Navigating Student Loans Post Pandemic
This week, Maggie is chatting with Anna Helhoski, a student loan expert at NerdWallet. In this episode, they talk about how student loans impact women and what steps you can take to protect yourself as federal student loans come out of deferment in 2022.
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Anna Helhoski is a student loan expert at NerdWallet. Her work has appeared in The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today. She previously covered local news in the New York metro area for the Daily Voice and New York state politics for The Legislative Gazette. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Purchase College, State University of New York.
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To learn more about Maggie and her coaching and speaking services, visit www.maggiegermano.com.
The theme music is called Escaping Light by Aaron Sprinkle. The podcast artwork design is by Maggie’s dear husband, Dan Rader.
TRANSCRIPTION
Maggie Germano 0:05
Hi, and thanks for listening to the money circle podcast. I’m your host, Maggie Germano, and I’m a feminist and a financial writer, speaker, educator and coach for women. I’m passionate about making personal finance less scary and more approachable so that women can improve their relationship with money and take control of their finances. Every other week, I will interview an amazing, inspiring woman to talk about the issues that impact our money, our health, our independence, and more. We will touch on the societal and structural issues that we need to work together to change and the actions that we each have the power to take in our own lives. If you’d like to learn more about me and the work that I do, visit my website at Maggiegermano.com or follow me on Instagram @MaggieGermano. Thanks again for listening and I hope you enjoy.
Maggie Germano 0:56
Hey there, and thanks for listening. I’m your host Maggie Germano. And this week, I’m chatting with Anna Helhoski, who is a student loan expert at NerdWallet. In this episode, we are talking about how student loans impact women and what steps you can take to protect yourself as federal student loans come out of deferment in 2022. If you have federal student loan debt, this episode is definitely for you. Enjoy.
Maggie Germano 1:27
Okay, welcome. Anna, thank you so much for being here today.
Anna Helhoski 1:30
Thanks for having me.
Maggie Germano 1:32
So why don’t we start off by having you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Anna Helhoski 1:37
Sure. So I’m Anna Helhoski. I’m a student loans expert and senior writer for The Personal Finance website, nerd wallet.
Maggie Germano 1:46
That’s great. I’m a big fan of NerdWallet. Myself, and I’m sure lots of listeners have also found themselves on nerd wallet as well. How did you kind of find yourself not only at Nerd wallet, but in the kind of focus of student loans?
Anna Helhoski 2:03
Yeah, I studied journalism and poli sci in college. And yes, I took on debt to get that degree. And then after that, I kind of did a little bit of a moving around with different things. So I covered New York state politics, I was local news journalist in the New York metro area, and eventually started freelance writing about Dodd Frank regulations for an app that was aimed at community banks. But third, all I’ve always really been interested in consumer rights. And I have a really strong desire to help people navigate complicated systems. And that really led me to an opportunity in a role, and I’ve been there now seven years.
Maggie Germano 2:42
Wow, that’s great. And I know that the student loan process can be very complicated and confusing for people. So it’s definitely an important topic to be helping people with.
Anna Helhoski 2:53
Yeah, I think so.
Maggie Germano 2:55
Um, so as you might know, the money circle podcast, I’m really focusing on bringing financial education information to women making money talks a little less scary, a little easier to kind of understand and approach. And so I was hoping we could talk a little bit about how student loans kind of impact women in particular, and I mean, I’ve heard the stat that, you know, more women have student loan debt than men. And so obviously, that in and of itself is going to affect women. But so can you talk a little bit more about that in general?
Anna Helhoski 3:31
Absolutely. So yeah, as you said, it’s it’s true women take on student loans more often than men, I think it’s somewhere around 70% to 63%, somewhere around there. So women also have a greater degree attainment than men. I made a chart recently using Census Bureau data. And you can like see the point exactly in 2014, when women first surpassed men, and that gap is just widen ever since. So because women have more degrees, they’re going to college more often and as a group are thereby going to be carrying more debt.
Maggie Germano 4:08
That makes a lot of sense. So it’s, it’s a good thing that more women are going to school more women are getting degrees, but the student loan piece can make that kind of complicated.
Anna Helhoski 4:19
Yeah, yeah. And and I would say that is extra complicated when you think about what happens after women get those degrees. So even though women are carrying more debt than men, it’s not as significant of a difference when they first leave college. But over time, you see that women are just really having a harder time repaying that debt, because women have gone out into the workforce and their earnings are still not outpacing men. So the gender pay gap is what gets them and it’s even worse for black and Hispanic women who are facing racial pay gaps as well. And those disparities just do not make it any easier to repay that.
Maggie Germano 4:57
Right, and we’re kind of told that if you go to college, if you go to grad school, if you get these higher degrees, you’re going to be eligible to be earning more money that, you know, you’ll have more of that possibility in terms of income available to you. But it sounds like, that’s not always the case.
Anna Helhoski 5:16
Yeah, it’s not I mean, it’s, I’ve heard other people say this before that college is not necessarily going to be a golden ticket, it really does depend on what you’re studying. And then it depends on who you are, and what odds are going to be stacked against you. I saw some pretty wild. I wrote about this recently, and I saw some pretty wild numbers from the Census Bureau that were showing that women’s earnings have, you know, increased in the last 20 years or so. And it’s increased by about 70%. And men’s earnings haven’t increased quite as rapidly, you know, obviously, there’s a little bit more catch up for women to do but then when you actually dig into those numbers, it’s pretty troubling. So in 2000, women were earning an average of about $35,000. And then all the way back up to 2019. They’re earning about an average of 59,000. But then when you’re actually comparing what men are earning, it’s, it’s upsetting. So in 2000, men were earning an average of 62,000. And in 2019, they were earning an average around 87,000. So that means that women today are earning less than the average of what men were making 20 years ago.
Maggie Germano 6:26
That is painful when you’re looking at it side by side, when you’re hearing, okay, the average has increased for women this much overtime, like that can sound great. But yeah, when you’re comparing it to the earnings of men, that that hurts.
Anna Helhoski 6:41
It really does. And the other thing that really hurts is, you know, women are getting more degrees, but we’re actually not seeing any kind of Mass Effect on labor force participation as a result. So they’re gaining degree attainment, but they’re still they’re still down in that way. Women actually peaked in their labor force participation in 2001. And of course, due to the pandemic, it’s gone down even more than that, just in the past two years.
Maggie Germano 7:06
Yeah, so. So what’s kind of happening there? Like, if the participation in the workforce is going down, but women still have gotten these degrees, and therefore probably have these student loan, the student loans to kind of pay back and worry about what do you kind of see happening there in having to pay them back or, you know, not having their own income? What does that sort of look like?
Anna Helhoski 7:30
Right? So I mean, it’s, again, it’s so complicated, because there’s so many different positions that women are in, but I would say, I think that what happens there is you do have a lot more women getting degrees, taking on that. And then if they’re not necessarily participating in the workforce, due to all kinds of different things that can come up in people’s lives. It’s not just like, Oh, I’m making a choice, I’m not working. So due to all those, you know, potential catalysts there, we see that women are going to be having a harder time repaying their debt. So you’re talking about labor force participation being lower than you would think, higher degree attainment, higher debt, and then disparities in earnings. You’ve got a troubling situation.
Maggie Germano 8:16
Yeah, it sounds like it’s like almost a woman’s say, perfect storm. But it sounds like it’s snowballing into it’s getting. Yeah, yeah. So so how, what kind of impacts are you seeing from this?
Anna Helhoski 8:29
Specifically, in the past, you know, years. So what we’re seeing is that women are women who have student loans are actually doing okay, right now, in the sense that federal student loans went on pause. So nobody has to be making any kind of payments. So that has given a lot of people an opportunity to sort of like, take a breath. The pause is interest free, which is really helpful for people. That means if you weren’t struggling, you can pay off your debt faster since interest rates and collecting or attend to other kinds of financial needs. And if you are somebody who’s struggling, then you haven’t had this burden quite so present, at least in your budget every month. And that pause is going to continue until the end of January. So they started in March 2020. That’s a pretty long time. And that’s helpful. But now what we’re seeing that we’re worried about, I guess, is this perfect storm where women have been leaving the workforce, and they’re not returning very quickly, and they’re going to have trouble repaying their debt. This is also really a problem for women who don’t have degrees. You know, when we’re talking about, obviously, we see the degree attainment is up, but, you know, student loan debt is also up. So there’s a whole lot of people who do have debt, but they don’t have degrees, which means that they’re not going to necessarily get those earnings. We’ve also seen that the pandemic has disproportionately hurt Working people who, you know, might be working jobs where it doesn’t require a degree, you know, there’s a lot of impact on blue collar workers. So certainly a lot of those people have have debt.
Maggie Germano 10:16
Right. And with the pandemic, and with, you know, just the labor force, I think as it is with like lack of childcare and paid time off and those sorts of things, it’s, it’s like, either you leave the workforce to take care of your kids, because you don’t have other options, or you have to stay in the workforce because you need money. Obviously, a lot of people can’t afford to stop working. So you have to figure something else out. And then the strain of the debt on top of everything. And like you said, having that pause during the pandemic, I mean, I’ve heard from a lot of clients that’s made such an enormous impact for people in a positive way. But that fear of what happens when those start to kick in again, like what do you do when that breathing room is not there anymore?
Anna Helhoski 11:00
Right. And that’s definitely what we are concerned about. I mean, so many inequities were already in existence, but the pandemic expose them. So for women, again, we know that earnings are lower compared with men, we also knew that women disproportionately work taking on their caregiver roles, like you were saying, and this became even more pronounced during the pandemic. So say you’re in a straight relationship, and you or your husband or your partner have to make a choice as to who’s going to be taking care of young children who can’t go to daycare, elementary school, or who’s going to be taken care of, for Kate taking care of the aging relative, it’s more often than not going to be women who are taking on these roles, and more often than not having to leave the workforce in order to do so. But I mean, if you think about making a choice, what makes the most economic sense when women are still earning less than men. And, and we know that this will hurt women in the long run, we know that time away from the workforce will decrease anyone’s earnings over time, women, often women of childbearing ages already take time away from work more often. So now they’ve got a pandemic on top of that. So it makes it so much more challenging for them to catch up. And that ultimately will make it harder for those women who do have student loans to be repaying their debt.
Maggie Germano 12:07
Right? And then what are the kinds of things that happen if you can’t repay your debt? So like, if you do have to default on your loans, or you’re just kind of not making the payments and sort of like looking the other way? Or just, you know, you just, there’s nothing else you can do? What are what are the some of those financial impacts that happen when you do kind of have to just not open you can’t make those payments, right?
Anna Helhoski 12:34
I mean, if you can’t make payments, and you’re not, you know, we can certainly talk about the safety nets that are available. But if you’re not enrolled in some kind of a safety net, and you’re not making payments and your loan is no longer in good standing as in your late, you’re eventually interned fault, your loans gonna go into collections, and that’s, obviously presents a lot of problems. Your credit scores can be hurt, your wages could be garnished, Social Security can be garnished, I mean, the taxes can be garnished, there’s a whole host of problems that come up as soon as you default. And getting out of it. You know, there are ways set up to get out of it. But it’s just presenting more challenges for yourself. And if you’re having difficulty paying off your debt, it’s most likely you’re having other financial trouble, too. So I just see the issue is like compounding.
Maggie Germano 13:26
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel like those kinds of issues really do pile on top of each other and just make things worse and worse, and you feel like you’re completely in a hole that you just can’t climb out of, um, you mentioned that there are some safety nets. And I have heard from people who have taken advantage of that I’ve also had clients who did have their wages garnished for defaulting on their student loans. And that was embarrassing for her, but also really scary, you know, worrying about how she’s actually going to pay her other bills, because there’s other things you need to cover in your life. So what are some of those safety nets like if you in January if these loans do have to start being repaid, again, and people are in this scenario where they really can’t make it work? What steps should they be taking to prepare for that?
Anna Helhoski 14:17
Sure. So we’re definitely really heavily encouraging people to contact their servicer, it’s the private company that manages their government loans. Obviously, if you have a private lender, then you know who that is. So contact your servicer and find out you know, what are my options. So if you have federal loans, we’re recommending looking into enrolling in an income driven repayment plan that will set your payments that a portion of your income and after 20 or 25 years, your loans will be forgiven, so the remainder of that debt will be gone. You do have to recertify what your income is each year or whenever you change jobs to continue on this plan. We really recommend that as a first course of action because if you’re out of work up payments are going to be $0. But there are other things that people can do if they really think that their situation is a little bit more short term. There’s an unemployment deferment that they can apply for which will defer payments if you’re out of work and hardship forbearance, which will also pose your payments. But these two payment pauses aren’t like the payment pauses that are happening right now. So interest is going to still accrue and it’s going to be added to the total amount that you owe whenever you do start making payments. So you’re going to accrue debt while you while you pause payments unless you paid off the accrued amount during that time. So it’s really as Why were we encourage people to enroll in income driven repayment plan if they anticipate having trouble making those payments after January 31. Next year?
Maggie Germano 15:46
Yeah, that’s really helpful. And I that was something that I took advantage of when I first graduated from college, I was an intern in DC I was getting paid, I was luckily enough getting paid now is full time, I was lucky. I know. But when I saw the bill for my student loans coming due, I was like, that’s, that’s like a quarter of what I actually earn in a month, and my rent is half of what I earned in a month, how can I actually do that and finding out, I call the my loan provider and was almost crying on the phone with them. And they were like, Well, why don’t you do the income driven repayment plan, I was like, I’ve never heard of this. So that was like a, you know, a lifesaver for me for the first two years out of college. And so yeah, just echoing that as a really helpful way to kind of, you know, help yourself out of out of that hole, potentially, and making those payments with just a little bit easier.
Anna Helhoski 16:38
Absolutely. And again, it really is measured against your income. So I did the same, I had to one point, say, you know, this payment is just too high. I had been on like a graduated plan. So over in the beginning, my payments were a little bit lower, and then over time they increase and then it was like a huge jump at one point. And I was just like, No way I can’t make this payment. So yeah, I enrolled in income driven plan, and it really helped out.
Maggie Germano 17:06
Yeah, and you mentioned that that’s something you have to redo, you know, redo the paperwork every year and and that it gets forgiven after like 20 or 25 years, is there anything anyone has to do at that 20 or 25 year mark? Or is that just something that kind of happens as long as you’ve been doing that paperwork over that time,
Anna Helhoski 17:24
so nobody’s hit it yet. You know, as far as the the most accessible plan, which is called repay, there’s four different income driven repayment plans. So the most successful one that anybody can can get is called repay. And after 20 or 25 years, depending on your loan type, whether it’s undergraduate loans or grad loans, your loans will be forgiven. So at the time, I think is 2014. That IDR that repay started. So we’re not going to see the first people get their loans forgiven until the early 2030s. So nobody’s heard it yet. But it is supposed to be automatic. And through I think 2026. There’s no tax liability, and there’s a strong possibility that could also be extended. But technically, the money that is forgiven will be taxed again, if this tax liability for basically, is the policy that makes income driven repayment forgiveness tax free. Right now it is tax. So yeah, just you know, edit the whole part out. We can move on. But, yeah, it did like a follow up that I would be able to answer something like that. If you, you know, we can talk about forgiveness, for sure.
Maggie Germano 18:44
Yeah. So that was actually my next my next section of questions is, you know, so we hear a lot about like, student loan forgiveness programs, so not only, you know, doing the income driven repayment, and then, you know, 20 or 25 years that does get forgiven. Yep, there are that like public service, student loan forgiveness programs. And, sure, I know, there’s been a lot of information in the news of like people, most people getting rejected for those after like 10 years of try thinking they’re doing the right things and thinking that they’re working in the right jobs to get that loan, those debt, those debts forgiven, and it’s not necessarily working out. And then we’re seeing that the company that was partnered with the government to do this loan forgiveness program is now not renewing their contract. So I guess, you know, a lot of listeners, I’m, I’m guessing are probably relying on this loan forgiveness at some point in their future. So how are you kind of seeing these changes? Or viewing these changes and how they might, you know, impact folks.
Anna Helhoski 19:51
So we are seeing a lot as you mentioned, there’s a lot of changes happening to any kind of loan forgiveness programs, the ones that already exist, so The Biden ministration very clearly is taking steps to improve the existing student loan programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which you mentioned, which forgives your remaining debt after 10 years of making payments, as long as you were making those payments while employed full time for a public service employer, there’s also borrower defense to repayment. So that’s a forgiveness program for those who were defrauded or misled by their schools. And there was like a very large backlog of those that are now have applications for those that are are being gone through. So there’s also closed school discharge, if your school closed before you had a chance to complete your degree, as well as total and permanent disability discharge. For those who are totally and permanently disabled and can’t work. There’s there’s been changes, we’ve seen more people getting their loans forgiven, we’ve seen more discharges being approved. And that’s definitely a good thing. A lot of these programs have good intentions, but have red tape involved that can just make it a little bit harder for borrowers to access. So you mentioned that, you know, a bunch of changes just rolled out to public service loan forgiveness, which has a 1% success rate. That will temporarily make it a little bit easier for borrowers to get old payments counted if they were made under the quote, wrong repayment plan or on the wrong loan type. And there are going to be more changes to come to overhaul the program and make it more functional and function the way that it’s supposed to. So you know, as I said, it’s it is really clear that Biden and education secretary Miguel Cardona have made it a priority to improve targeted forgiveness programs. But I would say that doesn’t mean the President has committed to broad student loan forgiveness, which is something here about constantly, I get probably the most questions about above anything. And I just do want to make it so clear to borrowers do not count on any kind of broad student loan forgiveness. I’m not saying it can’t happen. I’m saying that we don’t know that it’s going to happen. No one knows. Biden isn’t budging. Congress has introduced no bill, counting up forgiveness just is not going to be a sound repayment strategy.
Maggie Germano 22:09
That’s really smart. And it’s, it’s upsetting, because I know that that like you said, it’s been talked about a lot recently, it’s being pushed Biden’s being like really pushed on that, and he’s, he’s not really going for it. So, yeah, like you said, like, we can hope and we can push and we can encourage that as like a eventual policy outcome, but not relying on that. And assuming that like, oh, I don’t have to worry about these loans for the rest of my life, or, you know, for the next 20 years, because they’re they’ll they’ll get wiped anyway. Because then if they don’t, that’s gonna be a really rude awakening. And then you’re gonna have to figure out what to do from there.
Anna Helhoski 22:48
Well, definitely, and I mean, talk about a rude awakening, I’ve seen a lot of posts on on Reddit on like Facebook groups and things like that, that are specifically for student loan borrowers. And people are just saying, I’m, I’m just not going to pay my debt. I’m waiting for forgiveness, that is the worst thing you could possibly do. We’re telling people, you know, again, it’s not a repayment strategy. What is very real is that your loans are going to start collecting, you know, your payments, again, come February. So you need to be prepared for that and not count on loan forgiveness as as the way that you’re going to necessarily get out of that.
Maggie Germano 23:30
Right. And because it’s not just about the student loans themselves, if you’re not paying them back, like you said, they can get sent to collections, they your wages can get garnished, like you said your tax return can get garnished, it will getting something sent to connection collections can hurt your credit, just automatically. But then if you’re if you’re getting like liens on your credit and all that, like it’s just it could have this this again, we keep saying like snowball effect, but another Yeah, it does. That’s for sure. Yeah, exactly. So it’s not just about the student loan debt. It’s about all the other things that would then be affected your financial standing generally, if you were to not pay those?
Anna Helhoski 24:12
Absolutely. And it’s going to, it’s going to severely limit your financial options.
Maggie Germano 24:17
Right, exactly. So what do you kind of recommend listeners do now? If they’re worried about their maybe so say they’re already enrolled in a student loan forgiveness program, and they’re worried at kind of about their eligibility or whether or not it will be, you know, adhered to in the future with whatever’s going on with the government and this contract for the student loan forgiveness. What kinds of steps do you recommend folks take to at least know that they’re doing everything they can to maintain their student loan forgiveness eligibility?
Anna Helhoski 24:56
Right. So in lieu of that incredibly clear crystal ball If you’re worried about your loan forgiveness, eligibility, contact your student loan servicer, again, that’s the private company that is managing your your student loan, and explain your situation and find out if you might be eligible for something like public service loan forgiveness or, or borrower defense to repayment. But I would also really recommend checking out loan forgiveness details on the student aid.gov website. We also have a bunch of really informative articles on the topic on on the nerdwallet.com site as well. You know, the, the only one who can forgive your student loans is the federal government. So you also might be getting a lot of solicitations, you know, we’re seeing a lot of that happen. People are getting solicitations that are landing in their inboxes, or seeing ads for it, someone promising to forgive your loans, consolidate your debt and rolling in and confirm your payment plan, the only one who can do that as the federal government or your federal student loan servicer, so anybody promising to do that, for you in exchange for money is going to be a scam. So just like, don’t fall for it. I know that a lot of people really want to believe that loan forgiveness is an option. And there are legitimate existing ways to get it. But you have to go through the process that that exists right now.
Maggie Germano 26:20
That’s really good advice. And I know there’s so many scams out there with like the IRS with student loans with all kinds of things. So I think just reiterating that, you know, no private company is going to be able to forgive your loans for you.
Anna Helhoski 26:34
Yeah, definitely. And you know, you mentioned student loan servicers changing. So there’s a lot happening right now in that space. And it’s really confusing for borrowers, especially if they’re not, right now making loans, which most aren’t. So are making loan payments which question say, which most aren’t, so your student loan servicer might change prior to the forbearance being lifted. So you need to make sure that your current servicer has all of your contact information, make sure your contact info is up to date on studentaid.gov. You sign in there with your FSA ID and keeping an eye on your inbox to find out if the company that manages your student loans is changing hands because it certainly can happen. We’d also say don’t assume if you were enrolled in an auto debit, prior to the forbearance that you still will be. So you just have to, again, keep an eye on your inbox and just stay up to date, because you will be getting information soon.
Maggie Germano 27:33
That’s really helpful. Any other tips you have for how people can either get ahead of when student loans might go back into effect in February or to just generally kind of get a handle on their student loan repayment?
Anna Helhoski 27:48
Yeah. So again, if you’re interested in enrolling in an income driven repayment plan, you should definitely say contact your servicer. There’s love documents that you have to get in order and an application, you won’t be able to actually get that in motion until your loan repayment starts. But you can at least be ready to do so the servicers are anticipating a very large volume of calls from borrowers. So that is something to think about as well. It’s not just you, everybody else is in this boat as well. So you want to just think about what you’re going to be doing a few months from now. Right now.
Maggie Germano 28:29
Yeah, get started early. Don’t wait until January 30th.
Anna Helhoski 28:33
Exactly. Do not wait. This is definitely not such a situation to wait. Because again, there’s just going to be so many other people calling in emailing trying to get information and the servicers can only handle so many at once.
Maggie Germano 28:48
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And yeah. Is there anything else? So we talked about, you know, getting ahead, if you don’t think you’re gonna be able to make your payments. So the options you have there, getting in touch with your servicer, making sure you know who your new or current or new loan servicer is making sure all that information is up to date? Is there anything else we haven’t touched on yet with whether it’s how student loans are kind of affecting women? Or what women can actually do about it? Anything? We haven’t touched on that you want to make sure listeners know today?
Anna Helhoski 29:22
Sure. So I would say the thing that I think we haven’t really chatted about are, is the fact that women of any generation have that means parents as well. So we know that Parent PLUS loan borrowers are one of the fastest growing groups of borrowers with debt. And that group was particularly left out of those public service loan forgiveness. Temporary waiver that came out recently, we know that parents are just having a lot of trouble, you know, they’re taking out loans for their kids. And they’re not necessarily getting, you know, reaping the benefit of a degree because they weren’t the ones that are We’re going to college to get the degree. And especially parents that are aging and maybe aging out of the workforce and they’re retiring, then their income tends to be limited, it’s a little bit harder. So we’re seeing a lot of parents like putting off their retirement or just not being able to save as much because they do have this step. And parents with Parent Plus loans can only get into one of the income driven repayment options. It’s harder to get forgiveness, it does present like a real serious challenge.
Maggie Germano 30:32
It sounds like it. And I know that that’s already been an issue of like, you know, not parents not saving for retirement because they’re worrying about the expenses related to their kids. And obviously, something like you said, that’s not really talked about is taking out loans for your kids college is a big part of that.
Anna Helhoski 30:51
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Maggie Germano 30:53
Well, thank you for sharing all of that. I really appreciate it. And I will link to you mentioned lots of different programs and different resources. And I’ll make sure to link to those in the show notes. But how can people follow you follow your work find your writing?
Anna Helhoski 31:08
Yeah, sure. So you can find my work and many articles on income driven repayment, debt repayment options, status of loan forgiveness options to lower your debt or refinance your debt at nerdwallet.com. And I’ll likely pop up on other new sites for my articles are syndicated. And you can also find me on Twitter @annahelhoski.
Maggie Germano 31:30
Wonderful and I will link to those as well. Thanks so much, Ana, for taking the time to chat today. I know student loans is a topic that’s on many people’s minds. It’s been a relief over the past, you know, year and a half, but it’ll come back eventually. So I appreciate you sharing your wisdom and information to help people kind of prep and get a handle on their debt.
Anna Helhoski 31:53
Anytime, Maggie, thanks so much,
Maggie Germano 31:55
of course.
Maggie Germano 32:00
Thanks again for listening to the money circle podcast. If you want to learn more about my financial coaching services, my speaking and workshop offerings, or just to read my blog visit Maggiegermano.com. To get in touch with me directly email me at [email protected] You can also follow me on Instagram and Twitter @MaggieGermano. I look forward to hearing from you. Bye bye.
