Speaker: Maureen H., Music Teacher
Share how you felt after reporting your forgiveness to Fiducius.
Maureen H.: Hi, my name is Maureen Hinkle. I am a music teacher in an elementary school in Basalt, Colorado. And I was in the public service loan forgiveness program. I had about close to $50,000 in student loan debt and it was forgiven. Uh, through this program. Here's my story. Um, I enrolled in the program and I was paying my loans hundreds and hundreds of dollars every month. Uh, then the pandemic happened and all the loans went into forbearance. Um, they kept pushing back the date that you were going to have to start making your payments again because the pandemic kept going on and on. So I was logging on to my Fucci account to see when I would have to resume my payments and my student loans had been forgiven and I was so happy that I cried. So I'm here to tell you that it does happen and I know it's a pain to do all that paperwork year after year, but stick it out because one day your loans will go and they'll be gone. And it is such a wonderful feeling to be out from under the burden of that debt after so many years. And I'm glad that I paid off my own college about a decade before my son has to go to college. So I have time to save for his experience. So maybe he won't have to have loans like I did anyway. Good luck to you. Stick it out. It's worth it.
What would you tell a friend or colleague who is thinking about pursuing this benefit?
Maureen H.: I would tell a friend or colleague that they should probably do it. Um, because it's definitely a lot of hoops to jump through a lot of paperwork. It's tedious. It's annoying, but there's nothing like having a year's salary worth of debt just disappear overnight. There's nothing like it and it can really just give you a leg up to not have to make those huge payments. I mean, it gives you more money to invest in your future, to invest in your children's college, to invest in yourself. So, um, I would, I would suggest you give it a try. What do you have to lose?