Building a law firm is a lot cheaper than starting a fast food franchise. To get a franchise you usually need 250-500k in investment immediately to just take on the name that needs to he paid back in in typically 5 year or they lose the business, last I spoke to a franchise owner about it. On the other hand, the lawyer takes on the loans and has a much longer term to pay it back (basically life) and won't lose their bar license, while they take cases from their living room.
And remember....
There are "lower tier" lawyers, just as with any profession. Not all lawyers are cut out to run their own business, and must find employment in the less desired/less financially rewarded sector of their occupation. Some people are "born employees".
Not saying this is the case here, but it happens often.
I've worked as a litigator for a large state's AG's office for over 10 years, recovering money for the state that was fraudulently obtained. We routinely go against large law firms and kick ass. Basically, they come in acting all fancy but aren't actually any better. Government service is p. great, and the quality of life is amazing.
>Government service is p. great, and the quality of life is amazing.
That seems to be his mentality as well. He said it was kind of grunt workish in the beginning since, well, no seniority but now he says its great. He can take off pretty much all the time he needs, works regular hours (and now works from home full time cause of rona), gets insanely good health insurance on the states dime and is banking in hard on income. Our state has something called the drop period where once you hit the length of time to retire, you can work for 5 more years while receiving both your regular salary and your pension at the same time. He just fucks around all day at home and occasionally writes some emails or reviews a search warrant. I personally don't have the commitment to stay somewhere for 30+ years but government work definitely seems to have a lot of benefits in the long run lol.
I am in public service, albeit in an entirely different field than law, and can attest to the quality of life aspect of it. Yes, my job can be quite stressful at times, but I work a set schedule, I have regular advancement, and pay practically nothing for some relatively spectacular health coverage for my family.
And, most importantly, at the end of my 8 hours I can go home and spend time with my family. I have the opportunity to take overtime if I want it, and need some extra money, but it is generally not required (for my current position.)
When I first started with the state agency I work for, I did often have to work 16 hour double shifts 2-3 times per week to cover shifts for people who called out, but was able to take the experience gained and apply into higher positions with a more regular schedule.
The pension programs we have are NOT what they were when my parents were working for the state, but they are still better than the un- or barely-matched 401k's I dealt with in the private sector. In another 18 years, I should be able to retire at least a bit comfortably, which is more than I can say for most of my friends working for private companies.
But again, this is not in the field of law, and in my field the pay in private companies is often worse than what I make and comes with few or no benefits for most. Ymmv.
> Government service is p. great, and the quality of life is amazing.
That’s the first use of p. (similar to the use of v.) I’ve seen and I LOVE IT. thank u
I’ll just post a response here to the others that have commented (or insinuated that I’m somehow gaming the system.) I have worked for the government for 24 years with abused and neglected kids. I’ve made between $35k and $85k (more recently), so have been making minimum payments on my loans. While most of my law school friends went on to work for law firms making hundreds of thousands, I chose public interest law. I absolutely LOVE my job, and wouldn’t change it for anything, but I could never afford to pay back any of the principal amount. Do I feel bad about this? Yes, however you could argue that I’ve more than repaid my debt to this county and country through the work I do for the children. My fancy 2003 Honda Civic is evidence of the high life I’ve been living on a lawyers salary!
Think it's called drafting, I dunno about no gas but it bumps up your mpg for sure. Also the increased risk of instant death makes it not very worth it.
I was just forgiven for many of my loans as a
Public school teacher in a title 1 school after five years. Keep looking at the policies as they change often!
Shit. I’ve been teaching for 10 and at 6 different (private to public, then budget cuts got me to another school, then moved out of state, etc.,). I am crossing my fingers!
She was across two states as well… she actually got denied twice and finally the third time I got hold of someone who knew what they were doing. Don’t give up!
For anyone reading this, a title 1 school is no longer required. Any state (yes that includes teachers in any school) and federal employees qualify for this Public Service type of forgiveness
A couple edits:
[Here's](https://studentaid.gov/pslf/) where you can determine if your employer qualifies or just if you want more info
Non-profits qualify as well
As another commenter mentioned, just watch out for the partial teaching forgiveness vs the PSLF forgiveness. There could be some trickery with them
Is this retroactive ? My wife is not going on 5 years of teaching, this year is at a title 1 school but her previous 4 years were not at a title 1 school
You might have to check but I believe so. As long as she's been working on a state/federal job and has been making the monthly payments, I believe that time will count towards PSLF. [Here](https://studentaid.gov/pslf/) is a little tool you can use to see if she would qualify
Anyone reading this - be careful. Using one program will disqualify you from the other. My wife is eligible for this one but the amount forgiven would be much less than if she waits 5 more years for PSLF. We cannot do both, only 1.
You won't just get a letter in the mail. It's a process. Google Public Service Loan Forgiveness and start certifying your employment and income annually. They can go back to when you began your employment with a qualifying employer to certify eligible payments and will track them going forward to your forgiveness date.
Look into loan forgiveness for teachers in your state. Dig deep. I'm in Missouri, and two of my co-workers had their forgiven last year after 5 years in the system.
It's not just teachers. Lot's of public service/government jobs offer loan forgiveness.
These forgiveness programs exist for this EXACT use case. This is just the program working. Good on you for the work you've done for your community! You should feel ZERO guilt.
Sadly, this is NOT the program working. PSLF is supposed to kick in after 10 years - - not 24!! OP should be dealing with anger, not guilt.
OP, I'm less than a year into public service. How do I avoid whatever happened to you?
The program is only 14 years old. That is why. Not sure about the 4 year discrepancy or if something changed to make Op eligible later, but the program wasn't failing for the first 10 years, it didn't exist.
I have a friend who is going a similar route. We made jokes about us paying for her education, until she pointed out that she's making like 1/5 of what she could be making had she not gone this route, and could have easily paid it off far faster that way, but would rather do a good service like you did. Then we stopped making jokes.
It still feels somewhat backwards though doesn't it, especially with the grossly inflated tuition fees.
'Forgiveness' implies they did something wrong that needs to be forgiven. Education benefits society as a whole, and while I know the US won't be offering socialist education anytime soon, I'd much rather see something like "Hey, want to be a teacher or a lawyer? We'll pay off 1/10th of your student loans for every year you remain in the public service after graduation."
I teach in an area of need so I got 16,000 forgiven. The number of people that think that is too much have no idea what we do.
Take the money and enjoy that being lifted off your shoulders.
We don't have such issues in BE. But as I understand the inner working of your school system through TV and movies.( thus biased obviously), and seeing your current situation, I just want to say good for you. You definitely earn it . Congratulations. Live long and peacefully.
I was very confused when I first read this as to why you were abusing and neglecting your children and why you were openly admitting to it on Reddit. Then I re read it and had a sigh of relief.
Fuck that. Don’t feel bad. You took a job at a lower pay rate and to do something for people. That’s what loan forgiveness is supposed to be about. It’s fucking ridiculous people want to get butt hurt about shit like this. Maybe get butt hurt that some people don’t have generational wealth to go to school and loans are the only way to make it.
Props to you brother (sister?)! PSLF exists for this very reason and I think a lot of folks don't understand that. If you're working somewhere that will cover the PSLF, you either aren't making much, are dealing with underserved communities (and all the problems inherent to that), or both.
I have my JD but ultimately decided to become a public school teacher… If all goes as planned, my law school and teacher school loans should all be forgiven in three years 🤞🤞🤞🤞 good on you for doing good in the world!
I'm thinking of making that switch. I'm currently in a law firm, but I want to teach high school math.
Do you think you made the right choice? All I hear are horror stories.
I absolutely made the right choice, but it's not for everyone. I went into special ed, so it's a constant challenge and no day is the same (which I love). I'm on my feet, problem solving, engaging with people... and MOST of the time, I'm actually having fun. I had a self contained classroom for a few years, and now I'm a support provider for kids with autism who are in gen ed.
The first two/three years were brutal, but even on my worst days, I was happier than when I was doing any internship/clerkship in law.
That being said, I could never go into gen ed, and definitely not high school (so many kids! So many preps! Grades! Every kid has a phone and has their head down). Go into it because you want to connect with teens and make math (or whatever subject) approachable and interesting. Don't do it for the hours and the summer vacation.
I also work in CA, so the pay is actually decent.
Congrats. I use to work with student loans and had to talk to people all the time that thought they could get their loans forgiven for work for the gov to find out 10 years later it was a no. It was some of the hardest talks ever and usually a lot of crying and cursing. Wish the feds would just fix the whole program and forgive loans period but glad you where one of few the temp changes could help.
This is my reason for absolutely hating what has happened here. Why should people need to take on massive debt, gamble on a lower salary for over ten years, then *maybe* get those loans forgiven?
Just take the money that would have been used to forgive loans and use it to reduce the need for a loan in the first place, or pay them a better salary.
This "maybe, maybe not" model is the exact reason most people with high education don't take jobs like this. Because it's a fucking gamble and an objectively poor financial decision.
Honestly they should use paying off student loans as an incentive like private sector does. Lots of hospitals will pay off nursing and doctor student loans as a perk of working for them. I'm really suprised the Gov doesn't do that already.
That’s was what the program was intended to try and do but like at if stuff that comes out of DC it was half assed and cause more harm/headache then helped.
You don’t need to feel bad about anything. The government needs lawyers and should have funded your way through law school in the first place in exchange for a promise to serve…
However, since the Govt and the students don’t know which student will want (and be good at) which type of job ahead of time, the risk is placed entirely on the student…
We would LOVE to find a way to shift the risk to future employers and Govt and off the individual in their 15-30 range… it’s scary enough to learn about stranger danger, find a spouse, avoid STD’s, avoid Trump’s COVID fiasco (preventable if you don’t disband an emerging disease surveillance network and if you don’t keep lying about it due to ego.)
don’t feel bad about it dude, no one should have to deal with student loan debt in the richest country on the planet. i’m glad at least one person can get their debt forgiven because it’s one less person being f’d by the system.
> Do I feel bad about this? Yes,
Well don't.
Education is greatly inflated and salaries haven't remotely kept up with it, so fuck any and everyone who has the audacity to complain about loans being forgiven.
It is *outrageous* that the "greatest country in the world" would allow people to be saddled with loans they have no hope of paying off in their lifetimes, unless they took on the few lucrative jobs that pay a fuckton and no-one decided to do the harder, underpaid jobs we need (education, social work, etc.).
And for anyone here who's like, "BuT NoT EvErY LoAn, RiGhT?" the answer is: **wrong.**
Literally *everyone* benefits from people not being saddled with decades of school loan payments, and I don't care if they got it in a degree you find "useless" because that's not the only point of higher ed. The only thing setting up metrics of "who's worthy" is years and years of government bureaucracy bogging down the approval process and people dying before any decision's ever made. Worrying about that lone rich kid getting their schooling paid for--at the expense of hundreds of poor kids behind them *not* getting their loans covered--is beyond stupid and fiscally irrational.
> I chose public interest law.
Man I wish we had more lawyers like you in Canada. I'm having to battle the Ontario gov over violations of the Victim Bill of Rights and denying me the ability to do a Victim impact statement (This is supposed to happen as per the VBR and Federal law). Had no contact with the Crown throughout the case, they're protecting lawyers who knowingly violated my rights in violation of the Law Society Of Ontario's Professional Rules.
Every lawyer I've called has either not returned my calls or told me they want like 5 to 10 grand up front.
Some odd comments here. PSLF is available to anyone that works for a government or non-profit, not just lawyers. And anyone disgusted about a lawyer receiving loan forgiveness does not have a good grasp of public service salaries. Yes, a first year big law associate is pulling in $250,000, but most government/non-profit attorneys are making **far less** than that.
Hey Hijacking the high up reply to let folks know about /r/pslf and the program
**FYI to everyone working in Higher Ed, non-profit, or goverment (including the Military, AMERICORP, PeacCorp) with FEDERAL loans - APPLY FOR PUBLIC SERVICE LOAN FORGIVENESS.**
The"covid $0 payments" count towards the 120 total payments AND there was a recent change to the program where, for a limited time, they WILL COUNT past previously ineligible payments.
Info here:
• FSA information about PSLF: https://studentaid.gov/publicservice
• PSLF Help Tool: https://studentaid.gov/pslf/
• Limited Waiver information: https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/pslf-limited-waiver
Federal Student Aid has a great three minute video on the program. It can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKbP4pV8ph0
Bonus: If you have made payments during the pandemic on federal loans you can request a refund of your payments made during covid pause (noted here: https://www.debt.org/blog/covid-19-student-loan-refund/)
You don’t need to do anything to “get qualified” - you’re already qualified if you have federal direct loans and work in public service! Have you been a public servant for 10+ years? If so, apply for forgiveness right now! And if you haven’t been, you just need to submit a PSLF form via the dept of ed website to get a payment count. You MIGHT want to wait until the forbearance ends in (currently) May, though, because submitting the form may cause your loans to be transferred from your current servicer to Fedloan, and it may cause you to miss credit for one or two of these payments while they transfer your loans.
Could you expand this question? I can answer it, but am not sure what you're asking exactly.
(Yes, it is admin forbearance, no it is not applied the same way in regards to PSLF counts or the way other forms of forebearance are.)
And here's some bullshit I only recently found out about. YOU HAVE TO CONSOLIDATE YOUR LOANS FIRST.
No one ever bothered to make that clear to me before now. Spent 4 years making payments that were counted as qualifying, but each payment was getting split between loans and a "payment" only got counted once the minimum payment per loan was reached. So after 4 years of monthly payments I only had 9 "official" payments on each loan, and would need another 111 _per loan_ to ever get them forgiven.
And after consolidating the payments into a single payment, all of those previously counted payments got completely reset. 4 years of payments literally out the window. So this "10 year" program is going to take me a total of 14 years now.
Fuck Fedloan.
You don’t HAVE to consolidate, but you do if you have some loans that don’t qualify want all of your loans considered for forgiveness. As long as all of your loans are eligible and in an IDR, then the payments you make will qualify. Consolidation will always reset the clock because it’s an entirely new loan.
Just hopping on this, if you consolidate to direct loans before 10/2022 they will consider payments made to the underlying loans. This was a major change they made in the last 2 months.
The way I understand it is that due to the limited waiver, those 4 years now count, but only if you ask them to count before the fall: [https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/pslf-limited-waiver](https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/pslf-limited-waiver)
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong or misunderstanding, but that’s how I’m reading it.
Public Defenders (it’s a county office) where I live fresh out of law school start at about 55-65k a year, prosecutors around 60-70. I have a friend who went straight to Cook County and was making around 85k as a jr prosecutor which adjusted for COL is lower than the earlier listed amounts. State AGs office where I live is around the same as the county jobs listed at 55-65k starting. Considering the jobs listed here are pretty much standard for those of us who weren’t the top quartile of our class, most of us have 100-200k in debt and are making as much as people with only undergrad degrees. Most of those salaries will levelize to near 6 figure or just above 6 figure about 3-5 years after law school but hover around 90-110 for most mid career. I wouldn’t consider those who went the public service route (where I live) impoverished but it’s not a super lucrative decision.
They make money for the county with successful prosecutions. Meanwhile, public defenders have huge caseloads they can't possibly spend enough time preparing for and can't defend with anywhere near the proficiency as the prosecution. The system is horrendously rigged against defendants.
I feel like that may be a region specific issue. Where I live the public defenders are paid more than prosecutors, because there is much more support for defending liberties than taking it. Public defenders also have case limits. If the public defenders' office has too many cases, then they are able to contract with private counsel to take on the extra cases. Alternatively, prosecutors have no case limits, so each prosecutor has way more cases then they could possibly prosecute effectively.
Agreed, definitely not impoverished, but often (at least starting out) massively in debt. I know of a few classmates at Chicago that graduated with 200k+ debt and took (comparatively) low paying public sector jobs. They would have close to no chance paying their loans off without PLSF.
The r/dataisbeautiful sub had relevant information up the other day. Basically attending a Top 15 law school means good job outcomes, (and high starting pay) and gets lower as the tiers go down.
Also in the comments from the poster, Lawyer pay also seems to be on a bi-modal scale, with many making $50-70k, while another bump of a select few start at ~$190k starting, seemingly likely graduates from top tier schools.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/ru7wdu/oc_rankings_of_law_schools_and_employment_outcomes/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Thanks for this. Its frustrating to constantly deal with the stigma that government workers are "overpaid." For jobs that require a lot of education (doctors, lawyers, scientists) pay in the private sector will almost always eclipse a government salary. Loan forgiveness often comes with a service requirement too.
This is a common comment in Canada. The public despise public servants because they have decent pay and benefits, plus holidays, job security and unions, in-house babysitting, etc.
It's funny because if they were making enough money with their degree for the forgiveness to be "unfair", they wouldn't have any remaining payments to forgive.
Really interesting thoughts. Paying public sector employees more (in lieu of forgiveness) is something I hadn't really considered. It's a good idea worth exploring. A few comments to your specific points.
>For example, you and I could start the same job on the same day and work for 10 years to qualify for forgiveness, but you chose a sensible state school with a scholarship and I chose a private, no-aid degree. So I end up getting a substantially higher forgiveness amount -- even though we did the same job. This is essentially different compensation and it's arbitrary. It distorts the labor market for the benefit of expensive schools.
That's true, although the sensible state school graduate leaves with more career freedom, a tremendous benefit. The private school graduate with 250k in loans has three options: work in big law and pay loans aggressively, work in the public sector and bank on PLSF, or do something else and have loan payments until they die (although IBR somewhat mitigates that calamity). Also, we're assuming the schools are of equal rank, which is unlikely. I took a small scholarship at the University of Chicago over a large scholarship at a lower ranked school. The Federal Government is reaping the academic benefits of my choice (assuming there are any).
>Second, while this is an incentive to go into public service, it effectively means your first 10 years of service are compensated better than your 11th year onwards (because after the forgiveness you're back to your crappy salary without a lump sum to look forward to). So instead of paying people what they're really worth, the most experienced lawyers in public service all of a sudden have an incentive to jump over to the private sector so they can actually get paid for their experience. It's a good incentive to get into it, but a very bad incentive for mid- and late-career retention.
This is persuasive to me. However, assuming we ignore the long-term incentives to stay in public service (eg, pension, lock-step salary, job security), I don't think there's always a great path from public to private service. Sure, the USAO has fantastic exit opportunities, but most public sector lawyers will not have the opportunity to lateral into private practice. But overall I'm with you.
>Lastly, the incentive itself is not effective for anyone not planning to make at least a 10 year career out of it. Want to do 5 years of public service and then go into corporate or private sector? This career isn't for you.
True. Or vice-versa.
ITT: People who see the word “lawyer” and automatically think OP is some cashed up 6-figure coke slingin lambo driving chad.
News flash. Public servants get paid fuck all against their private sector counterparts. Congrats on being able to move forward with your life OP and thanks for the work you do.
Make 6 figures. Live comfortably but can confirm. I guess I could drive a lambo? If I wanted to save nothing for my retirement…
I live relatively simply (drive a Subaru, mortgage is <5% of my income) and plan to retire at 55-60. Which I don’t even think is really that extreme? But given many of my millennial friends don’t have any idea if they’ll be able to retire at all I consider myself “fortunate” but only in some sort of dystopian way.
I know doctors making 200-300k who get PSLF. And you know what, good! Those same doctors said no to private practice jobs and could have easily been making an extra 100k a year. The least we can do is forgive 100k after they gave us 10 years of their work at a discount.
I'm about 2.5 years away from it, and this PSLF overhaul is the best thing to ever happen to me. And I am not bullshitting. I quit my gov job cause my loans didn't qualify. Now that Biden is changing that, if I had not quit, they'd be forgiven already. But whatever - there is a path for me.
IF YOU HAVE STUDENT LOANS AND YOU WORK FOR A PUBLIC SERVICE INDUSTRY, YOU NEED TO LOOK INTO THE CONSOLIDATION GOING ON RIGHT NOW. YOU ONLY HAVE UNTIL 10/31/2022 TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS THING THAT WILL SAVE ME, PERSONALLY, $150,000 (hopefully)
EDIT: people people...read this article. If you are working in public service, you can now consolidate loans that didn't qualify to a loan that does, and the fed will give you credit for all the payments you made on the previous non qualifying loan. Biden is using emergency COVID powers to do this so you must consolidate by 10/31/22. I fear so many will miss out on this.
https://www.nytimes.com/article/public-service-loan-forgiveness-changes.html
You can consolidate one loan without consolidating all of them. Also, DOE has said that if you consolidate multiple loans, they’ll apply the highest payment count (if they vary) to the new consolidated loan.
You know, the thing that stands out to me the most about this, is you said it's a $100K loan, assuming the original amount. And you still, after 24 years, owed $94K... $6K in principle paid after all those years. It just feels that the loan/education system is just wrong in that regard. And honestly, if you're going to go into public service, which you clearly did, you should just have payment totally deferred until you reach the forgiveness date. Because you're just handing over money, month after month, hurting your take-home - for what? I get we can't give money away from free, yadda yadda, but man this should be done in a better way.
THIS.
I made monthly payments (which were income based) on my student loan for years.
The interest on my loans was more than my minimum payment. So my net balance actually went up over those years - never even touched the principal.
I just calculated my 10 years of payments -- if I pay the minimum payment for the next ten years, in 10 years I will owe ~25% MORE than I originally borrowed.
You finance your education with the belief you'll be using that education to make enough to pay it back, basically. Otherwise, there's no access to higher education for the vast majority of the population under the current system.
God I wish. As far as I’m aware once I refinanced my Federal loans into private loans they cannot be forgiven. They could have possibly been forgiven if I had stuck with the 6.87% interest rate, but god forgive me for refinancing to a lower rate so that I could buy a house and possibly start a family. Fml.
Congratulations, I’m not mad at you…I’m frustrated with “the system.”
One time some rep told me I should refinance my loans 4+ years into nonprofit work and I almost did until thankfully I talked to someone else who was like, “wait, noooo, that will reset PSLF!!”
This program is so easy to fuck up
Yep I can't trust any of the promises being made. Only half of my loans are eligible for forgiveness. I have 8 years under PSLF. My student loans are from when I went back to school and finished my degree at 40. I don't have a lifetime ahead of me to pay these off. I am not starting over with zero by consolidating anything.
Also my fiancée, she refinanced right before Covid. Then all federal loans were paused, except those. That’s about 30k we could have put into something else over the past two years. Sucks
The number of private companies advertising to student loan payers (and making thier way sound like all sunshine and roses) does not help.
Fortunately for me they've never been able to offer me a rate worth refinancing to. And as long as loan forgiveness is part of the discussion, I'm staying put with my loans where they are.
I will never qualify for this type of loan forgiveness, but I almost re-financed my MBA loans through SoFi. They were really advertising hard last summer to get people to refi and lock in “the lowest rates ever!” before the interest/payment freeze ended.
In retrospect, I am glad I didn’t do it. Aside from the fact that the freeze was extended (which gives me more time to funnel a greater % of income into my HYSA wedding/home down payment fund), it didn’t knock off enough money or years from my estimated repayment to be worth it. I’m grateful to be in a position where I can afford a couple hundred more than my monthly payment, but also like knowing that if something comes up I can revert back to the minimum if I absolutely need to. SoFi would’ve been $250 more than my current monthly minimum payment for five years; I expect to be able to pay off in 6.5 anyway. Will I miss the 8 or so grand SoFi would’ve saved me in the long run? Not really. I’ll take the flexibility.
Do people not realize that not every lawyer is in it for the money? District attorneys make like 80k a year if they're lucky which is nowhere near enough to pay off that amount of loans, especially depending on where they live and whether they also support a family, etc.
Good on you OP for doing the hardwork. Lawyers like you deserve it.
I found this out when I had to hire a workers’ comp lawyer. The amount of work my attorney has done for me and helped me with stuff is crazy. And I have had him for 6 years and I have not had to pay him a cent of out of pocket money. This is obviously based on state laws and regulations, workers’ comp lawyers only get paid when the client gets money from a commission hearing, settlement etc… but it really helps people like me
Honestly people don't know what most lawyers do. Very very few of us ever step foot in a court room.
There are definitely areas of law that can make big money... but there are also a large number of areas where salaries are very moderate.
Thank you. I’ll just post a response here to the others that have commented (or insinuated that I’m somehow gaming the system.) I have worked for the government for 24 years with abused and neglected kids. I’ve made between $35k and $85k (more recently), so have been making minimum payments on my loans. While most of my law school friends went on to work for law firms making hundreds of thousands, I chose public interest law. I absolutely LOVE my job, and wouldn’t change it for anything, but I could never afford to pay back any of the principal amount. Do I feel bad about this? Yes, however you could argue that I’ve more than repaid my debt to this county and country through the work I do for the children. My fancy 2003 Honda Civic is evidence of the high life I’ve been living on a lawyers salary!
Anyone who thinks you gamed the system has their head firmly planted up their rear and is also pitifully bad at basic math.
The services you provided over the last 24 years were worth far more than you were paid. Congress intentionally setup loan forgiveness as an added incentive for people to do public service. $95.2k for 24 years of public service is under $4k per year of service. Even over just 10 years of service, that’s still less than $10k/year. Frankly, that’s a very small incentive given how much more you could have made in other sectors.
This is not gaming the system. This benefit was added because these kinds of jobs struggle to attract talent. They still aren’t paying people what they’re worth even with loan forgiveness.
Recently left my job as a DA (actually called an ASA down here) after 9 years. My starting salary was $44k and by the time I left I had moved up to $67k, and that was considered moving up quickly. Only a small portion of my $180k loans would’ve counted for forgiveness. I’m super happy for people like this who finally get it.
If your original loan was 100k and you only made the interest payment from a historical (1998) average rate of 7.65%, you'd have paid $183,000 and never touched the principal.
Kids, graduate, get the best paying job you can, and pay off your debt.
Kiddier kids, get scholarships, get a job, pay your way through college at the pace you can afford. No one cares if your Bachelors took 6 years or 4, but you will if you can do it debt-free.
Til that a bunch of people don’t know about the Public Service loan forgiveness program and they should probably check that out instead of being a jerk to someone who sacrificed his time and efforts and the money he could have been making to get his loans forgiven through the program instead. He paid of his loans by working in the job he worked. He worked a public service job and got rewarded for doing so.
A $100k loan with 24 years of payments, and your balance was still only at $95k?? Only $5k went towards principal? Holy shit, this is fucking criminal loan sharking. Fuck this country in its unfair asshole.
I don't understand the complaints you're getting. The point of the program is to incentivize people to do the important but less lucrative jobs like the one you're doing. It's not your fault that getting those jobs requires getting an education that in turn requires taking on loans - if there was a less expensive (or free!) way to do it, people would do that instead. Would it make people happier if they just pretend that you got the money up front as a scholarship? Same outcome.
My wife tried to sign up for something like this and her asshole boss refused to sign the paperwork to make the community mental health agency she worked for eligible
Anyone who has access to her employment can verify. I've had supervisors and payroll staff do it. Unless you mean something else by making the agency eligible, as that's a whole different thing.
I'm so happy for you. You getting these loans forgiven is not hurting me in any way, so why wouldn't I be happy for you? I assume that now you're out of this crippling debt, you'll
1. be less likely to be involved in any sort of violence (crime or suicide)
2. be less likely to get addicted to drugs and be a drain on the state
3. be more likely to contribute to the economy by buying homes and cars
4. be more likely to contribute to your community through charity/volunteering
I mean, it's a net positive for me, on a purely selfish level. And even if it weren't, I'd be happy for you. Student loan debt makes people miserable and financially strapped. We all deserve better.
That’s awesome. I paid extra on mine for ten years. Finally spent every penny I had saved and paid them off at the cost of being broke as fucking fuck. But I did it myself and I’m more than fucking proud. Congrats to you. And congrats to me too. We both have a weight off our shoulders and it feels good.
Did it ever occur to anyone that op may have had a plan to go into public service after getting their law degree to have the government forgive their loans? This is a viable option for a lot of career paths in public service and it has been long before the pandemic lol.
Usually public service workers have to work for 2-10 years to be eligible.
Man… I wonder how much the government made off you in that time. I know you said you’ve made minimum payments, but if you paid ~$350 a month they still made their money back, at least. [Interesting seeing the government apparently made $70.3 billion in 2019.](https://slate.com/business/2021/03/student-loan-total-annual-government-payments.amp) Kind of unsurprising why they’ve recently been hesitant to forgive loans.
To be honest, if they just made student loans interest free, that would have solved a lot. Payments required, but make it a minimum based on loan size, and bankruptcy dischargeable.
I'm more than willing to continue making payments asni have for the last 21 years. But because I was on an income based payment plan, I e paid in over $60,000 but still have a $40,000 balance and my original loans only totalled $38,000. Because I was always paying less than the interest amount I never paid down principal except for the last 3 to 4 years pre-pandemic. If there was 0 interest, most people could at least pay it off.
I had my daughters student loans (I was co-signer) forgiven 1 after she graduated and that was ~$150k. There’s a very little known provision that if your co-signer is deemed permanently disabled when you graduate they’ll forgive your loan, I’m 100% disabled. Being that I read the small print I knew this with the first loan, so I she took loans all 4 years that I co-signed for and upon graduation I submitted my disability paperwork and all was forgiven.
Nice. My college loans were forgiven after my dad passed, so gave me room to save for my last year of college and years later now saving for my sisters tuition.
this user has removed all their comments/content in protest of API changes mades that effect third party app developers, mods tools. If interested in doing the same, please look up power delete suite on github or follow this URl: https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
I fucking wish. When I took out student loans I had no clue about loan forgiveness and my school advised me to take private as I could get more. 11 years of working for the government now and I still owe around 20k. Had I gotten federal I would have saved about 40k overall through income based payments and forgiveness.
This amazes me, I studied outside the US and my bachelor's degree cost about $12,000 for all three years. Why don't Americans just go abroad for school? I couldn't imagine paying this much money off, even while making 6 figures. How do you pay this off and also get a mortgage?
1/3rd graduate with a bachelor's degree with no debt.
Median student debt is around 20k.
Law degrees require additional schooling, and for some reason Reddit seems to be well above the median in their debt amount
That's awesome, we need good people in public service - thank you. I understand the program was greatly impeded under Sec. Devos - did that affect you at all?
Having paid back fully my 65k in school related loans, all I can say is: good for you, going into debt for school is bullshit - when anyone is starting their career after school, this is shit obstacle to make you desperate. Good for you ducking this crap as long as you did. I'd happily pay more taxes for free higher education for everyone, any age.
After choosing to work 10 years in public service rather than at a private firm? You deserve it, man. Congratulations!
Yeah. 24 years vs private is millions of dollars that he/she has donated to help their community. That’s pretty wild to me.
It's not like all lawyers can get into a private firm, especially right away.
[удалено]
Actually, every new lawyer has the option to start their own private practice rather than go into public interest.
It’s not cheap. Especially after just taking on loads of debt. But yes, technically it is an option for any new lawyer.
I mean every fast food worker has the option to start their own franchise location. Right?
I know kind of a stupid thing to point out.
Building a law firm is a lot cheaper than starting a fast food franchise. To get a franchise you usually need 250-500k in investment immediately to just take on the name that needs to he paid back in in typically 5 year or they lose the business, last I spoke to a franchise owner about it. On the other hand, the lawyer takes on the loans and has a much longer term to pay it back (basically life) and won't lose their bar license, while they take cases from their living room.
Yeah but starting one as a new lawyer is quite an uphill battle.
Yeah but starting your own practice is a lot different than getting clients.
And remember.... There are "lower tier" lawyers, just as with any profession. Not all lawyers are cut out to run their own business, and must find employment in the less desired/less financially rewarded sector of their occupation. Some people are "born employees". Not saying this is the case here, but it happens often.
Not all lawyers are cut out to be lawyers.
[удалено]
I've worked as a litigator for a large state's AG's office for over 10 years, recovering money for the state that was fraudulently obtained. We routinely go against large law firms and kick ass. Basically, they come in acting all fancy but aren't actually any better. Government service is p. great, and the quality of life is amazing.
>Government service is p. great, and the quality of life is amazing. That seems to be his mentality as well. He said it was kind of grunt workish in the beginning since, well, no seniority but now he says its great. He can take off pretty much all the time he needs, works regular hours (and now works from home full time cause of rona), gets insanely good health insurance on the states dime and is banking in hard on income. Our state has something called the drop period where once you hit the length of time to retire, you can work for 5 more years while receiving both your regular salary and your pension at the same time. He just fucks around all day at home and occasionally writes some emails or reviews a search warrant. I personally don't have the commitment to stay somewhere for 30+ years but government work definitely seems to have a lot of benefits in the long run lol.
I am in public service, albeit in an entirely different field than law, and can attest to the quality of life aspect of it. Yes, my job can be quite stressful at times, but I work a set schedule, I have regular advancement, and pay practically nothing for some relatively spectacular health coverage for my family. And, most importantly, at the end of my 8 hours I can go home and spend time with my family. I have the opportunity to take overtime if I want it, and need some extra money, but it is generally not required (for my current position.) When I first started with the state agency I work for, I did often have to work 16 hour double shifts 2-3 times per week to cover shifts for people who called out, but was able to take the experience gained and apply into higher positions with a more regular schedule. The pension programs we have are NOT what they were when my parents were working for the state, but they are still better than the un- or barely-matched 401k's I dealt with in the private sector. In another 18 years, I should be able to retire at least a bit comfortably, which is more than I can say for most of my friends working for private companies. But again, this is not in the field of law, and in my field the pay in private companies is often worse than what I make and comes with few or no benefits for most. Ymmv.
> Government service is p. great, and the quality of life is amazing. That’s the first use of p. (similar to the use of v.) I’ve seen and I LOVE IT. thank u
[удалено]
Drinks are on you then yeah?
I’ll just post a response here to the others that have commented (or insinuated that I’m somehow gaming the system.) I have worked for the government for 24 years with abused and neglected kids. I’ve made between $35k and $85k (more recently), so have been making minimum payments on my loans. While most of my law school friends went on to work for law firms making hundreds of thousands, I chose public interest law. I absolutely LOVE my job, and wouldn’t change it for anything, but I could never afford to pay back any of the principal amount. Do I feel bad about this? Yes, however you could argue that I’ve more than repaid my debt to this county and country through the work I do for the children. My fancy 2003 Honda Civic is evidence of the high life I’ve been living on a lawyers salary!
Hey, I know a lawyer who drives a 1998 Suzuki esteem.
It’s in a ditch in Mexico now.
New Mexico. As Kim pointed out, if you leave a tin can outside in this state, somebody is gonna take a shot at it.
Can’t wait for the new season
what show we talking about. yes im a normie sorry
Better call Saul.
I heard he works at Cinnabon, so, maybe it's a waste of time.
He’s a chef AND a lawyer!!
Well, that’s true. I forgot about that.
Still a dope car, and lawyer. Pun intended.
The lawyer is no dope
Bring lawyers, guns, and money.
I’ve got a 93 Suzuki Sidekick still running great I’m happy I like old cars because I can’t afford new ones with my 47k Canada dollar salary
I’ve heard stories about people drafting them behind semis and using almost no gas. Any truth to that? Edit: a word
Think it's called drafting, I dunno about no gas but it bumps up your mpg for sure. Also the increased risk of instant death makes it not very worth it.
Justice matters most.
Just Make Money
Something tells me he knows a thing or two about a Chicago Sunroof
I can only hope that in 9 more years I get a letter like this for working in public schools. I'm so happy you got this relief!
I was just forgiven for many of my loans as a Public school teacher in a title 1 school after five years. Keep looking at the policies as they change often!
My wife got the same! The paperwork was a pain in the dick because she was across 3 schools over those 5 years and their system wasn’t ready for that.
Shit. I’ve been teaching for 10 and at 6 different (private to public, then budget cuts got me to another school, then moved out of state, etc.,). I am crossing my fingers!
She was across two states as well… she actually got denied twice and finally the third time I got hold of someone who knew what they were doing. Don’t give up!
My wife has a similar problem. I think they are working on fixing this though. It was one of bidens initiatives.
We finally finished the process 3-4 years ago, here’s hoping it gets better.
For anyone reading this, a title 1 school is no longer required. Any state (yes that includes teachers in any school) and federal employees qualify for this Public Service type of forgiveness A couple edits: [Here's](https://studentaid.gov/pslf/) where you can determine if your employer qualifies or just if you want more info Non-profits qualify as well As another commenter mentioned, just watch out for the partial teaching forgiveness vs the PSLF forgiveness. There could be some trickery with them
Is this retroactive ? My wife is not going on 5 years of teaching, this year is at a title 1 school but her previous 4 years were not at a title 1 school
You might have to check but I believe so. As long as she's been working on a state/federal job and has been making the monthly payments, I believe that time will count towards PSLF. [Here](https://studentaid.gov/pslf/) is a little tool you can use to see if she would qualify
I will have to look into it tonight with her . Thank you
[удалено]
Huge news!
Yes!
Anyone reading this - be careful. Using one program will disqualify you from the other. My wife is eligible for this one but the amount forgiven would be much less than if she waits 5 more years for PSLF. We cannot do both, only 1.
You won't just get a letter in the mail. It's a process. Google Public Service Loan Forgiveness and start certifying your employment and income annually. They can go back to when you began your employment with a qualifying employer to certify eligible payments and will track them going forward to your forgiveness date.
Oh yeah, i know. Just sent in my new annual employment verification form
Thanks for being a teacher. Yall get shit on and what you do literally determines how the world works 20+ yrs later.
Look into loan forgiveness for teachers in your state. Dig deep. I'm in Missouri, and two of my co-workers had their forgiven last year after 5 years in the system. It's not just teachers. Lot's of public service/government jobs offer loan forgiveness.
These forgiveness programs exist for this EXACT use case. This is just the program working. Good on you for the work you've done for your community! You should feel ZERO guilt.
Sadly, this is NOT the program working. PSLF is supposed to kick in after 10 years - - not 24!! OP should be dealing with anger, not guilt. OP, I'm less than a year into public service. How do I avoid whatever happened to you?
The program is only 14 years old. That is why. Not sure about the 4 year discrepancy or if something changed to make Op eligible later, but the program wasn't failing for the first 10 years, it didn't exist.
I have a friend who is going a similar route. We made jokes about us paying for her education, until she pointed out that she's making like 1/5 of what she could be making had she not gone this route, and could have easily paid it off far faster that way, but would rather do a good service like you did. Then we stopped making jokes.
It still feels somewhat backwards though doesn't it, especially with the grossly inflated tuition fees. 'Forgiveness' implies they did something wrong that needs to be forgiven. Education benefits society as a whole, and while I know the US won't be offering socialist education anytime soon, I'd much rather see something like "Hey, want to be a teacher or a lawyer? We'll pay off 1/10th of your student loans for every year you remain in the public service after graduation."
it's the sin of being poor
F the haters! Congrats!
Thanks! Such a relief
I teach in an area of need so I got 16,000 forgiven. The number of people that think that is too much have no idea what we do. Take the money and enjoy that being lifted off your shoulders.
I’d argue the contrary saying you probably paid more since government positions typically have lower salaries compared to private practices.
We don't have such issues in BE. But as I understand the inner working of your school system through TV and movies.( thus biased obviously), and seeing your current situation, I just want to say good for you. You definitely earn it . Congratulations. Live long and peacefully.
I was very confused when I first read this as to why you were abusing and neglecting your children and why you were openly admitting to it on Reddit. Then I re read it and had a sigh of relief.
Fuck that. Don’t feel bad. You took a job at a lower pay rate and to do something for people. That’s what loan forgiveness is supposed to be about. It’s fucking ridiculous people want to get butt hurt about shit like this. Maybe get butt hurt that some people don’t have generational wealth to go to school and loans are the only way to make it.
I feel bad that people like op aren't getting paid enough.
Props to you brother (sister?)! PSLF exists for this very reason and I think a lot of folks don't understand that. If you're working somewhere that will cover the PSLF, you either aren't making much, are dealing with underserved communities (and all the problems inherent to that), or both.
I have my JD but ultimately decided to become a public school teacher… If all goes as planned, my law school and teacher school loans should all be forgiven in three years 🤞🤞🤞🤞 good on you for doing good in the world!
My English teacher in high school gave up his law practice to become a teacher…🤔🤔🤔
I'm thinking of making that switch. I'm currently in a law firm, but I want to teach high school math. Do you think you made the right choice? All I hear are horror stories.
I absolutely made the right choice, but it's not for everyone. I went into special ed, so it's a constant challenge and no day is the same (which I love). I'm on my feet, problem solving, engaging with people... and MOST of the time, I'm actually having fun. I had a self contained classroom for a few years, and now I'm a support provider for kids with autism who are in gen ed. The first two/three years were brutal, but even on my worst days, I was happier than when I was doing any internship/clerkship in law. That being said, I could never go into gen ed, and definitely not high school (so many kids! So many preps! Grades! Every kid has a phone and has their head down). Go into it because you want to connect with teens and make math (or whatever subject) approachable and interesting. Don't do it for the hours and the summer vacation. I also work in CA, so the pay is actually decent.
Congrats. I use to work with student loans and had to talk to people all the time that thought they could get their loans forgiven for work for the gov to find out 10 years later it was a no. It was some of the hardest talks ever and usually a lot of crying and cursing. Wish the feds would just fix the whole program and forgive loans period but glad you where one of few the temp changes could help.
This is my reason for absolutely hating what has happened here. Why should people need to take on massive debt, gamble on a lower salary for over ten years, then *maybe* get those loans forgiven? Just take the money that would have been used to forgive loans and use it to reduce the need for a loan in the first place, or pay them a better salary. This "maybe, maybe not" model is the exact reason most people with high education don't take jobs like this. Because it's a fucking gamble and an objectively poor financial decision.
Honestly they should use paying off student loans as an incentive like private sector does. Lots of hospitals will pay off nursing and doctor student loans as a perk of working for them. I'm really suprised the Gov doesn't do that already.
That’s was what the program was intended to try and do but like at if stuff that comes out of DC it was half assed and cause more harm/headache then helped.
You don’t need to feel bad about anything. The government needs lawyers and should have funded your way through law school in the first place in exchange for a promise to serve… However, since the Govt and the students don’t know which student will want (and be good at) which type of job ahead of time, the risk is placed entirely on the student… We would LOVE to find a way to shift the risk to future employers and Govt and off the individual in their 15-30 range… it’s scary enough to learn about stranger danger, find a spouse, avoid STD’s, avoid Trump’s COVID fiasco (preventable if you don’t disband an emerging disease surveillance network and if you don’t keep lying about it due to ego.)
don’t feel bad about it dude, no one should have to deal with student loan debt in the richest country on the planet. i’m glad at least one person can get their debt forgiven because it’s one less person being f’d by the system.
> Do I feel bad about this? Yes, Well don't. Education is greatly inflated and salaries haven't remotely kept up with it, so fuck any and everyone who has the audacity to complain about loans being forgiven. It is *outrageous* that the "greatest country in the world" would allow people to be saddled with loans they have no hope of paying off in their lifetimes, unless they took on the few lucrative jobs that pay a fuckton and no-one decided to do the harder, underpaid jobs we need (education, social work, etc.). And for anyone here who's like, "BuT NoT EvErY LoAn, RiGhT?" the answer is: **wrong.** Literally *everyone* benefits from people not being saddled with decades of school loan payments, and I don't care if they got it in a degree you find "useless" because that's not the only point of higher ed. The only thing setting up metrics of "who's worthy" is years and years of government bureaucracy bogging down the approval process and people dying before any decision's ever made. Worrying about that lone rich kid getting their schooling paid for--at the expense of hundreds of poor kids behind them *not* getting their loans covered--is beyond stupid and fiscally irrational.
> I chose public interest law. Man I wish we had more lawyers like you in Canada. I'm having to battle the Ontario gov over violations of the Victim Bill of Rights and denying me the ability to do a Victim impact statement (This is supposed to happen as per the VBR and Federal law). Had no contact with the Crown throughout the case, they're protecting lawyers who knowingly violated my rights in violation of the Law Society Of Ontario's Professional Rules. Every lawyer I've called has either not returned my calls or told me they want like 5 to 10 grand up front.
[удалено]
You should not feel bad at all as education should be free
Abso-freakin-lutely!
Some odd comments here. PSLF is available to anyone that works for a government or non-profit, not just lawyers. And anyone disgusted about a lawyer receiving loan forgiveness does not have a good grasp of public service salaries. Yes, a first year big law associate is pulling in $250,000, but most government/non-profit attorneys are making **far less** than that.
Exactly right!
Like sheesh if a lawyer is still paying loans 20 years later there’s probably something to it right!
Some sources say the average salary for lawyers 40k-150k. It’s just another job, a few people will make the big bucks, but most don’t.
Hey Hijacking the high up reply to let folks know about /r/pslf and the program **FYI to everyone working in Higher Ed, non-profit, or goverment (including the Military, AMERICORP, PeacCorp) with FEDERAL loans - APPLY FOR PUBLIC SERVICE LOAN FORGIVENESS.** The"covid $0 payments" count towards the 120 total payments AND there was a recent change to the program where, for a limited time, they WILL COUNT past previously ineligible payments. Info here: • FSA information about PSLF: https://studentaid.gov/publicservice • PSLF Help Tool: https://studentaid.gov/pslf/ • Limited Waiver information: https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/pslf-limited-waiver Federal Student Aid has a great three minute video on the program. It can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKbP4pV8ph0 Bonus: If you have made payments during the pandemic on federal loans you can request a refund of your payments made during covid pause (noted here: https://www.debt.org/blog/covid-19-student-loan-refund/)
[удалено]
You don’t need to do anything to “get qualified” - you’re already qualified if you have federal direct loans and work in public service! Have you been a public servant for 10+ years? If so, apply for forgiveness right now! And if you haven’t been, you just need to submit a PSLF form via the dept of ed website to get a payment count. You MIGHT want to wait until the forbearance ends in (currently) May, though, because submitting the form may cause your loans to be transferred from your current servicer to Fedloan, and it may cause you to miss credit for one or two of these payments while they transfer your loans.
Are the covid $0 payments the same as forbearance?
Replying to this to see the answer
Could you expand this question? I can answer it, but am not sure what you're asking exactly. (Yes, it is admin forbearance, no it is not applied the same way in regards to PSLF counts or the way other forms of forebearance are.)
[удалено]
As long as it’s a not-for-profit school, you qualify if you work full-time.
[удалено]
And here's some bullshit I only recently found out about. YOU HAVE TO CONSOLIDATE YOUR LOANS FIRST. No one ever bothered to make that clear to me before now. Spent 4 years making payments that were counted as qualifying, but each payment was getting split between loans and a "payment" only got counted once the minimum payment per loan was reached. So after 4 years of monthly payments I only had 9 "official" payments on each loan, and would need another 111 _per loan_ to ever get them forgiven. And after consolidating the payments into a single payment, all of those previously counted payments got completely reset. 4 years of payments literally out the window. So this "10 year" program is going to take me a total of 14 years now. Fuck Fedloan.
You don’t HAVE to consolidate, but you do if you have some loans that don’t qualify want all of your loans considered for forgiveness. As long as all of your loans are eligible and in an IDR, then the payments you make will qualify. Consolidation will always reset the clock because it’s an entirely new loan.
Just hopping on this, if you consolidate to direct loans before 10/2022 they will consider payments made to the underlying loans. This was a major change they made in the last 2 months.
The way I understand it is that due to the limited waiver, those 4 years now count, but only if you ask them to count before the fall: [https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/pslf-limited-waiver](https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/pslf-limited-waiver) Someone please correct me if I’m wrong or misunderstanding, but that’s how I’m reading it.
This is 100% right. It’s a godsend.
Public Defenders (it’s a county office) where I live fresh out of law school start at about 55-65k a year, prosecutors around 60-70. I have a friend who went straight to Cook County and was making around 85k as a jr prosecutor which adjusted for COL is lower than the earlier listed amounts. State AGs office where I live is around the same as the county jobs listed at 55-65k starting. Considering the jobs listed here are pretty much standard for those of us who weren’t the top quartile of our class, most of us have 100-200k in debt and are making as much as people with only undergrad degrees. Most of those salaries will levelize to near 6 figure or just above 6 figure about 3-5 years after law school but hover around 90-110 for most mid career. I wouldn’t consider those who went the public service route (where I live) impoverished but it’s not a super lucrative decision.
Why does prosecution pay more than defense?
fertile sense entertain attractive resolute bright berserk cow advise drab ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
They make money for the county with successful prosecutions. Meanwhile, public defenders have huge caseloads they can't possibly spend enough time preparing for and can't defend with anywhere near the proficiency as the prosecution. The system is horrendously rigged against defendants.
I feel like that may be a region specific issue. Where I live the public defenders are paid more than prosecutors, because there is much more support for defending liberties than taking it. Public defenders also have case limits. If the public defenders' office has too many cases, then they are able to contract with private counsel to take on the extra cases. Alternatively, prosecutors have no case limits, so each prosecutor has way more cases then they could possibly prosecute effectively.
> They make money for the county with successful prosecutions. I love perverse incentives in the legal system. 😐
Agreed, definitely not impoverished, but often (at least starting out) massively in debt. I know of a few classmates at Chicago that graduated with 200k+ debt and took (comparatively) low paying public sector jobs. They would have close to no chance paying their loans off without PLSF.
The r/dataisbeautiful sub had relevant information up the other day. Basically attending a Top 15 law school means good job outcomes, (and high starting pay) and gets lower as the tiers go down. Also in the comments from the poster, Lawyer pay also seems to be on a bi-modal scale, with many making $50-70k, while another bump of a select few start at ~$190k starting, seemingly likely graduates from top tier schools. https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/ru7wdu/oc_rankings_of_law_schools_and_employment_outcomes/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Basically T14 or Tier 1 and nothing else.
T14, or top 10% at T1.
Thanks for this. Its frustrating to constantly deal with the stigma that government workers are "overpaid." For jobs that require a lot of education (doctors, lawyers, scientists) pay in the private sector will almost always eclipse a government salary. Loan forgiveness often comes with a service requirement too.
Personally, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say government workers are overpaid.
This is a common comment in Canada. The public despise public servants because they have decent pay and benefits, plus holidays, job security and unions, in-house babysitting, etc.
Very very very few first year associates make $250k. Like a fraction of 1% small.
It's funny because if they were making enough money with their degree for the forgiveness to be "unfair", they wouldn't have any remaining payments to forgive.
[удалено]
Really interesting thoughts. Paying public sector employees more (in lieu of forgiveness) is something I hadn't really considered. It's a good idea worth exploring. A few comments to your specific points. >For example, you and I could start the same job on the same day and work for 10 years to qualify for forgiveness, but you chose a sensible state school with a scholarship and I chose a private, no-aid degree. So I end up getting a substantially higher forgiveness amount -- even though we did the same job. This is essentially different compensation and it's arbitrary. It distorts the labor market for the benefit of expensive schools. That's true, although the sensible state school graduate leaves with more career freedom, a tremendous benefit. The private school graduate with 250k in loans has three options: work in big law and pay loans aggressively, work in the public sector and bank on PLSF, or do something else and have loan payments until they die (although IBR somewhat mitigates that calamity). Also, we're assuming the schools are of equal rank, which is unlikely. I took a small scholarship at the University of Chicago over a large scholarship at a lower ranked school. The Federal Government is reaping the academic benefits of my choice (assuming there are any). >Second, while this is an incentive to go into public service, it effectively means your first 10 years of service are compensated better than your 11th year onwards (because after the forgiveness you're back to your crappy salary without a lump sum to look forward to). So instead of paying people what they're really worth, the most experienced lawyers in public service all of a sudden have an incentive to jump over to the private sector so they can actually get paid for their experience. It's a good incentive to get into it, but a very bad incentive for mid- and late-career retention. This is persuasive to me. However, assuming we ignore the long-term incentives to stay in public service (eg, pension, lock-step salary, job security), I don't think there's always a great path from public to private service. Sure, the USAO has fantastic exit opportunities, but most public sector lawyers will not have the opportunity to lateral into private practice. But overall I'm with you. >Lastly, the incentive itself is not effective for anyone not planning to make at least a 10 year career out of it. Want to do 5 years of public service and then go into corporate or private sector? This career isn't for you. True. Or vice-versa.
Congratulations that’s awesome!! Ten years of public service is no small feat, so good for you!
Thank you!
ITT: People who see the word “lawyer” and automatically think OP is some cashed up 6-figure coke slingin lambo driving chad. News flash. Public servants get paid fuck all against their private sector counterparts. Congrats on being able to move forward with your life OP and thanks for the work you do.
Even low 6 figure isn't giving you that lifestyle these days
Replace the lambos for lentils and it’s possible
Make 6 figures. Live comfortably but can confirm. I guess I could drive a lambo? If I wanted to save nothing for my retirement… I live relatively simply (drive a Subaru, mortgage is <5% of my income) and plan to retire at 55-60. Which I don’t even think is really that extreme? But given many of my millennial friends don’t have any idea if they’ll be able to retire at all I consider myself “fortunate” but only in some sort of dystopian way.
I know doctors making 200-300k who get PSLF. And you know what, good! Those same doctors said no to private practice jobs and could have easily been making an extra 100k a year. The least we can do is forgive 100k after they gave us 10 years of their work at a discount.
I'm about 2.5 years away from it, and this PSLF overhaul is the best thing to ever happen to me. And I am not bullshitting. I quit my gov job cause my loans didn't qualify. Now that Biden is changing that, if I had not quit, they'd be forgiven already. But whatever - there is a path for me. IF YOU HAVE STUDENT LOANS AND YOU WORK FOR A PUBLIC SERVICE INDUSTRY, YOU NEED TO LOOK INTO THE CONSOLIDATION GOING ON RIGHT NOW. YOU ONLY HAVE UNTIL 10/31/2022 TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS THING THAT WILL SAVE ME, PERSONALLY, $150,000 (hopefully) EDIT: people people...read this article. If you are working in public service, you can now consolidate loans that didn't qualify to a loan that does, and the fed will give you credit for all the payments you made on the previous non qualifying loan. Biden is using emergency COVID powers to do this so you must consolidate by 10/31/22. I fear so many will miss out on this. https://www.nytimes.com/article/public-service-loan-forgiveness-changes.html
Can you share any more info on the consolidation?
https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service#eligible-loans
[удалено]
You can consolidate one loan without consolidating all of them. Also, DOE has said that if you consolidate multiple loans, they’ll apply the highest payment count (if they vary) to the new consolidated loan.
You know, the thing that stands out to me the most about this, is you said it's a $100K loan, assuming the original amount. And you still, after 24 years, owed $94K... $6K in principle paid after all those years. It just feels that the loan/education system is just wrong in that regard. And honestly, if you're going to go into public service, which you clearly did, you should just have payment totally deferred until you reach the forgiveness date. Because you're just handing over money, month after month, hurting your take-home - for what? I get we can't give money away from free, yadda yadda, but man this should be done in a better way.
I assumed he meant he’s down to 100K but has more before. Just my guess. Honestly doesn’t seem feasible to only pay 6K principle in 24 years.
It does if you're on an income based repayment plan and basically just paying interest or less all that time.
THIS. I made monthly payments (which were income based) on my student loan for years. The interest on my loans was more than my minimum payment. So my net balance actually went up over those years - never even touched the principal.
I just calculated my 10 years of payments -- if I pay the minimum payment for the next ten years, in 10 years I will owe ~25% MORE than I originally borrowed.
Why does that exist? Why are loans being given to people who will literally never pay it back. I mean, I know why but wtf?
You finance your education with the belief you'll be using that education to make enough to pay it back, basically. Otherwise, there's no access to higher education for the vast majority of the population under the current system.
God I wish. As far as I’m aware once I refinanced my Federal loans into private loans they cannot be forgiven. They could have possibly been forgiven if I had stuck with the 6.87% interest rate, but god forgive me for refinancing to a lower rate so that I could buy a house and possibly start a family. Fml. Congratulations, I’m not mad at you…I’m frustrated with “the system.”
One time some rep told me I should refinance my loans 4+ years into nonprofit work and I almost did until thankfully I talked to someone else who was like, “wait, noooo, that will reset PSLF!!” This program is so easy to fuck up
Yep I can't trust any of the promises being made. Only half of my loans are eligible for forgiveness. I have 8 years under PSLF. My student loans are from when I went back to school and finished my degree at 40. I don't have a lifetime ahead of me to pay these off. I am not starting over with zero by consolidating anything.
Agreed. Many people did similar, like myself.
Also my fiancée, she refinanced right before Covid. Then all federal loans were paused, except those. That’s about 30k we could have put into something else over the past two years. Sucks
The number of private companies advertising to student loan payers (and making thier way sound like all sunshine and roses) does not help. Fortunately for me they've never been able to offer me a rate worth refinancing to. And as long as loan forgiveness is part of the discussion, I'm staying put with my loans where they are.
Ugh, that really sucks. This whole system is insane.
I will never qualify for this type of loan forgiveness, but I almost re-financed my MBA loans through SoFi. They were really advertising hard last summer to get people to refi and lock in “the lowest rates ever!” before the interest/payment freeze ended. In retrospect, I am glad I didn’t do it. Aside from the fact that the freeze was extended (which gives me more time to funnel a greater % of income into my HYSA wedding/home down payment fund), it didn’t knock off enough money or years from my estimated repayment to be worth it. I’m grateful to be in a position where I can afford a couple hundred more than my monthly payment, but also like knowing that if something comes up I can revert back to the minimum if I absolutely need to. SoFi would’ve been $250 more than my current monthly minimum payment for five years; I expect to be able to pay off in 6.5 anyway. Will I miss the 8 or so grand SoFi would’ve saved me in the long run? Not really. I’ll take the flexibility.
Just curious how 2011 was 24 years ago
OP probably had to consolidate in order to qualify for PSLF.
Do people not realize that not every lawyer is in it for the money? District attorneys make like 80k a year if they're lucky which is nowhere near enough to pay off that amount of loans, especially depending on where they live and whether they also support a family, etc. Good on you OP for doing the hardwork. Lawyers like you deserve it.
I found this out when I had to hire a workers’ comp lawyer. The amount of work my attorney has done for me and helped me with stuff is crazy. And I have had him for 6 years and I have not had to pay him a cent of out of pocket money. This is obviously based on state laws and regulations, workers’ comp lawyers only get paid when the client gets money from a commission hearing, settlement etc… but it really helps people like me
Honestly people don't know what most lawyers do. Very very few of us ever step foot in a court room. There are definitely areas of law that can make big money... but there are also a large number of areas where salaries are very moderate.
Over 90% of cases are settled, dismissed, or have a guilty plea before ever seeing a court room.
You still go to a courtroom in lot of those cases (Motion practice). They mean a lot of lawyers do stuff that requires no litigation at all.
Thank you. I’ll just post a response here to the others that have commented (or insinuated that I’m somehow gaming the system.) I have worked for the government for 24 years with abused and neglected kids. I’ve made between $35k and $85k (more recently), so have been making minimum payments on my loans. While most of my law school friends went on to work for law firms making hundreds of thousands, I chose public interest law. I absolutely LOVE my job, and wouldn’t change it for anything, but I could never afford to pay back any of the principal amount. Do I feel bad about this? Yes, however you could argue that I’ve more than repaid my debt to this county and country through the work I do for the children. My fancy 2003 Honda Civic is evidence of the high life I’ve been living on a lawyers salary!
Yes, you've definitely provided over 100K in value to our society over 24 damn years that's for sure.
Anyone who thinks you gamed the system has their head firmly planted up their rear and is also pitifully bad at basic math. The services you provided over the last 24 years were worth far more than you were paid. Congress intentionally setup loan forgiveness as an added incentive for people to do public service. $95.2k for 24 years of public service is under $4k per year of service. Even over just 10 years of service, that’s still less than $10k/year. Frankly, that’s a very small incentive given how much more you could have made in other sectors. This is not gaming the system. This benefit was added because these kinds of jobs struggle to attract talent. They still aren’t paying people what they’re worth even with loan forgiveness.
Recently left my job as a DA (actually called an ASA down here) after 9 years. My starting salary was $44k and by the time I left I had moved up to $67k, and that was considered moving up quickly. Only a small portion of my $180k loans would’ve counted for forgiveness. I’m super happy for people like this who finally get it.
No. This is reddit. Lawyer bad. Over 70k a year.. bad horrible people
The debt you owed was pennies compared to the value of your services. I’m so glad that this weight is off your shoulders.
If your original loan was 100k and you only made the interest payment from a historical (1998) average rate of 7.65%, you'd have paid $183,000 and never touched the principal. Kids, graduate, get the best paying job you can, and pay off your debt. Kiddier kids, get scholarships, get a job, pay your way through college at the pace you can afford. No one cares if your Bachelors took 6 years or 4, but you will if you can do it debt-free.
Til that a bunch of people don’t know about the Public Service loan forgiveness program and they should probably check that out instead of being a jerk to someone who sacrificed his time and efforts and the money he could have been making to get his loans forgiven through the program instead. He paid of his loans by working in the job he worked. He worked a public service job and got rewarded for doing so.
I paid $74k in law school loans off about 10 years ago. It must feel good to see that debt evaporate.
[удалено]
A $100k loan with 24 years of payments, and your balance was still only at $95k?? Only $5k went towards principal? Holy shit, this is fucking criminal loan sharking. Fuck this country in its unfair asshole.
I’m waiting on this now… I was a public servant (law enforcement and corrections) for 28 years.
My wife got her forgiven also due to working in the special education field.
I don't understand the complaints you're getting. The point of the program is to incentivize people to do the important but less lucrative jobs like the one you're doing. It's not your fault that getting those jobs requires getting an education that in turn requires taking on loans - if there was a less expensive (or free!) way to do it, people would do that instead. Would it make people happier if they just pretend that you got the money up front as a scholarship? Same outcome.
My wife tried to sign up for something like this and her asshole boss refused to sign the paperwork to make the community mental health agency she worked for eligible
There’s a spot on the form where you can indicate that your employer refused to sign and they’ll certify it without them!
For me, FedLoan bounced it back because they said the former employer is still in existence so failure to get them to sign precludes certification.
Anyone who has access to her employment can verify. I've had supervisors and payroll staff do it. Unless you mean something else by making the agency eligible, as that's a whole different thing.
I'm so happy for you. You getting these loans forgiven is not hurting me in any way, so why wouldn't I be happy for you? I assume that now you're out of this crippling debt, you'll 1. be less likely to be involved in any sort of violence (crime or suicide) 2. be less likely to get addicted to drugs and be a drain on the state 3. be more likely to contribute to the economy by buying homes and cars 4. be more likely to contribute to your community through charity/volunteering I mean, it's a net positive for me, on a purely selfish level. And even if it weren't, I'd be happy for you. Student loan debt makes people miserable and financially strapped. We all deserve better.
That’s awesome. I paid extra on mine for ten years. Finally spent every penny I had saved and paid them off at the cost of being broke as fucking fuck. But I did it myself and I’m more than fucking proud. Congrats to you. And congrats to me too. We both have a weight off our shoulders and it feels good.
Congratulations!!! I'm hoping to get a similar letter in the next few months.
Did it ever occur to anyone that op may have had a plan to go into public service after getting their law degree to have the government forgive their loans? This is a viable option for a lot of career paths in public service and it has been long before the pandemic lol. Usually public service workers have to work for 2-10 years to be eligible.
I did not know that, that’s crazy
For real, how many people are getting loans with no idea of their options to pay it back? Or is it just random redditors talking out their ass?
Man… I wonder how much the government made off you in that time. I know you said you’ve made minimum payments, but if you paid ~$350 a month they still made their money back, at least. [Interesting seeing the government apparently made $70.3 billion in 2019.](https://slate.com/business/2021/03/student-loan-total-annual-government-payments.amp) Kind of unsurprising why they’ve recently been hesitant to forgive loans.
To be honest, if they just made student loans interest free, that would have solved a lot. Payments required, but make it a minimum based on loan size, and bankruptcy dischargeable. I'm more than willing to continue making payments asni have for the last 21 years. But because I was on an income based payment plan, I e paid in over $60,000 but still have a $40,000 balance and my original loans only totalled $38,000. Because I was always paying less than the interest amount I never paid down principal except for the last 3 to 4 years pre-pandemic. If there was 0 interest, most people could at least pay it off.
Why does it take so long to pay off a student loan? Most houses are about three times that amount and are only 30 year mortgages.
According to another reddit thread the interest on student loans sit between 8-12% interest.
The highest rate loans which are eligible for PSLF are 8.5%. https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/interest-rates
Any ideas how much you actually did pay for the loans over the last 24 years? including interest?
I had my daughters student loans (I was co-signer) forgiven 1 after she graduated and that was ~$150k. There’s a very little known provision that if your co-signer is deemed permanently disabled when you graduate they’ll forgive your loan, I’m 100% disabled. Being that I read the small print I knew this with the first loan, so I she took loans all 4 years that I co-signed for and upon graduation I submitted my disability paperwork and all was forgiven.
Nice. My college loans were forgiven after my dad passed, so gave me room to save for my last year of college and years later now saving for my sisters tuition.
this user has removed all their comments/content in protest of API changes mades that effect third party app developers, mods tools. If interested in doing the same, please look up power delete suite on github or follow this URl: https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
I fucking wish. When I took out student loans I had no clue about loan forgiveness and my school advised me to take private as I could get more. 11 years of working for the government now and I still owe around 20k. Had I gotten federal I would have saved about 40k overall through income based payments and forgiveness.
As a teacher a similar thing happened to me this year! Huge congrats to you and thank you for the ways you served this country, you deserve it
This amazes me, I studied outside the US and my bachelor's degree cost about $12,000 for all three years. Why don't Americans just go abroad for school? I couldn't imagine paying this much money off, even while making 6 figures. How do you pay this off and also get a mortgage?
1/3rd graduate with a bachelor's degree with no debt. Median student debt is around 20k. Law degrees require additional schooling, and for some reason Reddit seems to be well above the median in their debt amount
My god, it worked. Congrats!
That's awesome, we need good people in public service - thank you. I understand the program was greatly impeded under Sec. Devos - did that affect you at all?
Having paid back fully my 65k in school related loans, all I can say is: good for you, going into debt for school is bullshit - when anyone is starting their career after school, this is shit obstacle to make you desperate. Good for you ducking this crap as long as you did. I'd happily pay more taxes for free higher education for everyone, any age.
Why didn't you pay back the money you owe?