Student loan

And switching gears here a little bit this morning.

If you or your child is planning to go to college, pay attention to what they plan to study, because some of the degrees, um, are about to become a lot harder to afford, especially if you depend on federal student loans or financial aid.

So the Trump administration is changing which degrees and career programs the government will help pay for.

So they include people who are going to school to become social workers, mental health counselors, people majoring in art, film, music, even people training to become cosmetologists, barbers, nail techs, or massage therapists.

So the idea is, if graduates aren't making enough money in those careers to pay back their student loans, the government is going to stop providing money to those students in those programs.

Now, that doesn't mean the school will stop offering those degrees, but it just means that the federal government will no longer give student loans to help you pay for any of those degrees.

Now, this new rule, it starts next year.

Well, there's not too many careers that the kids can get that's gonna help them pay back their student loans, that's gonna make enough money to help them pay back their student loans.

My friend, what are your thoughts?

Yeah, so the best way to deal with student loan debt, if you can, is to avoid it altogether, right? Fill out all those scholarship applications, get extremely good grades.

If there's some athletics out there that you're good at, take advantage of as many scholarships as you can so you don't have to take out those student loans.

So you can avoid them.

That's great.

If you already have student loan debt, there are payment plans out there.

that can qualify you for loan forgiveness, income driven repayment plans that's based on a percentage of your income.

And if you're really in a bad spot and you had these loans for a long period of time, there are ways to discharge student loans through bankruptcies.

And one of the biggest ones is that school loans are just one big scam.

I have paid off student loans that I've never taken out, and I can prove

it.

Wait, how? I mean, don't you get the bill that says student loans? You're like, well, I didn't do that, so that's not my student loan.

Yeah, but they just keep saying, yes, you did, yes, you did, yes, you did, and you ask for proof and stuff, and they send you some BS, bogus stuff.

And, you know, it's trying to fight...

He did it.

So I graduated $87,000 student loans.

And so I did the demographics just like you would for a new restaurant.

And I was in Wichita, Kansas.

And then I went down to the dental supply house and I picked out all the finest equipment.

And it was the same amount as my student loan debt.

I graduated $87,000 student loans.

It was about $87,000, $88,000.

In today's episode, money doesn't come with a manual, but it should.

This episode gives students the financial foundation they need to build credit, save smart, and manage student loans without drowning in debt.

Let's dive right in.

All right, all right.

But now, let's reflect on the questions you should ask yourself.

Here are today's Afterburn questions.

what is one financial habit i want to build this year how can i make saving feel rewarding rather than restrictive what do i still need to learn about my student loans let's let these questions guide your personal reflection

all right i don't know why it's why i do don't worry about it well i know why but yeah um Are you going to ask me the question? Are you going to talk about it? Or do you want me to answer it? Literally do everything.

So I brought one of my faves on, the best at researching.

Like, we've all got our areas of expertise at Student Loans, and when I tell you Glenn goes down the rabbit hole, gets the details, and brings them back so we know what we're talking about, I mean, he is my guy.

So Glenn, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Lauren.

When you start co-mingling the money and saying like, "Oh, I'm just gonna get my student loan money there," or, "I'm just gonna take out of my retirement," you're diminishing what's left over for you to be able to retire.

So if you keep these two pots separate, you know, your retirement account money, one, is protected, and then two, it's like I know very clearly what I'm gonna be able to live off of when I retire.

If I have this separate brokerage account just for my student loans and it's not, you know, a, a co-mingling of the two, and if there is no tax bomb, one, now that you got this big pot of money, it's extra, so now you got extra retirement.

But if you're saying, "I'm gonna save, you know, $1,000 a month for my 401K, and then I'm gonna put an extra $300 a month in it to call that the tax bomb," I think the waters get muddled really quickly, and also it's really hard to figure out, like, what's that gonna look like when it's time for you to take the money out.

What kind of debt is the 78?

Um, 52,000 out of that, even, I just checked today, are student loans, and the 19,400 is a car loan.

All right.

What do you do for work?

I'm about to graduate dental hygiene school in about two months.

Nice.

And I'll have about, uh, yeah, I'll have about $90,000 in student loans, but I'm also engaged.

Me and my fiance want to plan our wedding and get a house, and so we're, we've been saving, but we're trying to figure out what to prioritize.

Well, so up until about a month ago, um, I graduated last year in March.

Um, so I've just been actually, like everything that I've made with my business, I've just been putting back into the business, and then also towards my student loans.

But I'm actually really excited to say that as of a couple months ago, I have paid them all off.

Um, so that's been like one of the biggest things that I've been, like, obviously not wanting to go full-time yet with, um, just because I've been wanting to pay that off, so.

We're all in such unique positions.

Like you, Myla, like you have your full-time job.

Of course you were trying to paying off your student loans, but that afforded you to be able to grow a lot faster than somebody who maybe, um, their, their wedding income pays all of their bills and they don't have a ton left over.

You know what I mean? You're, you were able to invest a little bit more than other people, but that's not to say that those people can't be super sco- super scrappy and grow, um, despite, like, where they are, um, in life.