Jennifer just learned that she’ll save over $200k.

It’s Forgiveness Friday, and today we want to share a case study from a recent diagnosis we did for a public charter school in Chicago. After meeting (well, Zooming) with the school’s HR team, they invited all staff with student loans to our PSLF diagnostic tool, which takes about 5 minutes to use.

Enter Jennifer, a passionate member of the team with over $210k in federal loan debt. She’d just completed a Master’s Degree, and soon plans to pursue her PhD. Out of necessity more than strategy, she’d entered Income-Based Repayment in 2019. As a result, SHE ALREADY COMPLETED TWO YEARS TOWARDS PSLF… AND HAD NO IDEA! Her estimated savings exceeds $200k, bumping her effective salary up over $25k per year. We also discovered that some of her undergrad loans needed to be consolidated to become PSLF-eligible, and that moving from IBR to REPAYE would decrease her monthly payments. The final step to get her lined up was to complete Employment Certification using the PSLF Help Tool. Now, as long as she stays on the same path, Jennifer will be debt-free, tax-free, in 10 years!

If you’re already pursuing PSLF, introduce us to your HR team. A la Jerry Maguire, we’ll help them, help you.

About Author

Jason DiLorenzo

Jason is the Founder of BenElevate, an early stage fintech company working to address the student debt crisis by bringing to bear tools, expertise, and bespoke solutions to streamline student debt management for borrowers and employers.