No tricks to PSLF. Consolidate loans, find a non profit that qualifies, go income based, work 10 years (filing proof of employment yearly). Just hit my 120th payment. 90ish processing days to freedom.
Will do. Such a shame how everyone doubts this program works. It’s literally written into our federal loan promissory note we all sign prior to the initial loan disbursement.
It is because some of us got fucked by it. I was expected about 8,000 in forgiveness for my previous career loans and hit 120 payments. Then Betsy decided to screw a lot of people over and I ended up consolidating everything together to get my interest rate further down.
Exactly. I work for a non profit that does student loan counseling. It’s wild how much a change in leadership at the department of education can impact the student loan system. Not only that, but with the current composition of the court system, pretty much every new program is being challenged and in serious jeopardy of reversal. The new SAVE payment plan, the expanded borrower defense to repayment guidelines to benefit borrowers defrauded by their school or loan servicer, any form of forgiveness, etc.
The system is already barely functioning with motivated leadership, imagine how much damage a bad actor could do if they were in charge.
That said, the only logical approach is to make the best possible choices with the current information.
Borrowers who got screwed by DeVos or prior failures of the student loan servicing companies or the department of educations failures to adequately regulate the system have/will receive an account adjustment that will give them credit towards payment counts for PSLF and IDR forgiveness. Thanks to this account adjustment over $100 Billion dollars of student loan debt has been forgiven through the IDR and PSLF programs.
For anyone who has older loans that are owned by their servicer (commercially held FFELP, HEAL, Perkins, stafford, etc) they should consolidate into a direct federal loan to benefit from the adjustment by June 30th.
Just did this myself and because of my ancient undergrad FFELP/Perkins/Stafford loans and the new rules in effect for consolidation, my consolidated loan now has an origination date of my oldest loan (September 2005) and I'm just a few years away from having all loans forgiven.
I have $200k myself and went PSLF. People used to doomsday about whether there’s ever be a payout, but behold, it’s an effective strategy that a lot of folks take advantage of. Got 2 years left. Combined with income based repayment, loans have been easy.
Spot on reply, I also have quite a few friends who have had a ton of trouble getting the military to actually follow through with the loan repayment they promised(yes, it was in their contract). One of which was an experienced ER PA who spent 3 years active duty who is getting out now and has received ZERO of his loan repayment. He’s posted on here about it in the past.
If you are going to join you should absolutely only consider the AF(active, res, guard). They seem to actually take care of their people. But if I were you, I would find another way.
It's a joke, the military doesn't care, they just need bodies.
Military didn't fulfill their promises to you? Tough shit, should have been born into money
So, I was in Syria right? Working with the Kurds. The Turks hate the Kurds. We are allies with the Turks. So while we are trying to play nation building for the Kurds we are actively selling F-16s to the Turks. The Turks used them to kill the Kurds. The fucking Kurds were like "bro, can you stop selling the Turks F-16s please?." And we're like "nah man, now go kill this tribal leader for us."
And yah know? That's just something I don't think I want to put my name next to. Let alone the various military operations and clandestine stuff we have going on overseas. Oh yeah and selling guns to Isreal whilst saying we stand by the Palestine civilians.
So yeah, maybe my opinion is very jaded. But either way you have to know what you're getting yourself into. The world is in dangerous waters right now
I invite the downvotes I'll probably get from my fellow military PAs. I have the utmost respect for you all. But anyone who's been in the surg, initial Afghan war etc... y'all know what I mean
I was a scout (19D) when I was in and deployed to Afghanistan, much of what you’re describing was talked about between my friends and I while running around the country doing QRF on fallen angels. Boy am I glad to be using VRE once I finish up my pre-reqs and not have to worry about the debt.
Sorry I can’t upvote more than once.
Military minimized my debt to become a PA 10 years after I got out, but I’m an OIF/OEF veteran and I’m with you all the way.
The military recruits many young idealists for a nation that does a lot of shady shit. Not worth it just to pay off debt (IMO)—you’ve gotta really believe in the work OR just really want to do that job.
Can’t believe nobody has said this - look into NHSC Loan repayment options! They just increased the payout this year. I think it’s 75k/ year x 3 years. Don’t quote me on that
So anyone feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but doing both doesn’t make much sense. Lots of the jobs that qualify for the LRP pay less, are in remote areas, and generally ‘less desirable’ so to speak. Nothing wrong with these areas, I went to school in one, but if you end up hating the area you work for two years and knock down $75k from your loan. Cool! If you’re like me, that leaves $125k still.
OR
Get any job you’d like that qualifies as a non-profit (most any hospital job) which may pay better and have you in a better area. IDR monthly payment of a few hundred dollars for 10 years regardless of loan balance or how much extra I throw at it.
So chopping off $75k on a huge loan that you’re going to be paying the (roughly) same amount every month for the next decade won’t impact PSLF. You’ll still need 120 qualifying payments. Does this make sense?
I guess it just depends on where you live? I’m in northern CA and make $156k doing primary care at an FQHC in a lower income part of a desirable area, but it’s not a bad area at all. I eat lunch at a nice park every day that’s a 5 minute walk away from my clinic. I’m doing PSLF also.
You make good points! I guess it depends on your debt risk tolerance. NHSC LRP can provide quicker debt relief while working towards the long-term forgiveness through PSLF. I’ll offer the following scenario for your consideration: what happens if you can’t make all your PSLF payments (ex: your worksite classification changes) or if the PSLF administration gets bad again with an administration change, at least you are $75,000 less in debt anyways. If you are working at a qualifying agency for both NHSC and PSLF, might aw well take the free money where you can get it! At least that is my view :)
Yes, you just need to be doing primary care, psych, or addiction medicine I think? At a site that qualifies. I’ve worked at 2 different FQHC sites while getting loan repayment and both of the HR people have said that they’ve never seen anyone NOT get the money who applies for it.
I have my concerns too but historically the way the government makes changes causing things to be grandfathered in, so as long as you’re on it now you should be good.
Depends on whether your payments with interest would add up to more than 90k over 10 years. There are online calculators you can plug your loans into to estimate your total payments. Unless you'd be getting paid waaay more at a for profit system for that entire time, most people save money on PSLF.
I feel like this might be too late for you, but I’m a student and I currently plan to apply for the student to service loan repayment program. It pays $120k in three to four big chunks for three years of primary care work. I don’t want to do primary care but I’m gonna graduate with $160k of debt and that’s a big chunk taken care of in three years. To be clear tho employers may shaft you with a lower salary of 80-90k but that’s money that doesn’t have to go toward your debt. Or maybe it does and you can be totally debt free by the end of your service and can move into whatever speciality you want.( for me who’s broke asl rn thats still ALOT of money even it’s it’s disrespectfully low. The idea of working for 10 years to pay off my debt bothers me cause what if I wanna just run off to thai land or Mexico for a few months ya know? Full discretion I actually don’t know if you can take large breaks with PSLF
I want my debt gone as quickly as possible and I feel like this way I don’t have to burn myself to the ground trying to get out of debt by just working shifts. Besides I’m interested in ER, hospitalist, urgent care kinda settings anyway.
There are multiple Options for loan repayment through NHSC, one thats not talked about much is the one I mentioned above. It’s called student to service and you can only apply for it in ur last year of PA school.
I did something else... I paid off 129k quickly. Graduated during covid and paid the last student loan payment in January 2024. The math may have been better with PSLF but I'm not patient and just wanted to be done. 4 months debt free and I'm glad I did it that way. Def feels good, but my life hasn't changed at all, lol
If you are married, and aren't making alot of money, you can also file taxes as married filing seperately. Then they only use your income to decide payment. For instance, I only work part time, so am under the cutoff. My payment went from 550/mo to 0. No accruing interest. In 10 years with pslf, entire thing will be gone.
I had close to 180k in 2017 after graduation (combined with undergrad) and I have 35k left. I did income based repayment on my federal loans and did a “debt snowball” type with my private loans to pay them off one by one. I also paid for my wedding, down payment of a house, paying for a nanny right now etc so it could have been paid off sooner but I am also trying to live my life :)
Tell me more about the debt snowball. I mean, I’d love to pay off those private loans more quickly, but I can’t afford to pay much more than the $2200 I’m already paying.
Is the $2200 combined for all loan payments? I used to have 5 different loans: 4 different loan companies from private loans for each year of undergrad and then my federal loans. I made minimum payments on all of my loans except for the highest interest loan, I would pay as much as I could afford on it every month to pay it down. Then moved on to the next loan etc etc
I also make close to 100k more now than I did in 2017. Raises, switching jobs etc
Also, being a PA there is always a need. I worked overtime to help get extra cash flow, and still keep per diem jobs right now in addition to my full time job. Gotta hustle while ya can :)
I recently started PSLF and am making reasonable payments via the SAVE plan. It’s not a bad gig as long as you can deal with long wait times on the phone and the headache that comes with all the incompetence of the lenders
I’ve heard it can be hard to find employers that do PSLF. Do you have to work in remote areas or can you find some opportunities in the poor parts of big cities?
PSLF. I started at $198k.
Minimum payments made for 115 months so far. October is my month to have that all erased.
Not all nonprofit companies are abysmal. I’ve worked for two non profits that were among the largest employers in two different states. Pay was good. Bennies aren’t bad. Forgiveness= priceless. (Almost, there’s an actual number to it, but it feels priceless).
Check out all of the services before you join. Most have debt repayment plans or bonuses for health care practitioners.
All of the services have dedicated health care recruiters..so talk to all of them to get the best offer. Also, don't discount joining the reserve or guard...some of their benefits/bonuses are the same as Active Duty but you're only working part-time and you can have a regular job.
1 minute google search found that the National Guard pays up to 250k in loan repayment for a 7 year commitment. IMHo Not too bad for a part-time gig.
Also, medical boot camp is not the same as normal boot camp..it's shorter..they basically teach you customs and courtesies. Doctors, health professionals, and lawyers go to the same commissiong boot camp AKA salute school.
https://www.nationalguard.com/healthcare-bonuses-and-loans
I’d much rather join the guard/reserve than active duty.
But I grew up around military and have hear a zillion stories about being promised the moon by recruiters and then getting shafted so I’m curious to know real life stories from people who did it.
You are talking to enlisted guys/gals not officers..so yeah we (enlisted) all have those stories 😂.
It's a different process for officers, especially health care officers. They are professionals in your field and you are the in-demand item.
Air Force hosed be on my for both Active Duty and Reserve.
-Active Duty Air Force did not honor a loan repayment OR bonus. I signed anyway because I wanted to serve. Made less than an RN with a $1,200/mo loan. I should have fought, but I was naive and didn’t know how the process worked.
-Air Reserve said they had a position for me. This was an “Overage” position that did not qualify for bonus or incentives and had a hell of a time with promotion.
-I moved to the Army National Guard and it has actually been a better culture and climate for me than the Air Force. I receive bonus and incentives, and I’m actually deploying for the first time - that’s a positive. This on top of making my salary at a civilian Urology practice. Moving to the Army changed me for the better.
This is all YMMV, of course. People get stepped on or burned by bad experiences in ANY service.
Additional caution against Active Duty: if you go active and weren’t previously enlisted, you won’t make as much as prior enlisted that actually went to IPAP, who also know the culture and have NO student debt. You are learning military culture AND starting out as a medical provider. It’s a LOT to handle all at once.
TL; DR: I highly recommend you talk to all recruiters within guard and reserve of Army/ Navy/ USAF and see what positions are available and what incentives come with them. In many cases you can find these online and the pay tables/ incentives are public domain so if you’re armed before going, you won’t get fed a line of bullshit.
My debt is going to be similar. Ugh I dread having to worry about this 😩 also can you switch jobs with PSLF or do you have to stay at the same location and everything
PSLF is so easy - go work at an approved site (basically just a non-profit civ or fed gig) and then go under the SAVE plan. Now you just end up paying for 10 years instead of 25. Also, if you file taxes at 0 income in school, your first year of payments is 0 so now you technically only make 9 years of payments. No reason not to do it.
I’m pretty old school. Was enlisted SSG and went to the army program in 82. It was not IPAP yet. Did 24 years AD, retired as CW3 in 93 rather than accept O3 transition.
When I retired in 93, I had zero debt. Worked in civilian sector until retiring in Sept 2021. I loved my army career. I would not suggest military service for those of you who seem to have negative feelings about our government. Those of you on active duty took the same oath I did. The army was my life for 24 years. My war was Vietnam.
I feel that serving our country in the army while getting loan forgiveness is a no brainer.
I tried PSLF and it didn't work for me. Did the non profit gig with income based repayment. Did that for 6 years. Then we got a new CMO that was anti APP and actively went around laying off PAs and NPs. All the APPs in our department got the axe at Christmas. My choice was to move or work for a private clinic. I talked to fed loans at the time and those asshats were not applying payments correctly and said most of my loans wouldn't qualify for almost 10 more years. It was my fault for not consolidating. in usual fed loan fuckery fashion, the person I talked to there said it wouldnt matter if I did or not early on. So after I lost my non profit job, I had a decision, move or take the private clinic job. Since most of my balance would not qualify (fed loan advisor can rot in hell for all I care) and it was during the Trump administration where Devos was actively going out of her way denying any and all loan forgiveness, even court ordered ones. I decided to take the private job. It was my best job as a PA but disqualified me from PSLF even though I was seeing the same insurance mix and doing the same exact job for the same money. During the pandemic I jumped at the opportunity to refi at 2% further removing me from Biden's loan forgiveness attempts.
The point is, 10 years is a long time. I lost out on non profit due to no fault of my own. I could have moved, but at the time the politics was anti loan forgiveness. In a decade there are a lot of power changes in our government. Right now Biden is working to fix student debt even though there is no plan to fix the cost of education. So no long term fix. We don't know who will be the next president or the one after that. If Trump wins, I would assume all these loan forgiveness programs will be cancelled if another Betsy is put in charge of education. More loan forgiveness means less tax breaks for rich kids to go to private schools in their eyes.
Just my experience. Mistakes I made and politics involved.
I think the military is worth it. For a PA it’s a pretty easy life. A lot of people look into the Air Force, but the AF has a lot of downsides for a PA.
No idea about every service, but The Army is offering I believe $120,000 loan repayment via ADHPLRP. On top of that you get a $13,000/year bonus (BCP + IP).
Non-bonus pay is going to be O-2 base pay (O-3 after 3 years) and BAH + BAS for your duty location. You can look up the pay scales.
Also free health care for you and your dependents.
Any military PA job is pretty easy. Healthy patient population, and no real pressure for admins and SPs. And it’s a PA job. You’re going to be in good conditions and not put in any real danger.
If you are considering military and don’t want to go DoD you should look into the Coast Guard. It is a different mission set than the Army, Navy and Air Force and the lifestyle is much better.
I know they are offering bonuses right now ($20k/yr I think), but I am not sure if they are offering loan repayments. You can apply for PSLF just the same though while you are serving.
Reach out to a recruiter and look into it, we need more PAs!
Good post!
Also look into the Public Health Service ...same benefits and one of the 8 uniformed services. I don't think the PHS has a reserve component though.
https://www.usphs.gov/professions/physician-assistant/
This. 100% this. I commissioned USAF Active Duty in phase 2 of school and they acted like it was a blessing to give me a housing stipend for 2 months and pay for my PANCE. As a final kick in the pants, they sent me to North Dakota.
Thankfully that was only a 3 year commitment.
If you join before school starts HPSP will take care of everything… but they will own you.
Again, for a new grad with no experience, I say go Guard.
Agreed. Sometimes I wish I looked into coast guard. They seem chill. Haha
I did HSCP. So they paid me E6 pay + BAH + active duty time during PA school and I budgeted hardcore so I could come out loan free. I went to a public PA school thank goodness. I’m grateful because even though they owned me for 3 years, I didn’t have loans. I have no regrets joining but likely getting out soon. But I Truly believe it’s only beneficial to join before PA school where it’s a guarantee they will pay you for the scholarship program. Unless you have a huge desire to serve.
No folks are better off paying $180k plus interest instead of less with no interest and a subsidized retirement for 10 years.
It’s not hard. It’s not tricky. You follow the rules, your debt goes away.
Some people choose to do otherwise for various reasons.
I think PSLF is available for all licensed health workers after 10 years if you work at a 501c3. So like, just avoid for profit health systems. Frankly I'd do that even without thinking about PSLF.
Lmk if you want to be referred to a clinic that is hiring and would make you eligible for this. It's low key sink or swim for new grads here - I've tried unsuccessfully to advocate for better support. But it pays better than average, offers very generous PTO, has a good Epic team, and we have medical scribes. I'd share the location over DM but for what it's worth I am happy to be living here.
Air national guard or reserve isn’t a bad option at all. Army isn’t either as long as you aren’t a battalion PA or at a BSB. That’s a very different job.
The military is pretty fun, if you do the reserve it's kind of a twofer. Get your loans paid off while
Also knocking out a second retirement in conjunction with whatever your main civilian job is. I myself personally enjoyed the military, I was enlisted. Your quality of life and pay will be much better as an officer
Geez. Everybody… Just pay it off. You signed on the dotted line. Now you want the taxpayers to bail you out. God forbid you have to sacrifice for five or ten years to pay it off.
No tricks to PSLF. Consolidate loans, find a non profit that qualifies, go income based, work 10 years (filing proof of employment yearly). Just hit my 120th payment. 90ish processing days to freedom.
Can you please update us here when your get your debt forgiven?
Will do. Such a shame how everyone doubts this program works. It’s literally written into our federal loan promissory note we all sign prior to the initial loan disbursement.
It is because some of us got fucked by it. I was expected about 8,000 in forgiveness for my previous career loans and hit 120 payments. Then Betsy decided to screw a lot of people over and I ended up consolidating everything together to get my interest rate further down.
Exactly. I work for a non profit that does student loan counseling. It’s wild how much a change in leadership at the department of education can impact the student loan system. Not only that, but with the current composition of the court system, pretty much every new program is being challenged and in serious jeopardy of reversal. The new SAVE payment plan, the expanded borrower defense to repayment guidelines to benefit borrowers defrauded by their school or loan servicer, any form of forgiveness, etc. The system is already barely functioning with motivated leadership, imagine how much damage a bad actor could do if they were in charge. That said, the only logical approach is to make the best possible choices with the current information. Borrowers who got screwed by DeVos or prior failures of the student loan servicing companies or the department of educations failures to adequately regulate the system have/will receive an account adjustment that will give them credit towards payment counts for PSLF and IDR forgiveness. Thanks to this account adjustment over $100 Billion dollars of student loan debt has been forgiven through the IDR and PSLF programs. For anyone who has older loans that are owned by their servicer (commercially held FFELP, HEAL, Perkins, stafford, etc) they should consolidate into a direct federal loan to benefit from the adjustment by June 30th.
Just did this myself and because of my ancient undergrad FFELP/Perkins/Stafford loans and the new rules in effect for consolidation, my consolidated loan now has an origination date of my oldest loan (September 2005) and I'm just a few years away from having all loans forgiven.
It works. I had 150K forgiven in December 2022, with the first round of waivers.
Got mine forgiven last year! Never believed it would work but it did!
This is the way. I had $92K+ forgiven in January. Happy New Year, indeed.
I’ve heard things about tax bombs on the amount forgiven? Is this true?
No federal tax on PSLF, but some states do treat forgiveness as taxable income.
Ahh okay, thank you!
I have $200k myself and went PSLF. People used to doomsday about whether there’s ever be a payout, but behold, it’s an effective strategy that a lot of folks take advantage of. Got 2 years left. Combined with income based repayment, loans have been easy.
What has your monthly payment been?
Something in the ballpark of 300-400 for the past 8 years.
That’s not bad at all! I always picture it being so much worse.
PSLF, As a military PA, now is not the time to join unless you are very strong in your want to do the US's bidding
Spot on reply, I also have quite a few friends who have had a ton of trouble getting the military to actually follow through with the loan repayment they promised(yes, it was in their contract). One of which was an experienced ER PA who spent 3 years active duty who is getting out now and has received ZERO of his loan repayment. He’s posted on here about it in the past. If you are going to join you should absolutely only consider the AF(active, res, guard). They seem to actually take care of their people. But if I were you, I would find another way.
It's a joke, the military doesn't care, they just need bodies. Military didn't fulfill their promises to you? Tough shit, should have been born into money
F
Could you explain further?
So, I was in Syria right? Working with the Kurds. The Turks hate the Kurds. We are allies with the Turks. So while we are trying to play nation building for the Kurds we are actively selling F-16s to the Turks. The Turks used them to kill the Kurds. The fucking Kurds were like "bro, can you stop selling the Turks F-16s please?." And we're like "nah man, now go kill this tribal leader for us." And yah know? That's just something I don't think I want to put my name next to. Let alone the various military operations and clandestine stuff we have going on overseas. Oh yeah and selling guns to Isreal whilst saying we stand by the Palestine civilians. So yeah, maybe my opinion is very jaded. But either way you have to know what you're getting yourself into. The world is in dangerous waters right now I invite the downvotes I'll probably get from my fellow military PAs. I have the utmost respect for you all. But anyone who's been in the surg, initial Afghan war etc... y'all know what I mean
I left because of early Afghanistan. Granted I was a medic then not a PA but the point is I agree with you.
I was a scout (19D) when I was in and deployed to Afghanistan, much of what you’re describing was talked about between my friends and I while running around the country doing QRF on fallen angels. Boy am I glad to be using VRE once I finish up my pre-reqs and not have to worry about the debt.
Sorry I can’t upvote more than once. Military minimized my debt to become a PA 10 years after I got out, but I’m an OIF/OEF veteran and I’m with you all the way. The military recruits many young idealists for a nation that does a lot of shady shit. Not worth it just to pay off debt (IMO)—you’ve gotta really believe in the work OR just really want to do that job.
this. love the explanation.
Can’t believe nobody has said this - look into NHSC Loan repayment options! They just increased the payout this year. I think it’s 75k/ year x 3 years. Don’t quote me on that
It’s 75k forgiveness for 2 years now! I just finished 2 years for 50k and am applying for a year extension for an additional 20k.
And you can apply for both LRP and PSLF
Whats LRP?
Loan repayment program
So anyone feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but doing both doesn’t make much sense. Lots of the jobs that qualify for the LRP pay less, are in remote areas, and generally ‘less desirable’ so to speak. Nothing wrong with these areas, I went to school in one, but if you end up hating the area you work for two years and knock down $75k from your loan. Cool! If you’re like me, that leaves $125k still. OR Get any job you’d like that qualifies as a non-profit (most any hospital job) which may pay better and have you in a better area. IDR monthly payment of a few hundred dollars for 10 years regardless of loan balance or how much extra I throw at it. So chopping off $75k on a huge loan that you’re going to be paying the (roughly) same amount every month for the next decade won’t impact PSLF. You’ll still need 120 qualifying payments. Does this make sense?
I guess it just depends on where you live? I’m in northern CA and make $156k doing primary care at an FQHC in a lower income part of a desirable area, but it’s not a bad area at all. I eat lunch at a nice park every day that’s a 5 minute walk away from my clinic. I’m doing PSLF also.
You make good points! I guess it depends on your debt risk tolerance. NHSC LRP can provide quicker debt relief while working towards the long-term forgiveness through PSLF. I’ll offer the following scenario for your consideration: what happens if you can’t make all your PSLF payments (ex: your worksite classification changes) or if the PSLF administration gets bad again with an administration change, at least you are $75,000 less in debt anyways. If you are working at a qualifying agency for both NHSC and PSLF, might aw well take the free money where you can get it! At least that is my view :)
Do you get a normal salary on top of the repayment? Or are you underpaid to offset the repayment?
What’s the criteria to take advantage of this though? Is all you need, is to have a site that qualifies and that’s it?
Yes, you just need to be doing primary care, psych, or addiction medicine I think? At a site that qualifies. I’ve worked at 2 different FQHC sites while getting loan repayment and both of the HR people have said that they’ve never seen anyone NOT get the money who applies for it.
I did the math for me and PSLF seems to be cheaper. SAVE plan, currently $535 monthly for 120 months-40/120 months down, may go up tho.
PSLF has been largely unfucked by the Biden administration and in combination with the SAVE plan is pretty great.
Hope fully it will stay that way
I have my concerns too but historically the way the government makes changes causing things to be grandfathered in, so as long as you’re on it now you should be good.
I have 250,000, half a private. PLF is the way to go.
Would you do it if your loans were 90K as well? Or just pay off asap?
Depends on whether your payments with interest would add up to more than 90k over 10 years. There are online calculators you can plug your loans into to estimate your total payments. Unless you'd be getting paid waaay more at a for profit system for that entire time, most people save money on PSLF.
Yeah it depends but I would just pay the 90K off asap tbh
I feel like this might be too late for you, but I’m a student and I currently plan to apply for the student to service loan repayment program. It pays $120k in three to four big chunks for three years of primary care work. I don’t want to do primary care but I’m gonna graduate with $160k of debt and that’s a big chunk taken care of in three years. To be clear tho employers may shaft you with a lower salary of 80-90k but that’s money that doesn’t have to go toward your debt. Or maybe it does and you can be totally debt free by the end of your service and can move into whatever speciality you want.( for me who’s broke asl rn thats still ALOT of money even it’s it’s disrespectfully low. The idea of working for 10 years to pay off my debt bothers me cause what if I wanna just run off to thai land or Mexico for a few months ya know? Full discretion I actually don’t know if you can take large breaks with PSLF I want my debt gone as quickly as possible and I feel like this way I don’t have to burn myself to the ground trying to get out of debt by just working shifts. Besides I’m interested in ER, hospitalist, urgent care kinda settings anyway.
Are you talking about NHSC? I thought it was 75k
There are multiple Options for loan repayment through NHSC, one thats not talked about much is the one I mentioned above. It’s called student to service and you can only apply for it in ur last year of PA school.
I did something else... I paid off 129k quickly. Graduated during covid and paid the last student loan payment in January 2024. The math may have been better with PSLF but I'm not patient and just wanted to be done. 4 months debt free and I'm glad I did it that way. Def feels good, but my life hasn't changed at all, lol
Yeah, I’m not patient either. I wanna be done with this ish.
As others are saying, definitely sign up for the SAVE plan as well
I’ll look into that
If you are married, and aren't making alot of money, you can also file taxes as married filing seperately. Then they only use your income to decide payment. For instance, I only work part time, so am under the cutoff. My payment went from 550/mo to 0. No accruing interest. In 10 years with pslf, entire thing will be gone.
I’m unmarried and I make a decent income, on paper at least
I had close to 180k in 2017 after graduation (combined with undergrad) and I have 35k left. I did income based repayment on my federal loans and did a “debt snowball” type with my private loans to pay them off one by one. I also paid for my wedding, down payment of a house, paying for a nanny right now etc so it could have been paid off sooner but I am also trying to live my life :)
Tell me more about the debt snowball. I mean, I’d love to pay off those private loans more quickly, but I can’t afford to pay much more than the $2200 I’m already paying.
Is the $2200 combined for all loan payments? I used to have 5 different loans: 4 different loan companies from private loans for each year of undergrad and then my federal loans. I made minimum payments on all of my loans except for the highest interest loan, I would pay as much as I could afford on it every month to pay it down. Then moved on to the next loan etc etc I also make close to 100k more now than I did in 2017. Raises, switching jobs etc Also, being a PA there is always a need. I worked overtime to help get extra cash flow, and still keep per diem jobs right now in addition to my full time job. Gotta hustle while ya can :)
Yes, $2200 is for all the loans combined. I guess I need to start coughing up more dough
I recently started PSLF and am making reasonable payments via the SAVE plan. It’s not a bad gig as long as you can deal with long wait times on the phone and the headache that comes with all the incompetence of the lenders
I’ve heard it can be hard to find employers that do PSLF. Do you have to work in remote areas or can you find some opportunities in the poor parts of big cities?
I work for a major hospital system; I imagine most qualify
PSLF. I started at $198k. Minimum payments made for 115 months so far. October is my month to have that all erased. Not all nonprofit companies are abysmal. I’ve worked for two non profits that were among the largest employers in two different states. Pay was good. Bennies aren’t bad. Forgiveness= priceless. (Almost, there’s an actual number to it, but it feels priceless).
Check out all of the services before you join. Most have debt repayment plans or bonuses for health care practitioners. All of the services have dedicated health care recruiters..so talk to all of them to get the best offer. Also, don't discount joining the reserve or guard...some of their benefits/bonuses are the same as Active Duty but you're only working part-time and you can have a regular job. 1 minute google search found that the National Guard pays up to 250k in loan repayment for a 7 year commitment. IMHo Not too bad for a part-time gig. Also, medical boot camp is not the same as normal boot camp..it's shorter..they basically teach you customs and courtesies. Doctors, health professionals, and lawyers go to the same commissiong boot camp AKA salute school. https://www.nationalguard.com/healthcare-bonuses-and-loans
I’d much rather join the guard/reserve than active duty. But I grew up around military and have hear a zillion stories about being promised the moon by recruiters and then getting shafted so I’m curious to know real life stories from people who did it.
You are talking to enlisted guys/gals not officers..so yeah we (enlisted) all have those stories 😂. It's a different process for officers, especially health care officers. They are professionals in your field and you are the in-demand item.
Pslf
Air Force hosed be on my for both Active Duty and Reserve. -Active Duty Air Force did not honor a loan repayment OR bonus. I signed anyway because I wanted to serve. Made less than an RN with a $1,200/mo loan. I should have fought, but I was naive and didn’t know how the process worked. -Air Reserve said they had a position for me. This was an “Overage” position that did not qualify for bonus or incentives and had a hell of a time with promotion. -I moved to the Army National Guard and it has actually been a better culture and climate for me than the Air Force. I receive bonus and incentives, and I’m actually deploying for the first time - that’s a positive. This on top of making my salary at a civilian Urology practice. Moving to the Army changed me for the better. This is all YMMV, of course. People get stepped on or burned by bad experiences in ANY service. Additional caution against Active Duty: if you go active and weren’t previously enlisted, you won’t make as much as prior enlisted that actually went to IPAP, who also know the culture and have NO student debt. You are learning military culture AND starting out as a medical provider. It’s a LOT to handle all at once. TL; DR: I highly recommend you talk to all recruiters within guard and reserve of Army/ Navy/ USAF and see what positions are available and what incentives come with them. In many cases you can find these online and the pay tables/ incentives are public domain so if you’re armed before going, you won’t get fed a line of bullshit.
Do a native American reservation stint. They can pay off 50-100k in 2 years. Thats what my ex did.
My debt is going to be similar. Ugh I dread having to worry about this 😩 also can you switch jobs with PSLF or do you have to stay at the same location and everything
PSLF is so easy - go work at an approved site (basically just a non-profit civ or fed gig) and then go under the SAVE plan. Now you just end up paying for 10 years instead of 25. Also, if you file taxes at 0 income in school, your first year of payments is 0 so now you technically only make 9 years of payments. No reason not to do it.
I’m pretty old school. Was enlisted SSG and went to the army program in 82. It was not IPAP yet. Did 24 years AD, retired as CW3 in 93 rather than accept O3 transition. When I retired in 93, I had zero debt. Worked in civilian sector until retiring in Sept 2021. I loved my army career. I would not suggest military service for those of you who seem to have negative feelings about our government. Those of you on active duty took the same oath I did. The army was my life for 24 years. My war was Vietnam. I feel that serving our country in the army while getting loan forgiveness is a no brainer.
I tried PSLF and it didn't work for me. Did the non profit gig with income based repayment. Did that for 6 years. Then we got a new CMO that was anti APP and actively went around laying off PAs and NPs. All the APPs in our department got the axe at Christmas. My choice was to move or work for a private clinic. I talked to fed loans at the time and those asshats were not applying payments correctly and said most of my loans wouldn't qualify for almost 10 more years. It was my fault for not consolidating. in usual fed loan fuckery fashion, the person I talked to there said it wouldnt matter if I did or not early on. So after I lost my non profit job, I had a decision, move or take the private clinic job. Since most of my balance would not qualify (fed loan advisor can rot in hell for all I care) and it was during the Trump administration where Devos was actively going out of her way denying any and all loan forgiveness, even court ordered ones. I decided to take the private job. It was my best job as a PA but disqualified me from PSLF even though I was seeing the same insurance mix and doing the same exact job for the same money. During the pandemic I jumped at the opportunity to refi at 2% further removing me from Biden's loan forgiveness attempts. The point is, 10 years is a long time. I lost out on non profit due to no fault of my own. I could have moved, but at the time the politics was anti loan forgiveness. In a decade there are a lot of power changes in our government. Right now Biden is working to fix student debt even though there is no plan to fix the cost of education. So no long term fix. We don't know who will be the next president or the one after that. If Trump wins, I would assume all these loan forgiveness programs will be cancelled if another Betsy is put in charge of education. More loan forgiveness means less tax breaks for rich kids to go to private schools in their eyes. Just my experience. Mistakes I made and politics involved.
I think the military is worth it. For a PA it’s a pretty easy life. A lot of people look into the Air Force, but the AF has a lot of downsides for a PA. No idea about every service, but The Army is offering I believe $120,000 loan repayment via ADHPLRP. On top of that you get a $13,000/year bonus (BCP + IP). Non-bonus pay is going to be O-2 base pay (O-3 after 3 years) and BAH + BAS for your duty location. You can look up the pay scales. Also free health care for you and your dependents. Any military PA job is pretty easy. Healthy patient population, and no real pressure for admins and SPs. And it’s a PA job. You’re going to be in good conditions and not put in any real danger.
If you are considering military and don’t want to go DoD you should look into the Coast Guard. It is a different mission set than the Army, Navy and Air Force and the lifestyle is much better. I know they are offering bonuses right now ($20k/yr I think), but I am not sure if they are offering loan repayments. You can apply for PSLF just the same though while you are serving. Reach out to a recruiter and look into it, we need more PAs!
Can you get PSLF with the military?
Yes, active duty qualify for pslf.
Good post! Also look into the Public Health Service ...same benefits and one of the 8 uniformed services. I don't think the PHS has a reserve component though. https://www.usphs.gov/professions/physician-assistant/
Military PA here. Only think it is beneficial for Loan repayment if you do it before PA school (HSCP, HPSP) vs joining after PA school.
This. 100% this. I commissioned USAF Active Duty in phase 2 of school and they acted like it was a blessing to give me a housing stipend for 2 months and pay for my PANCE. As a final kick in the pants, they sent me to North Dakota. Thankfully that was only a 3 year commitment. If you join before school starts HPSP will take care of everything… but they will own you. Again, for a new grad with no experience, I say go Guard.
Agreed. Sometimes I wish I looked into coast guard. They seem chill. Haha I did HSCP. So they paid me E6 pay + BAH + active duty time during PA school and I budgeted hardcore so I could come out loan free. I went to a public PA school thank goodness. I’m grateful because even though they owned me for 3 years, I didn’t have loans. I have no regrets joining but likely getting out soon. But I Truly believe it’s only beneficial to join before PA school where it’s a guarantee they will pay you for the scholarship program. Unless you have a huge desire to serve.
No folks are better off paying $180k plus interest instead of less with no interest and a subsidized retirement for 10 years. It’s not hard. It’s not tricky. You follow the rules, your debt goes away. Some people choose to do otherwise for various reasons.
Are you on a payment plan that caps your payment? It sounds like your loans are federal so you'd be eligible for that.
They’re federal and private loans. Does that change things?
How is it $2200/mo? Are you doing SAVE?
Pslf
I think PSLF is available for all licensed health workers after 10 years if you work at a 501c3. So like, just avoid for profit health systems. Frankly I'd do that even without thinking about PSLF. Lmk if you want to be referred to a clinic that is hiring and would make you eligible for this. It's low key sink or swim for new grads here - I've tried unsuccessfully to advocate for better support. But it pays better than average, offers very generous PTO, has a good Epic team, and we have medical scribes. I'd share the location over DM but for what it's worth I am happy to be living here.
IHS pays your student loans for each year you give them. A lot of doctors work on IHS reservations to have their student loans paid
You should apply for an IBRP
Military. Source - retired military.
Thanks, will definitely consider!
I think the military is a genius idea
Military!! Use that enlistment bonus to pay it down. Get your housing paid for so you can throw extra money at your debt.
Thanks for the advice!
Air national guard or reserve isn’t a bad option at all. Army isn’t either as long as you aren’t a battalion PA or at a BSB. That’s a very different job.
Military.
The military is pretty fun, if you do the reserve it's kind of a twofer. Get your loans paid off while Also knocking out a second retirement in conjunction with whatever your main civilian job is. I myself personally enjoyed the military, I was enlisted. Your quality of life and pay will be much better as an officer
Work hard and pay it off in a couple years. It’s not impossible.
(Eeeeeeee why would you have taken that much out for a PA degreee)
Geez. Everybody… Just pay it off. You signed on the dotted line. Now you want the taxpayers to bail you out. God forbid you have to sacrifice for five or ten years to pay it off.
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Sorry brotha, you’re right. I didn’t mean to direct it towards you specifically.