Hi, I was in your Webinar today.  Thanks, it was very educational.

You had mentioned that I should post a question on your forum, because my case might need some follow up questions asked.

Here is my situation in brief.  I have a consolidated loan currently, owing about 28,000 (some of these are my wife’s loans also, but all consolidated into one loan).  I am currently in repayment with a very low interest rate (about 3.3%).  I have been paying for about 7-8 years now.  They are currently FFEL consolidated.

While paying on these loans, I worked as a Pastor in a 501c3 church for 5 years.  I now work as a professor for a non-profit 501c3 university.

My question has to do with whether I should consolidate now into an FD IBR loan, or whether I should wait until I am done.  At the moment, I have been continuing to pay on my loans, and will be working through my program.

If that isn’t enough info, please ask some more questions.

Thanks for your help.

Phil

Bump, just reminding you that this is still here…

Thanks for the informative seminar.

Phil

Yikes!  Sorry for the delay.  I do lose things in this forum sometimes.

You can’t make payments that count toward forgiveness on a FFEL loan.  Since you may well be in an eligible public service position, you should think about reconsolidating.  On the other hand, it sounds like you may not owe “enough” to really benefit a lot from PSLF.  That’s going to depend on your current and expected future income.

I can’t really give personalized advice to you, since I can’t know all the relevant factors, but I suggest you use the IBR calculators to determine what you may have to gain before you try to make a decision.

Phil,

Working on the loan forgiveness for pastors issue.  If you’re interested, send me your email address to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and I’ll loop you in on this.

Best,
Heather