until this summer when I read the news that Trump was going to start garnishing individual's wages if they did not begin paying back their student loans. Although this no longer applied to us, I did worry about Karen.  She still had four small loans from her time in college that had been in forbearance for the last few years while the courts sorted out the political mess of student loans.  Karen must have read the same article, as soon after I read it, I got a text from her asking what she should do.  I spent a day reading through the information that she had received from the Department of Education and her loan carrier.  It really did not make much sense.  Doug agreed with me after he looked at it, so we decided that the best thing for Karen to do was to call her loan company to see what they recommended.  She planned to do so this week on Brett's day off so that he could be on hold while she worked.

Thankfully, the news wasn't as scary as first portrayed in the news.  Since Karen had already made payments, she could either sign up for a payment plan, ask for a deferral or start paying the loans on her own.  She and Brett decided on option number three and began with a large payment this week.  Brett then sent me a spreadsheet of how and when they would make payments with the goal of being finished with all loans by the end of 2025.  Doug and I both thought that was a great idea as they could then start saving for more exciting things like starting a family or buying Karen a new car.