After 10.5 gruelling years, I have finally achieved loan forgiveness. When i started counting back in March 2010, I wondered if PSLF would be around at the conclusion of ten years. Low and behold, it is alive and well. I read many of the horror stories of the high percentage of denials. I think when they first started taking applications for loan forgiveness in 2018 they had a dismal rate of something like 2% success rate. To my understanding, this hasn't improved much since then. They may be anywhere up to 5-10% now. I was able to get $165,000 discharged. I've paid approximately $6,400 towards my student loans over ten years. I stored a ton of income in pretax shelters (401k, FSA, SPA). This was able to signficantly reduce my adjusted income which certainly contributed to the low payment tally of $6,400. This is perfectly legal so I don't believe that I'm violating in myFICO terms. I immediately filed disputes with all three CRA's when I received my loan discharge letter. My scores jumped 29-42 points across the three CRA's. This was a major boom for my credit profile. Not just in the scores, but my installment loan history. Original student loan balance was $120,000 with a balance of $165,000. Definitely not good for proportion to loan balances is too high. I hope this gives anyone hope that's marching toward that ten year mark.
(Formerly known as: Credit is my hobby (1.6M)/TCL objective)
Congratulations on your success! Thank you for sharing the information.
@AllZero wrote:
Congratulations on your success! Thank you for sharing the information.
Thank you and you're welcome.
Wow, that's awesome! I started February 2017 so I've still got about 6 years left on my journey to PSLF.
Curious what SPA means in there though? I've read about some of the tax shelter things for lowering AGI, but I don't really know how I can make that work for me while also maintaining what I need for saving for a house and my private loan payments.
Curious what SPA means in there though? I've read about some of the tax shelter things for lowering AGI, but I don't really know how I can make that work for me while also maintaining what I need for saving for a house and my private loan payments.
as of 1/1/23
@ccquest wrote:
Wow, that's awesome! I started February 2017 so I've still got about 6 years left on my journey to PSLF.
Curious what SPA means in there though? I've read about some of the tax shelter things for lowering AGI, but I don't really know how I can make that work for me while also maintaining what I need for saving for a house and my private loan payments.
Thank you. It's a flexible spending account.
DW is halfway there.
Thanks for info!
@calyx wrote:Huge congrats on your PSLF success and WHAT a weight lifted off of your financial shoulders. Awesome!
Thank you and yes it is.
