Trump 3 mo extension counts towards PSLF !

[TheDangerZone]

The cost of tuition was zero for me. Because I told Uncle Sam that you can send me to do your bidding, to help keep our soldiers healthy, to potentially sacrifice my life for the good of the country, and to potentially send me away from family at a moment’s notice. I saw people who made similar sacrifices die or be horribly maimed. If that isn’t the standard for free tuition I don’t know what is.

The reason tuition has gone up over the last several decades is because the government came along and guaranteed there’d be whatever amount of money for college. Colleges then got drunk on the excess, raising their prices accordingly. And the public who swallowed the line that college is necessary and who paid tens of thousands to major in something of minimal worth to society matriculated like lemmings. Had the government not guaranteed endless sums of money available for borrowing none of this would have occurred. But at any point the American public could have said enough, this is stupid. Or pursued community college then transfer to cut costs. Just like the financial crisis and purchasing houses we couldn’t afford, we too are complicit in this madness. So spare me the sob story about people not being able to afford it. The FAFSA guaranteed pice discrimination to their ability to pay, they knew full well what the costs were, and likely chose a degree that was a poor decision financially. They could have made alternative choices. Further, IBR options exist. No need to make taxpayers fund their poor decisions.

Thank you for serving.

I agree with many of your tuition sentiments, but would say that most 17 year olds simply lack the capacity to understand the financial contract they are locking themselves into when making college decisions. They hear that college is a time to grow and explore interests and find a fulfilling and stimulating career to live happier ever after. Colleges are very good at justifying their expenses. I don’t necessarily blame the kids but the culture, system and lack of financial education inherent in our high school curriculum. We could protect them better from crippling debt. They can’t even rent a car in most states, but it’s okay to have them sign their lives away? How many of us read the MPNs for our student loans?

And just to clarify, when you say you saw people be killed or maimed were you referring to HSPS physicians or soldiers? I remember reading about HSPS before medical school and one point that came up was that you were more likely to die in a car accident than be killed on deployment in HSPS. this was the late 2000s. Could have been recruiter BS. Thanks, again.

[Nysoz]

If PSLF shouldn't be a thing, then 'required' education degrees for respective fields should cost proportional to expected income in said field.

[wa2106]

This is all an idiotic discussion. PSLF is a trigger word to some on this forum.

Everyone knows that there are loan forgiveness options for public service and/or underserved areas after med school. To compare to HPSP is a strawman argument.

Whether or not it's a good policy is fine to discuss. Projecting your own feelings about the program onto others who are playing the game according to the rules is not fair.

[Tim]

The student loan dilemma has a lot to do with the parents. They see the avenue as closed if the kids don’t get A COLLEGE DEGREE. Many have no idea the difference between private, big state u and local college let alone graduate education. One step up the ladder is the goal and understanding.
For many families, loans are a fact of life. If a loan is “approved”, that means it’s wise. Cars, furniture appliances are on credit. Government subsidies are “free money” without shame. To avoid shame, we give “free food to all students”. The kids have zero basis to fear the repercussions.
The secondary education provides little if any different guidance. Lambs being fed to the wolves. Accepted with loans and limited perspective of the future. On the road to success! College . That is the goal. Mom and Dad, the high schools and universities reinforce that it is the “right thing” to do. There is not one negative other than the individual miraculously realizing that maybe this is a mistake. It takes an extremely strong person to say, “I can’t afford it”. And that is probably the one that deserves the scholarship!
I would not hesitate to chip in for the kid that has the smarts to say no. He/she is going to be successful. Our culture is geared to make bad decisions.

[Otolith]

People act like PSLF has caused every medical student to take out the max loans and live extravagantly because "its all going to be forgiven". That just isn't the reality. The number is still large and medical students often don't know what specialty they are going into and what practice type. Also after residency you have to pay the 10 year standard payment amount per month so taking out more loans costs you more per month while waiting for PSLF. Lastly the average rate on federal loans is higher than that of refinancing private so a fairly large portion of this forgiven PSLF value is unnecessary interest.

It is easy for those who had little to no medical school loans (for whatever reason) or who work in a private practice system making more money to disagree with PSLF. The incentive for military paying for tuition is still there and students are still doing it...

For those thinking of a low paying specialty and/or working for non profit organizations, the PSLF offsets the financial disincentive of high student loans and lower pay.

If the government is going to throw money into higher education, id rather have it be on the back end so that the money isn't wasted on students that didn't finish and contribute to society. It takes 10 complete years of working to get the benefit!

In my opinion though, If you haven't lost your job or income secondary to covid you should have to continue to make your payments if you wish for them to count for PSLF.

[BCBiker]

This is all an idiotic discussion. PSLF is a trigger word to some on this forum.

Everyone knows that there are loan forgiveness options for public service and/or underserved areas after med school. To compare to HPSP is a strawman argument.

Whether or not it's a good policy is fine to discuss. Projecting your own feelings about the program onto others who are playing the game according to the rules is not fair.

I agree. Lining up for the military is a decision, just like the decision that people make to go to college. The incentive structure is made by policy makers and everyone plays by the rules. My gripe on this is that we are over-paying the geezers in university admin (who contribute close to nothing) and passing those cost to the young and naive. Now when those young people graduate they are buried in their loans and cannot make headway in life (careers, marriage, kids, etc). It is problematic that the way aid is awarded does not hold universities accountable for the rising costs. I agree that not all education is particularly valuable but the university structure is a clear pathway to identify talent in a merit based way and direct those individuals to fields that are valuable to society. To fulfill this function it must be reasonably accessible to those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Otherwise you dilute the talent pool with the below average intelligence children of the upper middle class and you pass over brilliant kids who with opportunity would be important scientists, engineers, and innovators. The efficiency of this system is much more critical for the long term economic health of the country than most if not all public policy. Loan forgiveness is fine and not all that costly compared to other things but it does not really solve the problem of the future people going through the same system.

[ENT Doc]

Thank you for serving.

I agree with many of your tuition sentiments, but would say that most 17 year olds simply lack the capacity to understand the financial contract they are locking themselves into when making college decisions. They hear that college is a time to grow and explore interests and find a fulfilling and stimulating career to live happier ever after. Colleges are very good at justifying their expenses. I don’t necessarily blame the kids but the culture, system and lack of financial education inherent in our high school curriculum. We could protect them better from crippling debt. They can’t even rent a car in most states, but it’s okay to have them sign their lives away? How many of us read the MPNs for our student loans?

And just to clarify, when you say you saw people be killed or maimed were you referring to HSPS physicians or soldiers? I remember reading about HSPS before medical school and one point that came up was that you were more likely to die in a car accident than be killed on deployment in HSPS. this was the late 2000s. Could have been recruiter BS. Thanks, again.

That’s why they have things called parents and guidance counselors. Their fault for not reading student loan details.

Both re: killed and maimed. Obviously more common with soldiers/enlisted getting the GI Bill.

[ENT Doc]

If PSLF shouldn't be a thing, then 'required' education degrees for respective fields should cost proportional to expected income in said field.

Couldn’t agree more. This is why I support the costs to be covered by the respective schools and enter an IBR with the student for X% of salary for Y years. Forces the schools to provide value.

[ENT Doc]

This is all an idiotic discussion. PSLF is a trigger word to some on this forum.

Everyone knows that there are loan forgiveness options for public service and/or underserved areas after med school. To compare to HPSP is a strawman argument.

Whether or not it's a good policy is fine to discuss. Projecting your own feelings about the program onto others who are playing the game according to the rules is not fair.

If you are referring to me I believe I’ve been quite clear that my problem is with the entire program. It should be scrapped.

[mianesmd]

Despite whether one agrees with the program or not for high income earners, if someone is going to qualify for it and it will benefit them you can't knock them for pursuing it. One can always refinance and pay things off completely if they're morally opposed. There are a lot of ways that high income earners benefit from governmental policy...and whether or not those policies are good or not most of us will seek to benefit from them as long as they exist.

[East coast]

This is all an idiotic discussion. PSLF is a trigger word to some on this forum.

Everyone knows that there are loan forgiveness options for public service and/or underserved areas after med school. To compare to HPSP is a strawman argument.

Whether or not it's a good policy is fine to discuss. Projecting your own feelings about the program onto others who are playing the game according to the rules is not fair.

To paraphrase and recap a number of statements in the most active discussions on this board the past few months:

- Media over blowing Coronavirus! My personal favs include complaints that AZ media was over hyping cases (not that the numbers/facts were incorrect, but that they wanted to get the governor at any chance!), followed by that state becoming an epicenter, as well as the person stating July 4th weekend death tolls [presumably] as evidence that we'd defeated this sucker! Followed by those totals quintupling for the last 8 weeks and still going strong. Another fav was the calling out of the fellow doctor on local TV news claiming there [i suppose] malicious descriptions about what their experience in the hospital had been and calling for punishment of said colleague.

- Buffet should keep quiet about taxes! He doesn't really want his to go up - if he did he'd just pay now more out of personal virtue!

- PSLF and the little runts taking all the money! I think there has been exactly one example of actual 'abuse' of the system that I can recall - that guy that took out 800k+ and went heli-skiing and all that jazz.

- Darn cities being overrun by mobs. You folks living in them must really be out of your minds!

- user calling someone a snowflake on page 1 of a thread....4 pages later calling someone out for using 'ok boomer'. the irony!

Seems to be a lot of triggers and really does make sense why bogleheads keeps a tight handle on the types of topics/replies allowed. it is totally possible i have extreme recency bias, but having been on this board since the start, I do not recall many of these discussions going so far off track the first 3 yrs. All the while, here I am contributing to getting this topic way off track!! Now i'll go hide under my desk for any tomatoes that likely will be thrown my way.

[BCBiker]

To paraphrase and recap a number of statements in the most active discussions on this board the past few months:

- Media over blowing Coronavirus! My personal favs include complaints that AZ media was over hyping cases (not that the numbers/facts were incorrect, but that they wanted to get the governor at any chance!), followed by that state becoming an epicenter, as well as the person stating July 4th weekend death tolls [presumably] as evidence that we'd defeated this sucker! Followed by those totals quintupling for the last 8 weeks and still going strong. Another fav was the calling out of the fellow doctor on local TV news claiming there [i suppose] malicious descriptions about what their experience in the hospital had been and calling for punishment of said colleague.

- Buffet should keep quiet about taxes! He doesn't really want his to go up - if he did he'd just pay now more out of personal virtue!

- PSLF and the little runts taking all the money! I think there has been exactly one example of actual 'abuse' of the system that I can recall - that guy that took out 800k+ and went heli-skiing and all that jazz.

- Darn cities being overrun by mobs. You folks living in them must really be out of your minds!

- user calling someone a snowflake on page 1 of a thread....4 pages later calling someone out for using 'ok boomer'. the irony!

Seems to be a lot of triggers and really does make sense why bogleheads keeps a tight handle on the types of topics/replies allowed. it is totally possible i have extreme recency bias, but having been on this board since the start, I do not recall many of these discussions going so far off track the first 3 yrs. All the while, here I am contributing to getting this topic way off track!! Now i'll go hide under my desk for any tomatoes that likely will be thrown my way.

For the boomers out there, my responses are:
1) ? THIS ?
2) lols
3) ?

edits: this forum killed my moji mojo. Alas. I promise they were good.

[drmka26]

I wont thank you for your service or this country's never ending hunger to meddle in other countries affairs and needless wars. That's a complete different discussion.

Just because you served in military does not mean other public servants doesn't deserve government incentives. Be happy if something good happens to others. Whats the point of being salty?

Our government spends billions (trillions?) to large corp subsidies, banks and useless military spending - its time for this to change.

[Anne]

Thank you for serving.

I agree with many of your tuition sentiments, but would say that most 17 year olds simply lack the capacity to understand the financial contract they are locking themselves into when making college decisions. They hear that college is a time to grow and explore interests and find a fulfilling and stimulating career to live happier ever after. Colleges are very good at justifying their expenses. I don’t necessarily blame the kids but the culture, system and lack of financial education inherent in our high school curriculum. We could protect them better from crippling debt. They can’t even rent a car in most states, but it’s okay to have them sign their lives away? How many of us read the MPNs for our student loans?

And just to clarify, when you say you saw people be killed or maimed were you referring to HSPS physicians or soldiers? I remember reading about HSPS before medical school and one point that came up was that you were more likely to die in a car accident than be killed on deployment in HSPS. this was the late 2000s. Could have been recruiter BS. Thanks, again.

If you look at active duty mortality data for the past 20 years, MVAs are pretty much always #1. In 2007 (and maybe 2006?) I think combat deaths surpassed MVA deaths, but far and away an active duty service member is most likely to die by MVA, followed by suicide, followed by other things that kill you, than they are to die in combat. And the majority of service members do not see combat, even if they serve in a combat zone. But all that is beside the point. The government does not pay the tuition for future military doctors under HPSP because they want to reimburse them for the risk if potentially dying. No, the govt pays it because it is a good deal for the govt. Uncle Sam is not dumb and knows that he will save money having doctors indebted to military service compared with trying to contract out for those services. HPSP is a good deal for the US taxpayer, who benefits from the services of the military overall, whether he/she wants to admit it or not. Is PSLF a good deal for the US taxpayer, especially when it is benefitting high income earners who should be able to pay back their loans no issue and are working in jobs that they (or another doctor) would probably be willingly working in anyways? In my opinion, no, but I am not upset about it. I had a great time serving in the military and am glad I learned firsthand that the US military does a whole lot more than “meddling in other countries’ affairs” and am grateful I was able to be part of it for a period of time.

[wa2106]

If you are referring to me I believe I’ve been quite clear that my problem is with the entire program. It should be scrapped.

I was referring to you. I recall you implying people pursuing PSLF being immoral.

https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/forum/the-lounge/10057-student-loans-michael-lewis-exposes-some-pretty-nasty-behavior-regarding-pslf