Episode Thirteen: Loan Repayments, anyone?

Instead of "cramming" for my Health Economics final, I opted to attend the lunch hour talk "Successful Strategies for Loan Repayment", hosted by the Student Financial Aid office and co-sponsored by the Student Activity Center. The featured speaker was Jeff Hanson, the Director of Borrower Education Services with Access Group. I was glad that I went; it was a better use of my time.

I pride myself in being able to take care of my financial responsibilities, but one of the things that I've not really put that much thought into was how exactly I was going to repay my student loans. All in all, I'm looking at a $140k+ incurred debt, including my undergraduate loans.

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program sounds enticing; the way it works is that you need to have worked full-time (working on average of at least 30 hours/week, or the number of hours the employer considers "full-time") for a total of 120 months in a "qualifying public service position" AND you've made 120 qualifying loan payments on Federal DIRECT Loans during period of qualifying public service employment. The "qualified" public service organization include federal, state, or local government organizations/agencies, and most charitable non-profit organizations (those that have received a 501(c)(3) designation from the IRS). The 120 months of full-time work and the 120 payments do not have to be consecutive. Fulfill those requirements, and the rest of the loan is forgiven. Sounds simple enough, but I'm not counting on this to make the debt disappear.

Jeff also went over the different repayment plans for Stafford, Grad PLUS, and consolidation loans: Standard (fixed), graduated, extended, income-sensitive and income-based repayment (IBR). The standard repayment schedule is a fixed payment structure for 10 years; the good thing about this plan is that you will incur the lowest total interest but the bad thing about this is that you'll have the highest initial payment. The graduated plan is a tiered payment structure for 10 years, with interest-only payments initially, and incremental increases on payment, with monthly payments not exceeding THREE times greater than any other payment ("3 times rule"). The extended repayment plan is a fixed or tiered payment structure for 25 years, with one of the lowest initial payments and NO income considerations. To qualify, the debt must be >$30,000 (I have MORE than that) and the loan must have been originated after October 1998 (that's still me). Income sensitive repayment (ISR) has an annually adjusted payment structure for 15 years based on Total Gross Income. ISR is also subject to the "3 times rule", and eligibility and payment amount is re-evaluated every year. IBR also has an annually adjusted payment structure, this time for 25 years, and is based on household Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), household size, poverty guidelines and State of residence. The poverty guidelines are based on the amount of debt, so for me, according to the 2009 Poverty Guidelines, the maximum AGI needed for me to qualify for IBR ($140k in debt), is $145,135, assuming a 6.8% interest rate, a household size of 1 residing in one of the 48 contiguous states. Also, to enter IBR, the borrower must have "partial financial hardship".

After listening to the speaker, I'm leaning towards using IBR or the extended repayment plan. One of the things that I took away from the talk was the idea of debt as a portfolio. I plan on using inflation to my advantage on this one. $140,000's value now is not going to be the same value 10 years or 25 years from now. I can use the money that I would save on the monthly payments and appropriate it to my other needs, perhaps increasing my retirement fund contribution, putting more on investments or having more disposable income.

To view the presentation and resource materials that was offered on March 16, go to https://finaid.ucsf.edu/events/117-successful-strategies-loan-repayment

Student Financial Aid is offering additional debt-management services this year. For additional information, please contact Annie Osborne, Resource Adviser, Student Financial Services at annie.osborne@ucsf.edu or call 476-4181.

Season Two, Episode Twelve: My Foray into Short Stories

In honor of Synapse's annual Tabula issue, I've decided to share the short story that I've submitted to NPR's "Three-Minute Fiction Round Three: Picture This", entitled: The Crossword Puzzle. The premise of this contest was to write a 600-word or less short-story inspired by the picture above.
Let me know what you guys think!
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To the outside world, twenty-five year old Chase De Argento seems to have it all: cushy job in the biotech industry that's both intellectually stimulating and financially stable? Check. A two-bedroom townhouse overlooking La Jolla Shores? Check. Voted by 944 Magazine as one of San Diego's most eligible bachelors in 2009? Check.

So when his job required him to relocate to the Bay area, he had his trepidations. He was leaving the life that he's known and grown accustomed to. His immediate relatives, with the exception of his paternal grandparents who still live in their villa in Tuscany, are all in San Diego. He was well-established in his career, and has a good close-knit of friends that he's relied on through the years.

However, this relocation opportunity also presented itself in an auspicious time. He was still reeling from his recent failed relationships; the most recent was his twenty-two-month-fairy-tale-love-affair with Marco Esposito, an Ivy-league educated curator for the San Diego Museum of Art whom he caught canoodling with one of the ushers during a gala benefit. As far as he can remember, he's always been in a couple; before this, he has not been "in the market" for longer than a couple of months. He's going on 8 months now and counting.

Chase found a 1-bedroom apartment within walking distance to Dolores Park, which made his move to San Francisco a bit more palatable. One of the prerequisites he had was that he wanted to live as close to a tennis court as possible; he was UPenn's #3 singles player. The other thing that he looked for was the perfect coffee shop.

However, it took awhile for Chase to find his "zen" café. He tried out a few places around his neighborhood. H Café: Too bland. Maxfield's House of Caffeine. Too pretentious. Then he stumbled upon Tazza D'Amore: it was love at first sight.

Maybe it was the mouthwatering scones or the paninis. Or perhaps the home-y feeling that reminded him of his Italian grandparents. But most of all, he enjoyed the serenity and the anonymity the coffee shop provided him. Aside from the staff whom he got to know well, he enjoyed being able to sit by his lonesome and not be bothered.

Each Saturday morning, he'd sit at his favorite spot, a red table for 2 near the windowsill, with his trusty copy of New York Times in tow, sipping on his chai tea as he filled out the crossword puzzle; this had been a tradition of sorts for Chase. He would normally fill out the crossword puzzle with his boyfriend as they enjoy a sumptuous breakfast in bed.

At first, he could barely fill out half of the crossword puzzle. Maybe he depended too much on someone else to do the work for him? Week after week, he had a few clues that were the bane of his existence. One week, it was 20 across: "Bears, in Barcelona", and 58 down "Where the Ucayali flows". The next week, it was 15 across "On the briny" and 34 down "Scores for Comaneci".

Finally, on an unusually warm February, he finally completed a crossword puzzle. As he wrote in the answer to 36 across, "Me, _ _ _ _ _ _, and I", Chase got to thinking: "maybe it's time to try the Sunday's crossword puzzles?"

Maybe being alone isn't so bad after all.
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