student loan management

- welcome to the webinar for vistas on managing student loans. thanks so much toeveryone who's joining us, and looking through thechat it seems like we have a wide range ofparticipants with us today. some of you are even into your second year as a vista member orleader, so thank you so much for continuing to do service with us. others of you have beenhere for 11 months,

so you're almost wrapping up your service. and some of you have been here for only two to three months, maybe four. what you'll find today isthat all of you will be able to benefit from theinformation in this webinar because student loans canbe daunting to navigate. as a vista member, youhave many options available for managing student loansboth during and after service. this session outlinesseveral options to postpone,

repay, and reduce yourfederal loan payments. we'll also discuss programsunique to federal service that could eliminate yourloan balances altogether. and a quick note. while we do discuss the education award during this webinar, for thoseof you who want more tips regarding the ed award specifically, we have another webinarcoming up focused solely on the education award in january.

again, i'm molly pelzer,training coordinator for americorps vista,and i'll be your host. i'm joined today by jessicaknight and endi clark from education northwest. together, we'll beproviding online support during the presentation, and also facilitating your questions. now it's my pleasure tointroduce today's prenters, presenters, excuse me, fromthe vista member support unit

who will be presentingabout student loans. shavonne is a native of dallas, texas and is an americorps vista alumna. she serves as an americorps vista member in arlington, texas, and shavonne joined the vmsu staff in 2013. calvin is from waco, texas. he served two terms of americorps nccc as a field team leader andlater as a support team leader

on projects throughoutthe midwest and northeast regions of the u.s. since wrapping up his nccc service, calvin has worked for cncs,first at nccc headquarters, and currently with the vmsu. we are also joined bytaryn, who will be sharing some information about taxes. taryn served withamericorps nccc in class 10, the sacramento pacificregion, and class 11,

the d.c. capital region, as well as with americorps vista in boston. she is currently a program officer in the pennsylvania state office. now i am going to turnthings over to shavonne. shavonne, welcome to the webinar. - thanks, molly. i just wanted to say it's great to be able to have this webinar today.

as a former vista member,i can definitely attest that the informationthat will be shared today would definitely guide our vistas and alums on the right pathto manage your student loans. to start off, we're gonnastart off by looking at the most common type of student loans. then we will exploresome specific programs to help members eliminatetheir student loans long-term. at the end of thepresentation, we will open up

the conversation and takequestions during the q&a. so, let's go ahead and jump right in. as a vista, there arethree important factors to consider when thinkingabout student loans. first, the types of loans you will have will impact the programsthat you're eligible for. second, your decision to selecteither the education award or the stipend will impact some of your loan repayment options.

third, your future career planswill impact the possibility of having your loanbalance forgiven long term. during the presentation, we will address all of these factors. to start out, we'd love to know what type of student loans you all have. please look on the rightside of your screen and you'll see a poll pop up. please take a moment to share with us

what type of student loans you have if you know what they are. the loan options includefederal direct loans, federal perkins loans, private loans, both federal and private, i don't know, and i don't have any loans for those people who are wonderful. (laugh) so please, go ahead and take a second

to look at that and fill that out. - [molly] yep. and even though it gives you a time limit of about five minutes, the sooner you guys get your answers in, the better because then we'll be able totake a look at what types of loans you have, or maybe don't have. and then we'll be able tocontinue with the presentation. so, we'll give you justanother couple minutes

and as shavonne mentioned,your options are federal direct loanswhich includes subsidized, unsubsidized or plus; as wellas federal perkins loans, private loans, both federaland private, i don't know, and then the lucky i don't have any loans. so the poll has ended andwe will give just a minute for those results to pop up, and then we will talk through them. just one more second, and there we go.

so it looks like, shavonne,the majority of people in the webinar today, 83 ofyou have federal direct loans. the next most popular category is both federal and private loans. now, we have a few people that don't know and we have a few people thathave federal perkins loans, private loans, and a couplethat don't have any loans. great. so we are gonna touchon all of these topics

for the most part, right shavonne? - [shavonne] oh, yes. - [molly] excellent. - [shavonne] thanks, molly. alright, so many ofthe programs we will be talking about today will only apply to specific types of loans. so it's important to know which types of loans that you have.

let's start off by clarifyingsome key differences between student loan categories. broadly, we will be talking about either federal or private loans. in the case of all federalloans, funds are borrowed from the federal government,and the most basic difference lies in who administers anddistributes those funds. for federal direct loanprograms, the lender is directly the u.s. department of education.

within this category of federal loans, there are several differentprograms as you can see in the first column, including subsidized, unsubsidized, and parent plus. with federal perkins loans, the lender is actually the school itself. while the government stillprovides and backs those funds, it is the schools anduniversities that administer the loan funds to the student.

finally, private loans arethose borrowed and administered through private lending institutions. some of these include loans from discover, sallie mae, or loans administeredby a bank or credit union. throughout this presentation,please be mindful which loans are eligiblefor a given program. now, let's talk about the options for postponing studentloans during service. to start, we'd love toknow how many of you

have already put your loansinto forbearance or deferment. please take the time to answer the poll. question located on the rightside of your screen again. we definitely appreciateeveryone's participation in completing this poll,and we're looking forward to reviewing and discussing the results. so we'd just like foryou to take a few seconds and submit your answerso we can get an idea of whether your loans arein forbearance or deferment.

- [molly] and i saw in thechat, shavonne, earlier that some folks have already started talking about forbearance. i know we have some questionsalready about forbearance. i know that will be a popular option. but forbearance, deferment,no, i don't know, or i don't have anystudent loans currently. so again, we'll touchon all of these topics. and just a couple more secondsand then our poll will close

and we'll be able to geta pulse on what we have for our status for most of you. so it looks like responsesshould be coming in in just a minute. and as soon as those popup, we'll review them. and let's see. alright, so shavonne it lookslike we have quite a few who have already put theirloans into forbearance. quite a few haven't taken any action yet,

so i think it's great that they're with us on the webinar todayand we can talk through what they should do. a number of folks have alreadyworked on their deferment, and some don't know. one person doesn't currentlyhave any student loans. and then we also have some whounfortunately didn't answer, but we'll be able to work through all of those options today.

- [shavonne] awesome. alright, thanks molly for helping me out. alright, for those of you whoselected the education award as your end of service benefit, you can put your federal student loans into a state of forbearancewith the national service trust so that you don't haveto make loan payments while you're serving as a vista. i'm gonna refer to this asnational service forbearance.

most federally-backedstudent loans qualify for national service loan forbearance. for example, federal direct loans and direct consolidationloans can be placed in national service forbearance. however, there are two exceptions to this. parent plus loans andfederal perkins loans are not eligible fornational service forbearance. private student loans also do not qualify

for national service forbearance. similarly, if you chose a stipend as your end of service benefit instead of the education award, you are also not eligible for forbearance. in both cases, you will wantto explore loan deferment. and we will talk about thisin the next few slides. the most immediate benefitof having your loans in forbearance is that you don't have

to make loan payments. however, even in forbearanceyour federal loans will continue to accrue interest. so another great benefit ofnational service forbearance is that once you completeyour entire year of service, you can ask cncs, which is the corporation for national community service, to pay off the accrued interest. there are a few things to know

about the interest accrual payments. first off, it does nothappen automatically. you will need to submit a request on the my americorps website to have the interest paid for you. the interest accrual paymentis an additional benefit to the education award. this payment does not comeout of your ed award balance. the interest accrual paymentis considered taxable income,

so you will need to reportit as such and be prepared to pay the tax on the payments. but we'll come back totax implications in a bit. forbearance does have its limits, so let's review a few thingsyou will want to keep in mind. national service forbearanceis only an option if you chose the education award. forbearance and interestaccrual payment are contingent upon successful completionof your term of service.

if you end service earlyyou will not only forfeit the education award,but also the forbearance and interest accrual payments. this means you will oweyour lender for any interest that accumulated duringyour forbearance period. vista members who extend their service are not eligible toreceive an education award during the extension period. during an extension, you are only eligible

for the end of service cash stipend. since the education awardoption is not available, requesting forbearance for existing loans and interest accrual are not available. let's say you get tothe end of your service and you decide to stayon for three more months to wrap up your project. for those three months,you're only eligible to receive the end of service stipend

which accrues at $125 a month. once you enter this extension period, you are no longer in a period of national service forbearance,and your lender may begin to request repayment. please remember forbearanceis not guaranteed. if you have not already done so and would like to put yourfederal loans into forbearance, you can find the request form on your

my americorps account shown here. when filling out therequest form, if your lender is not listed, click oninstitution knock downs and follow the directions. you should expect to see in your account if your request wasaccepted by your lender within three to five business days. now while we're on thistopic, this is also where you will request to have theinterest that accrued

during that forbearance paid off after your service is complete. typically, the interestaccrual payment will also take three to fivebusiness days to process. make sure you follow theprocess and timeline carefully so as to avoid fees or late payments. a request forbearance can bemade the old-fashioned way through paper, but please be advised that it will take significantlylonger to process.

if for whatever reason you would like to fill out a paper request, please call the national service hotline directly and they can guide youthrough the process. now let's take a moment totalk through a scenario. as we've mentioned, you canonly put loans in forbearance if you've selected the education award. however, as a vista you can earn only up to two educationawards in your lifetime.

so let's say that you love vista so much you wanna serve a third term. what are your options? if you opt for the cashstipend, which is shown in the first column,you would receive $1,500 at the end of service. but you wouldn't be able toput your loans into forbearance with the national service trust. and you wouldn't be able to request

to have the interest paid off. you may be able to put your loans into deferment with yourlender, but you'd still have more interest accumulating. your other option is to opt for "zero" value education award. this means you wouldn't receivethe education award funds, but you would be able to keepyour loans in forbearance with the national service trust,

and have the interest paidoff at the end of your term. the important thing toconsider in this situation is whether having your loaninterest for the year paid off by the national servicetrust, would that be worth more than a $1,500 end of service stipend? if so, the "zero" value education award might save you more than the cash stipend. for those of you withprivate student loans or for those who select the cash stipend

who don't qualify fornational service forbearance, there is an option youcan explore as well. it's generally known as loan deferment. deferment differs fromforbearance in a few ways. first, you can request defermentdirectly from your lender. different lenders may usevarious names for this, so you might need toexplore with them first. basically, you want torequest that they temporarily defer your payment dueto economic hardship

created by your low incomeduring your year of service. secondly, not all lendersoffer loan deferment. and if you find that your lender doesn't, you'll want to explore options to lower your monthly payments. the third difference betweenloan deferment and forbearance is that deferment may not offer an option to pay off the interest that accrues while the loan is in deferment.

for federally subsidized loans,accrued interest may be paid by the department of educationif the loan is deferred. check with your lender forspecifics, and remember like forbearance, defermentis not guaranteed. now let's transition to loan repayment. once you're no longer ableto postpone your loans during service, there are several options to repay and reduce your payments. right now we're gonna talkabout these options separately,

and then later on in thepresentation we're gonna go ahead and talk about ways you cancombine some of these options to get the most out of your benefits. loan consolidation is aprocess that allows you to combine one or morefederal student loans into one new loan. as a result of consolidation,you will have to make only one payment each monthon all your federal loans. and the amount of time you have

to repay your loan could be extended. some benefits of loanconsolidation include: lower monthly payments,centralized payments, potential for better interest rates, and access to alternative repayment plans. you can apply for adirect consolidation loan through studentloans.gov. the process also offers bothelectronic and paper options. private education loans are not eligible

for federal direct consolidation. since most private educationloans do not compete on price, a private consolidation loanis merely replacing one or more private education loans with another. the main benefit of consolidation is obtaining a single monthly payment. since consolidation resetsthe term of the loan, this may reduce the monthly payment; at a cost, of course, which may increase

the total interest paid overthe lifetime of the loan. for more information onprivate loan consolidation, visit the link we'veplaced in the chat window. for those who have federal direct loans, you may want to consider some of the income-driven repayment options that are available through the government. essentially, anincome-driven repayment plan adjusts your monthly loan payments

as a fixed percentage ofyour income and family size. to qualify for anincome-driven repayment plan you need to have some degreeof financial hardship, meaning the balance on your loans needs to represent a significantportion of your annual income. basically, they want tomake sure that payments are about 10-20% of your annual income which would be less thana standard repayment plan. you can enroll in anincome-driven plan at any time

and you payment will onlygo up once your income... if you enroll right nowwhile you're in service, the payments under anincome-driven plan could be as low as $0 or $5 sincevistas live at poverty level. the upside to an income-driven plan is that your monthly payments are lower. costs are much lower. another benefit is that thesepayments plans are set up to forgive the balance of your loan

after 20-25 years,depending on which program you are eligible for. however, remember one limit to be aware of is that if you stretch out the time over which you are gonna repay the loan, more interest will accrueand you might end up paying back more in theinterest in the long run. there are three income-drivenrepayment plans offered through federal student aid.

first you have theincome-based repayment plan, which is known as ibr, pay as you earn repayment plan, and income contingent repayment plan, which is also known as icr. the differences betweenthe plans lie in the year in which you took out your student loans, as well as your annualincome and household size. there is a detailed chartfound on studentloans.gov

and we will drop a link inthe chat box for you to see. to apply, you must submitan application called the income-driven repayment plan request. you can submit this applicationonline at studentloans.gov or on a paper form which you can obtain from your loan servicer. if you select with the education award, once your year of service is complete, you can begin using your education award

to make payments on anyfederal student loans. you start the process ofusing your education award through the my americorps.gov portal. once you have completedyour term of service, you will be able to accessa link from your home screen to create an educationaward payment request. you will have access to a form where you will enter the paymenttype, the amount authorized, and then the institution wherethe payment will be directed.

when you click on submit,a notice will be sent electronically to youreducational or loan institution. a record of your request will appear in your account home page. the school of the loanholder will complete their portion of the form and return it electronically to cncs. they will fill in the amountfor which you're eligible if the request is forcurrent educational expenses,

or they will provide thepayoff amount and the loan type if the request is for student loans. once you initiate this request, a payment generally takes place within 48 hours. note, this process can not be automated. so you will have to create a request for each payment that you wish to make. if for some reason the institution denies your request for payment, theyshould have entered comments

or an explanation forthe reason of the denial. any time you use the education award, you will need to rememberthat it will be taxed. so now we're gonna go ahead and pause and check in about tax liability. molly, can you start us off? - [molly] great, thankyou so much, shavonne. so, our next topic is usually one that raises a lot of questions: taxes.

as you all know, the education award and any interest paymentsmade on your behalf during your service is allconsidered taxable income. and i'm really sorry thati might be the bearer of this frustratingnews, but unfortunately that's just the way the system works. so, we're here to help guideyou to make good decisions as you use your education award. so as we move through thisnext section of the webinar,

please remember that we'reapproaching the topic of taxes as it specificallyrelates to your ed award and we won't be able to address questions about taxes in general. our next speaker, taryn, is an expert on the topic of taxes andalso in vista service. remember that taryn served both as a vista and an nccc member. she currently works at thepennsylvania state office

as a program member andvolunteers a lot in her free time. so, taryn, welcome to the webinar. what can you tell us about taxes? - [taryn] thanks, molly. hi, everyone. i'm happy to be a part of this call today to talk about everyone'sfavorite topic, taxes. but having used bothof my education awards to pay off some studentloans along with helping

to prepare taxes as a vita volunteer, i think that this informationis important to understand as well as to be better-prepared to use your education award, andto pay the pertinent taxes. the first big piece ofinformation to take away is that any use of the education award is considered income that is taxable. you will be taxed on theamount that it was used for the tax year that it was used.

this does mean so that if a year goes by and you do not use anyof your education award, you will not have to pay taxes on it. your education award isonly taxed as you use it. in a given year, ifyou use less than $600, you will need to reportit on your tax return. if you use more than $600,a 1099-misc form posts to your my americorps accountby january 31st each year for you to include with your tax return.

as shavonne mentioned earlier,interest accrual payments are also considered taxableincome and will need to be reported during the yearyou receive those payments. if your interest accrualpayments were over $600, you should expect to have a 1099-misc form that is automatically generated. let's pause for a momentand consider tax liability. vistas tend to have a lot ofquestions about tax liability. we understand that folkswould like a specific estimate

for their tax liability whenusing the education award, so we'd like to clarifywhy it's not possible to give a standard, universal estimate. this is because your tax liability depends on several personal andsituational factors. what we can show you is alist of those primary factors that impact tax liability soyou can make your own estimate. as a general rule, your taxliability will always be tied to your income during a given year.

the education award is considered income, so when you use it it will be added to whatever your annualincome is for that year. for a given year, they use all or part of your education award. what you owe in taxes will be dependent on the five factors listed here. your total annual income, plus the amount of education award youuse, along with tax credits

and deductions based on yourown personal circumstances gets you to your total taxable income. that total taxable amount then gets taxed at the federal tax rate and then taxed at the state tax rate of whereyou earned the income in. these are just the most basic factors, but as you can see, there are many unknown variables going on. let's take a look athow this might play out

in some hypothetical examples. let's start with a few scenariosfor a hypothetical vista who's just finished service in 2014. and let's say this vista had$10,000 of income in 2014. and for 2014 in oneversion of the scenario, they use a part of theireducation award, or $500. and then in the otherversion in the second column, they use the entire award, $5,730. in both cases, they have about $8,000

in credits and deductions. but as you can see, the added income from using the entireeducation award increases the overall taxable income. even though the taxableincome has increased, the member still at the10% federal tax rate. again, a vista using his or her ed award directly after service couldhave a similar situation in that the annual income islow; in this case $10,000.

and using a portion of the ed award vs. using all of the ed awardresults in being taxed in the lower tax bracket. let's take a look at whatcould happen a few years later. in another scenario toconsider, they had spent a few years after service. and this vista is nowmaking $40,000 at a job where they are still payingtaxes throughout the year. they then decide to usetheir entire education award

that year for the full$5,730, which is added to their taxable income for that year. the total income is now $45,730 and after subtracting creditsand deductions from that, you can see that thetaxable income of $37,730 has brought the vistainto a higher tax bracket. so, more taxes to pay. it depends on your own personal situation to decide when you want touse the education award.

having lower income vs. higher income and using part of the education award, or using the full amount. as you can see, taxes arecomplicated and very personal. one way to estimate your own tax liability is to download a recent 1040 form and estimate filling it outwith the most recent tax rates in your own estimatedinformation for the coming year. when making a decision aboutusing your education award,

we suggest you first test this out to plan for your tax liability. the 1040 form comes with instructions and the irs.gov website also has resources to get you started. i'm talking about resources. here's the slide on resources. when it comes time tofilling out your tax return, there are lots of differentprograms available online

and in person that can help. for those with an incomeless than $53,000, you can receive free, in-person tax prep through vita: volunteerincome tax assistance. i personally have been avita volunteer for 10 years and i highly encouragevistas to look it up and to use vita in your area. often the organizationsthat run vita tax prep sites also can assist you with resource sharing

and making sure your taxquestions get answered. if you don't have anyquestions but want a quick and efficient way to file your taxes, freefile is a greatonline option to consider. essentially, many well-known tax preparers like turbotax and h&rblock have free versions of their software available for those with household income less than $60,000. if you visit the freefilepage on the irs website,

you'll see these providers as well as many other approved freefile services. when it's time to file your return, you simply choose afreefile service provider, download their software,and it'll walk you through your filing process. at the end, you're able tosubmit your return to the irs. again, freefile servicesare available for those with a household incomeof $60,000 or less,

and we'll drop a link in thechat to the different programs. if you do have lots ofquestions about your taxes, we suggest you connectdirectly with someone from the irs or tax professional. we realize that this is animportant topic for vistas, but please be aware that we are not able to give you personal tax advice. to walk through your specific scenarios, you need to speak to someone at the irs.

while it may sound daunting to do, there are several waysyou can contact the irs and ask the tax questions. the irs.gov website has ahelp and resources section and there are a number offaqs to get you started. if you want to speakwith someone directly, whether in person or on the phone, there is a link to find a local irs office or a tax payer assistance center

in their "contact us" section. you can also call to make an appointment or speak with someone over the phone. of course, the resources we mentioned are specific to federal taxes. if you have questions alsoabout your state taxes my best advice is to look up your state's department of revenue andcontact them directly. and i'd like to now turnit back to shavonne.

- [shavonne] thank you so much, taryn. that was definitelyvery helpful, and i hope that many people were able toget some pointers from that. so let's go ahead and talkabout some important information just looking ahead towards the future and the possibility ofeliminating student loans balance. to start, take a moment to think about your future career goals. let's see.

are many of you all interestedin a public sector career? if so, please share what types of public sector careers interest you. you may enter your ideas into the chat box and make sure you sendto all participants. - [molly] yea, and thosepublic sector careers can be through a variety of options. some are coming in already. we've got non-profit management,

city or federal government,service coordinator, grant writings, socialwork, registered dietitian. more social work coming in. more non-profit. some government. we've got national park service, and, wow, someone has already signed up to work with the fda after her vistayear which is fantastic. also great to see we've got some going

into tribal government,department of interior, educational, non-profit,non-profit management, veteran's bureau. so we've got a lot coming in. so go ahead and share your responses if you haven't already. we've got an aoda counselor, public house, state department, university teaching, non-profit sector, etc.

so, shavonne, it does seem like we've got quite a few participants interested in some public sector careers. - [shavonne] that's excellent. well, there's definitelymultiple federal programs that go above and beyond whatthe vista program offers. so, when (mumbles) with our benefit, it helps to maximize the valueof your education awards. we're gonna talk about publicservice loan forgiveness.

and that is a programthat encourages graduates to choose a career in public service. it applies only to federal direct loans, so if you have parent plusloans or perkins loans you may wanna consider consolidating them to take advantage of pslf. if you consolidate, please keep in mind that only payments that you make on the new direct consolidation loan

will count toward the pslf. if you make 120 on-timefull monthly payments while employed by a qualifyingpublic service organization, the remaining balance of yourfederal loans are forgiven. only payments sinceoctober 1st, 2007 count because that's when thepslf program first started. the balance forgiven is notconsidered taxable income. the employment and loanpayments don't need to be consecutive, so you could work

in public service for a few years, then take a corporatejob, and then go back to non-profit work. only the payments made during your time in public service employmentcount towards the 120. but this gives flexibilityin how your career proceeds. so let's go ahead and take a quick look at what types of employers qualify as public service employment.

to begin, in order to qualify it does need to be full-time employment. public service employersinclude any local, state or federal government organizations, non-profit organizations aslong as they are not partisan, political organizations, or labor unions, public schools, libraries,and related organizations. some more examples ofpublic service employment that qualify includes:emergency management,

military service, publicsafety, as well as law enforcement services,public health services, public interest law services,early childhood education, public service forindividuals with disabilities, and the elderly. to apply for pslf, youwill need to document your qualifying publicservice employment as you go. so each year, or at leasteach time you change jobs, you will need to complete the pslf

employment certification form. have your employer verify it, and then submit the formto fedloan servicing which is part of thedepartment of education that manages pslf. fedloan servicing will reviewyour employment certification and let you know whether it qualifies, if information is missing, or if they need additional documentation.

they will also let you know how many qualifying payments you have made. just an fyi for currently serving vistas and vista alums who who like to document their vista service term as qualifying public service employment. please submit the pslf form to the vmsu via the national service hotline fax. once received, the vmsu willcertify the employer's section

of the form based on yourvista term information and return the forms back to you to submit to fedloan servicing for processing. after making your 120thqualifying payment, you can submit the pslf application form to request forgiveness of thebalancing or direct loans. more information can be found online and that website will be given to you. we'll include the link and the resources

we share after this session. so now i'm gonna turnthings over to calvin, and he's gonna discuss howhe's personally made the most of the programs to reducestudent loan burden. calvin? - [calvin] hi, thanks shavonne. hello, everyone. i just wanted to get on and share sort of some personal experience and kind of speak

to my own situation in hopes that maybe it'll shed some lighton the entire process, and how i've been able to combine the income base repayment,the public service loan forgiveness, the education award and forbearance and all of that. so, i personally used publicservice loan forgiveness and income base repayment tomanage my student loan down. i have about $24,000 in student loan debt,

and before taking advantageof income base repayment my payments were about $250 a month. i served for two years with americorps, during which my loans werein a period of forbearance. after my two years of service, the salary at my first job was about $30,000. using income base repayment, i was able to get my payments down toa manageable $100 a month. as my salary has increaseda little bit since then,

my payments have gone up slightly. but with public service loan forgiveness, i will still end uppaying significantly less than the full $24,000 overthe course of my ten years, or 120 payments. from my time serving inamericorps, i was able to claim 12 months of credit towards public service loan forgiveness. i'm gonna say pslf from here on out

because that's a lot of words to say. pslf, using my education award. and in my current career working for the corporation fornational community service, i'm working to have my loansforgiven in the next few years. so, while serving i took advantage of the national service forbearanceand the interest payments to reduce the burden ofliving on a fixed stipend. however, if i would'veknown better or had all

of the information that i have now, i might've done thingsa little differently. first of all, i wouldn't haveput my loans into forbearance and i would've appliedfor income base repayment during my service year sothat i could get credit towards my 120 payments whilepaying virtually nothing. because vista members, as mentioned... because vista memberslive at poverty level, under income base repaymentyour payments can be

as low as 0 or $5. so i defiinitely would've donethat had i known before-hand. i wouldn't have gone intoa period of forbearance and i would've just paid them. so what that means is,because my loans were not in an act of status repaymentand i was not making payments, i can't get credit for my actual service, but i was able to claim 12credits using my education award. what i've learned is that the distinction

between earning public serviceloan forgiveness credits from paying out of your pocket each month and earning credits byusing your education award are very different. the distinction is very important. because you can only receive a maximum of 12 public serviceloan forgiveness credits from payment using the education award, even you make over 12 payments.

this is something that is a little tricky, so i'll try to repeat in a different way. if you use your educationaward to make payments on your student loans,you can only receive 12 public service loan forgiveness credits. you can make 24 paymentsusing education award and they will still onlygive you credit for 12. so, no matter the amountof payments that you make with your education award, youcan only receive 12 credits.

but if during my service ihad been paying on my loans for both years, i could'vereceive 24 payment credits for those two years, plus an additional 12 from using my education awardfor a total of 36 credits instead of just the 12that i was able to receive by using my education award. so by using all theresources available to me, i feel like i have a prettycomfortable relationship with my student loan debt,and i really feel confident

in my ability to pay itoff with the least amount of financial burden. thanks, shavonne, forletting me speak for a moment but i'm gonna turn it back to you for information about perkins loans. - [shavonne] thanks so much, calvin. for those of you with perkins loans, i'd like to point out someof the unique characteristics of these loans as theyrelate to the education award

and loan forbearance. perkins loans are noteligible for idr or pslf. however, for each year ofvista service you complete, you can get 15% of yourperkins loans forgiven. to be worthwhile, your perkinsloan balance would need to be at least $37,000. if that's the case,here's what you would do. you would select the cash stipend as your end of year benefit.

just fyi, you can't get the ed award and a 15% loan forgiveness. it's one or the other. you'd put your loan in deferment based on financial hardship. at the successful completionof your vista term, 15% of your perkinsloan balance is forgiven and the department of educationwill pay off the interest that accumulated whileyour loan was in deferment.

to learn more detailsabout options for vistas who have perkins loans, this is the link that will be posted in the chat window. so, we've covered a lotof different programs and options for you all to consider. to wrap up, we're gonna goover some recommendations for making the most of your benefits. for those with federally backed loans, here's some thoughtson how to get the most

out of what is available. while serving, you can applyfor income driven repayment, which is idr, and get yourpayments down to almost nothing. this is a great optionif you know that you want to participate in the pslfprogram and want to gain credit towards your 120 payments without actually having to pay anything. applying for forbearance while in service is another great option toput your payments on hold

and have the accruedinterest taken care of at the end of your service. if you are earning a cash stipend, ask your lender about otherprograms that they may have to help you manage your student loans. consider a "zero" value education award for future terms of serviceif you have already reached your maximum amount ofeducation award funds. this lets you have theforbearance benefits

that come with the education award while maintaining our twoeducation award maximums. no matter what the decisions in service, these benefits extend wellinto your life after vista. when your service is over,keep making idr payments in order to receivecredit toward your pslf. using your educationaward to make payments is a great way to helptransition out of vista service and into permanent employment.

payments from the education award must be done manually each month. please remember this. although you can make as many payments as you would like fromyour education awards, you can only receive a maximum of 12 pslf credits totalusing the education award. when your 120 monthlypayments have been made, you will be able to applyfor loan forgiveness.

the pslf program started in 2007, so the earliest that anyonecould receive the benefit of forgiveness would be 2017. there are some immediatenext steps we recommend you want to take as afollowup to this session. first off, know what typeof loans that you have. take a look at theeducation award website. you wanna check with your lender if you haven't already placed your loans

in forbearance or deferment. next, explore theincome-based repayment plan and public service loanforgiveness program. also, make sure your lenderis listed on our website. here are some of the resources that we shared during this session. we have our website, whichis my.americorps.gov. you're gonna submitforbearance, interest accrual, and associate payment requests.

we have studentloans.gov,which is a great website for all things related to student loans. the irs.gov website, forguidance and assistance on tax-related topics. myfedloan.org, which isa website that you go for assistance with pslfprocessing and verification. we have national service hotline, which you can connectwith the vmsu as well in order to submit paperrequests for forbearance,

interest requests, or anybenefit-related questions. - [molly] wow, well thank you so much shavonne, calvin, and taryn. we covered a lot of information, and i know that there's alot of questions out there. calvin has been verybusy in the q&a panel. but before we get to theq&a section of the webinar, we really wanna knowwhat you guys thought. so, on the right side of your screen

the poll just popped up where you can share feedback about this webinar. please take a moment to answerthe questions right there. it just takes a couple seconds. because we do review your responses, and we like to use this information to help us improve webinars and your input does help us. so, we have given youguys a lot to think about.

and now it's time for your questions. because we have a pretty goodaudience for this session, we may not be able toget to every question, but we will do our best. we'll focus on questions thatwill likely be of interest to the other audience members. and again, we might refer you to get... we might avoid questions that get into a lot of personal details,

but we'll refer you to thenational service hotline so you can get an answer tailored to meet your specific situation. you can ask a question using the q&a panel located on the right side of your screen as many of you are already doing. but now i'd like to ask our operator kim to come back on thephone and remind us how to ask questions via the phone lines.

- [kim] thank you. at this time, if you'dlike to ask a question please press *1, and pleaserecord your name when prompted. if you'd like to withdraw the request, you may press *2. once again, to ask aquestion please press *1 and record your name when prompted. - [molly] okay. and while we wait to see ifwe have any questions coming

through via the phone, i'm gonna go ahead and have calvin work withme on some of the questions that have come into the q&a panel. so, calvin i know you've been pretty busy, but i think that we have some questions that would be good for everyone to hear. so the first one is from crystal. and she says, "i putmy loans in deferment, "but my loans were federal direct loans

"through great lakes. "i got told forbearanceis if i had no job, "and they considered americorps a job. "but i was able to put them in deferment. "will i able to get thetax accrued paid off?" and i think she means theaccrued interest paid off. - [calvin] right, so, the interest payment is only gonna be for loans that are in national serviceforbearance through americorps.

if you are in deferment with your lender, we don't pay the interest that is accrued on that deferment. we only pay the interest that is accrued while you're in a status ofnational service forbearance with americorps. - [molly] alright. thank you, calvin. and here's anotherquestion about forbearance.

i think this is gonna bea popular topic for us. anthony asks, "if ourloans are in forbearance "during our service here, canwe make a retroactive payment "using our ed award to receivethe 12 payments for pslf?" is that something they would need to do? - [calvin] yea, you actually can. and that's how you get your 12 credits using your education award. if you're in a period of forbearance,

you're not making paymentsso you're not earning those credits, but onceyou're done with your service and you're back intoa period of repayment, the way that that works is, whatever your monthly payment is, you pay that times 12using your education award. and that's how you get 12 credits. so, for example, if your monthlypayment after your service was $100 and you paid $1200of your education award

towards that, that wouldcount for 12 credits because it's like you're paying 12 months of payments all at one time. - [molly] great. thank you so much. - [calvin] yea. so we've got a questionfrom erin, and erin says, "we can't put a loan into forbearance "if it's in the graceperiod, so are we losing out

"on those interest repaymentsor does it not matter "because the loan is in the grace period?" seems like if the loanwas in the grace period would they be charging interest? i think that's what she's asking. - [calvin] right. i'm honestly not sure. i don't know if you are earning interest while you're in your grace period.

- [molly] that might be alender specific question. - [molly] okay. alright. alright, well we will just keep moving on. so amanda has a question. "if one payment equals one credit," and this is about pslf i think, "could a person make multiple payments? "i.e. using the edaward and idr payments?" - [calvin] hmm.

person make multiple payments. that's a tricky question. i'm not entirely sure that i understand what the question is asking. yea, so she went on toexplain in another followup making multiple payments in one month. so, i don't know if itwould be double counted? i'm not sure, honestly. again, i think that's alender specific question.

i think you'd beduplicating efforts there. one payment with the... i think one payment issort of one payment. that's a hard question. i don't know, but i can do some research and get back to amanda on that. - [molly] or amanda could call the vmsu. - [calvin] yea, or you canemail us at vmsu@cns.gov and we'd love to get in touch with you

and contact you about that. - [molly] yea. alright, so let's see. rebbecca has a question. "if he had used ibr or idrwhile in his year of service "instead of forbearance, then would he "have not received the interest payment?" and that might a question specifically about your situation, calvin.

- [calvin] yea, definitely. so i would not have receivedthe interest payment because my loans couldn't have been in a period of forbearance. if they were in thatperiod of forbearance, which they were duringboth of my service years, i did receive an interestpayment for both years. but if i would've beenpaying, then no i would not have received that interest payment.

alright, and a question from stephanie. "is there anything todo about perkins loans "in terms of deferment, forbearance, " and income-driven repayment?" - [shavonne] so, let's saythey contact the university since they are the oneshandling the perkins loans to see what options are available. i'm not 100% sure. - [molly] sure.

so shavonne, it soundslike stephanie should maybe reach out to the institution and see- - [shavonne] yea, to seewhat options are available. - [molly] okay. alright. great. alright, amanda says, "iwas not aware of this. not sure what of this is, but... "was told before my pso that i had "to declare my choice aseducation award or cash stipend. "i chose cash because the edaward isn't a dent in my loans,

"and once you choosecash, you can't change. "is there anything i can do about this?" - [calvin] there is not. once you select the stipendas your end of service option, there is no way for us to change that back now, if you select the education award at the beginning of your service, you have the first 10 months of service to change to the stipend.

but once that changeto the stipend is made, there's no going backwards. and if you're started yourservice and have been activated with the stipend, there's no way for us to change you to the education award. - [molly] yea, and hopefully... we do deliver that message during the navigating your yearof service session at pso. usually vmsu comes on to talk about that.

so, unfortunately that ispart of the presentation. so, let's see. anthony says, "in orderto obtain as many payments "on my pslf during my year of service, "i should apply for theincome base repayment plan, "make payments during my year of service "that will likely be close to zero, "and do this withoutusing my education award?" sounds like he is looking to see if

that might be a good strategy to follow. what do you think, calvin? - [calvin] i think... honestly, as i've mentioned, and some of the other questions,that's what i would've done if i could do my service over again. i would've stayed ina period of repayment, applied for income-baseand got my payments down to as low as i possiblycould and collected

all of those payments. that would've been 24 payments towards my public service loan forgiveness. and then at the end of my service, use my education awards to getthat additional 12 credits. i think it's a good strategy. but again, it's gonna be whatis best for the individual. if you contact your loan holder and the income-basedrepayment is still a payment

that is not manageableon your vista stipend, then maybe you do wannaopt for the forbearance to make things a little easier for you. but if it is a payment thatyou're gonna be able to handle, i think it is a good ideato get that payment down to zero, or $5, or $10;however much it might be, and go ahead and make those payments and get that credit towards your and it looks like jillian has a question

along the same lines. "is it worth it to do theincome-based repayment "and pslf if she hasloans around $30,000?" - [calvin] 100 percent,it's totally worth it. anything that's gonnaget your payments lower and possibly get it forgiven in 10 years. if you do 10 years of federal service, or, sorry, public service, andyou're paying $100 a month; what's that, that's like $12,000 maybe?

i don't know, am idoing that math correct? probably not. but i think it is. i did the math for myself personally, and my loans are about $24,000. and over the course of my 10 years that i plan on doing a public service, i'm gonna end up payingsignificantly less than that and be done with them by the time i'm 32.

which is gonna be great. - [molly] yea, that will be great, calvin. good job. - [calvin] thanks. (laughs) - [molly] and let's see. so marissa has a question again. i think about the speakingrole that you had was, "was stated by one of ourspeakers that he would not "have put his loans into forbearance

"and instead started payingoff his loans through pslf. "does this mean if we putour loans into forbearance "we can't start making payments on them?" - [calvin] that's correct. that's what a period of forbearance is. it's a period of time where youdon't have to make payments. that's the entire pointof forbearance is that you're not making payments on them. if you do want to make payments,

you do have to get out ofthat period of forbearance and enter a status of repayment. and jaleesa would like to know more about a statement you made. she was under the impression that "any amount forgiven through pslf "was indeed taxable income in the year "that you apply after your 120 payments." do you have any moreinformation on that, calvin,

or where they could go formore details on that topic? - [calvin] so as i wasanswering questions, i actually looked up somethingabout income base repayment, and under income base repayment... that is a correct statement. i think i... i don't exactly remember where i found it. i'm sure it was in thestudentaid.gov website. but it did say that anyamount that is forgiven

after 25 years is taxable income. i don't know if under publicservice loan forgiveness if it works the exact same way. i imagine that it might. but that's gonna be somemore in-depth research that we're gonna have to doto figure out that answer. so again, all of thatinformation is gonna be on the federal student aid website under income-based repayment,

and it gives you all of the stipulations and all of the contingenciesinvolved with applying for income-based repayment and doing great, and i'm just gonna take a break from our online questions andcheck in with our operator to see if we have anyquestions on the phone. - [kim] i show no question. again, as a reminder, ifyou'd like to ask a question please press *1.

- [molly] great, thank you. okay. sampti has a question. "where is the lender list on the website?" is there a more specific url instead of just myamericorps.govthat sampti can go to? if you go to edaward.gov, andthen on the right-hand side there's a link that says school. and it's got all kinds of stuff.

and i'll actually goahead and i will drop that into the chat box right now. i just found it. so there you go. that's in the chat box. if you go there, it'll tell youabout matching institutions, schools that accept the education award, title 4 schools, and trade schools. so that's all gonna be the best resource

for figuring out which institutions will accept the education award. and taryn, we have a tax question. so i'm gonna refer thisquestion from dylan to you. and dylan says, "tax-wise,would it be better "to use the education award to pay "in monthly installmentsor all at once at the end?" - [taryn] well, that is a good question, and i think it depends on...

it depends on a lot of things, but i feel like i can'tgood advice on it besides, i guess if you're breakingit in between two tax years that could be one thingbecause then it would be income counted toward one tax year vs. another; whereas, if you do onelump sump it's obviously gonna be in one tax year. so i don't think i can reallygive a good answer to that. - [calvin] if i may goback to what you said

in your presentation. let's say you start yourvista year in january, and you end in december. that's one full tax year. and let's say, so in december you use all of your education award. so you've made $12,000roughly from your vista year, plus the additional $5,000. that's gonna put you at about$17,000 worth of income.

finance your credits. minus your credits anddeductions, that's gonna keep you in a really low tax bracket. if you decide to take a job andyou're making $40,000 a year and then you use your entireeducation award that year, your taxable income goes up to $45,000 and that may put you ina different tax bracket and have some different tax implications. i think it also goes backto what taryn was saying

about how tax questions are very tricky because they're very personal, and there's so many factors involvedwith those decisions that you decide to make. - [molly] that's right,calvin, and good advice from the both of you. so, linda would like to know,"when using the ed award "to pay loans afterservice, can we specify "what we want the money to go towards?

"for example, can we pay a large lump sum "towards the borrowed sum,i.e. not towards the interest "vs. just paying a monthly payment?" - [calvin] right, andthat's gonna be where you're gonna have to be reallyproactive on your end at getting in contact and staying in communication with your lender. calling them and saying,"hey, i'm sending over "this $5,000 for my educationaward that i earned.

"i'd like it to go towards my principle "and not the interest that is accrued. "is that something that can happen?" and they'll let you know, "yes,we can allocate this payment "to go toward this, or no we can't do that "and it's gonna go towards this." that's where you kind of have to advocate on behalf of yourselfto your lender and say, "hey, these are my intentions.

"this is what i want to happen. "can you make this happen?" - [molly] alright, thanks, calvin. and, kim, do we have anyquestions on the phone yet? - [kim] i show no questions,and once again as a reminder if you'd like to ask aquestion please press *1. - [molly] alright, we'll keep cruising through questions onlinebecause they keep coming in. you guys have been really great.

so, thank you for your questions. so, devaney says, "if i'vechosen the cash stipend option, "will i still have my interest paid?" calvin, what do you think? - [calvin] you will not,because you aren't in a period of forbearance because youdidn't elect the education award. so if you elect the education award, you can put your loans into forbearance. and the forbearance is kind of the...

that's the key to gettingyour interest paid. you have to be in a period offorbearance through americorps in order for us to makean interest payment. if you choose the cash stipend, you can't request the forbearance so you can't get the interest payment. and, let's see. connor says, "i have a perkins loan "that is way less than $37,000.

"is it better to put it inforbearance or deferment?" - [calvin] ooh. i don't know the answer to that question. - [molly] sounds like itmight be a personal preference for the most part and may depend on some other circumstances. - [calvin] i think so. i think so, yea. - [molly] well, betsy hasa question about deferment.

'is there no way to goback from deferment?" is there a way to stopher deferment period? - [calvin] yea, i mean i thinkyou should call your lender and if you want to getout of a deferment period and maybe go into nationalservice forbearance, i would call and say,"hey, i wanna take myself "out of deferment so that i can apply "this national serviceforbearance that i'm working. "and that is a benefit of my service."

you should be able to cancel your period of deferment at any point you wish. you just have to communicatethat with your lender. and does the same holdtrue for forbearance? - [calvin] for the nationalservice forbearance? you can get out out of that forbearance at any point you wish. so if you're currentlyreceiving the forbearance and after this session you're saying,

"oh man, maybe i should gointo a period of repayment "and apply for the income-base "so i can get my payments down." you can cancel your forbearance. contact your lender, say,"hey, i'd like to come out "of this status of forbearanceand start making payments." - [taryn] can i just add something, too? yea, when i was a vista andi had my loans in deferment, toward the end of my service i decided

to consolidate my loans, and that took me out of my deferment. i had to start payingit, so, if you do decide to consolidate during yourterm it might take you out of whatever forbearance/defermentperiod you're in. - [molly] good advice, taryn. thank you for sharing that. alright. so, alexis would like to know,"when should you fill out

"the paperwork for the publicservice loan forgiveness? "can you do that after your service, "and is that when youreceive the full credit?" so, if you are in themiddle of your service and you send the vmsu youremployment verification, we can only verify you upto the date that you send it because we don't knowif you're gonna finish your service or not. we can't say that yes, thisperson completed a full term

without you actuallycompleting that full term. so, the best time to dothat paperwork is probably after your service, and then submit your employment verificationto us here at the vmsu and we can get that done for you. it is retroactive, soany payments or any... so any payments that you'vemade while being employed in public service since 2007 can count towards your publicservice loan forgiveness.

i just wanna bring that back up. so if you've been workingin public service since 2007 and you've made payments on your loans at any point in that time, you are able to retroactively count thoseas payments towards your 120. alright, so calvin we gotanother question for you and your scenario that you shared. zach says, "it sounds likethe ultimatum is forbearance "and interest accrual vs. income-driven

"or income-based repayments." he'd like some advice onsome things to consider, or maybe an example of howmuch he might be able to save depending on the different scenarios. so calvin, you talked aboutthis but how did you ultimately make up your mind on which scenario you were going to follow? - [calvin] so, when ioriginally started my service, i knew that i wasn'tgoing to be able to afford

full payments on my loans. i wasn't incredibly well-versedin the education award and in the national service forbearance, and in income-based repayment. i didn't know as much aboutthat stuff as i do now. so, aw, man. some advice on some things to consider. i would consider how long do you want to be paying off your loans?

how much do you estimate or think that your payments aregonna be once you're done with your service and havemaybe a better paying job, a better paying position. think about how much yourpayments are gonna be over the next 10 years. next 10, 25 years if you justdo income-driven repayment and don't do publicservice loan forgiveness. that's hard, but i really dolike the way that he put...

that is the ultimatum. it's, you either canelect the education award and get the interest accrual payment and request the nationalservice forbearance, or you just make paymentsthroughout your year and get your end of service stipend. those are the two optionsthat you have to weigh. if it's gonna be more valuablefor you to have that $1,500 at the end of your service then

that's the option i would go with. but at the end of the dayit's all personal finances, what you're comfortable paying, future planning, and what your goals are. my goals are to get my student loan debt to get eliminated assoon as i possibly can. so that's why i'm doing apublic service loan forgiveness and income-based repaymentand all that stuff. - [molly] and calvin, howmany years do they have

to use the ed award? can you remind us on that? - [calvin] yea, so you have seven years to use the education award from the day that you finish your service. so seven years afteryour last day of service, your education award isavailable for you to use. - [molly] right, andwe're gonna have a webinar on using the ed award in january.

so there will be manymore details to follow on strategies around that. taryn, we have a question from emily about taxes and vita sites. emily would like to know"if the people at vita will "have information about ourtaxes and paying off loans "so that they couldanswer questions specific "to their individual situations". - [taryn] good question.

the people at vita will haveresources to paying taxes, but they won't be able... well, i mean it depends ontheir experience, i guess, but they won't probablyhave all the information on paying student loans specifically. but they'll have informationabout if you do pay student loan interest and how that can be a deduction on your taxes. but for the most part, vitavolunteers and the type

of resources that vita sites provide is more focused on your taxes. i don't know if itwould be a good resource for how to pay off your student loans, but i feel like calvinmentioned a couple times that there are differentresources and websites that are related tostudent loans out there. maybe specific to your student loans. might have some resources thatwill help you pay that off.

but vita is more focused on paying taxes. - [molly] and taryn, ifsomeone does end up going to a vita site for assistance,how should they prepare for that meeting or whatshould they take with them? - [taryn] well, if they prepareto get their taxes done, a lot of vita sites willask you to show a photo id plus your social security cardand then all your tax forms. and then if you havequestions, know to have them outlined out so that whilethey're asking you questions

about your taxes you cankind of have a conversation about other taxes you might have. because like i said, oftentimesthose sites have resources to other information, to other providers that they can point youin that right direction. - [molly] okay. great. thanks, taryn. and, kim, i'll checkback in with you and see if we have anyone on thephone that would like

to ask us a question. we do have a questionfrom a rebbecca miller. your line is open. - [rebbecca] hello. i just wanted a little moreclarification if i could. i'm in my second year,so i can take my loan out of forbearance and do the 12 months that i could have for myincome-based repayment. but it would depend, i wouldthink, on how much interest

i'm accruing this year. is that correct thatthat would save me money? - [calvin] i think the savingmoney portion comes, for me in my personal situation,the saving money portion comes at the end once ireached my 120 payments and the rest of my loans are forgiven. i'm not sure if it's likeso immediate that you would see the benefit from that. because if you're makingpayments and they're $5...

obviously you're making $5 payments. that's not much money, butyou're not saving anything. so for me, definitely thesavings come at the end. even if the interest is stillaccruing while i'm repaying, at the end of that 10 yearsit's all gonna go away. so i'm only gonna pay the amount... i'm trying to think ofhow to explain that. so even if the amount of my loans grows because of interest that hasaccrued over my service year,

at the end of 10 years i'm only gonna pay what i was gonna pay for that10 years and nothing more. - [rebbecca] okay, so if i wasgoing to try and figure out the math for myself and my situation, you started saying that itwould be the monthly payment that i would be payingfor the extra year or two? is that correct? - [calvin] in regards tousing the education award to get credits?

- [rebbecca] right, likethis year my loan was in forbearance and so i got the amount of interest accrued paid off and so that was an amount of money. but in the end, you'resaying i will have a year or two of payments; so 12 or 24 payments, that i may have beenable to count instead. so if i paid $100 a monthlike your example you used, that would be $1,200 for that last year

and then maybe $1,200maybe for the other year if i could get the two years of credit, the 12 credits- [calvin] yea. - [rebbecca] or whatever you're saying. so really that's $2,400 inpayments it would save me in the end as opposed tohow much interest i got paid toward my loan amount? and that's a great thing to consider is, how much is your interest payment

and how much would yournormal monthly payment be. if the amount of the interestpayment is more than what you would've paid over thatyear, then that might be the better benefit for you, you know? but if that interest payment is only $500 and you would've ended uppaying $1,200 in payments, then using the educationaward to pay that $1,200 might be the best use of those funds. - [rebbecca] okay, alright so that makes

more sense to me then. 'cause i don't know howmuch my payment might be in the end if i could take off a year now or if i could've taken off my 12 credits for the previous year. is there a way for me tofind out how much my payment would be on the loansthat i have currently? - [calvin] yea, callyour lender and ask them. say, "hey, i wanna applyfor income-based repayment."

or if you don't, youcan ask them "how much "is one of my normal loan payments? "how much would a normalloan payment for me be?" and then express to themyour intentions and say, "hey, i have this education award. "i'm looking to pay for 12months using my education award "to get this credit." and they can definitelyguide you through that and they'll be able totell you the exact amount

that you're going to need topay using your education award in order to get those 12 credits. - [rebbecca] so hopefully intheory that will be more money than what interest waspaid over the one year. - [calvin] yea, definitely. yea. so that you're getting themost amount of benefit. - [molly] great, thankyou so much for talking through that, calvin. i think that was helpful to everyone.

but we are getting nearto the wrap-up time. and there's one questioni wanna ask taryn on taxes and then i think we're goingto just talk really briefly about pslf becausethere's a lot of questions coming in on that. so, taryn, the question about taxes is, "where can someone locateinformation about tax brackets?" that information is typically publicized and set in stone each year, right?

- [taryn] it's funny you ask. i was looking for thatinformation when coming up with some notes for this presentation and there's a link in thequestion/answer i think for a website that'sirs.com, and it does have some information there. the irs.gov website seemsto be tricky at just posting what the tax brackets are. i don't know why.

but i know when i do taxes for people, i use a software program that kind of automatically does it for me. so i can't roll it off the top of my head where the brackets... how the brackets line up. but i will say, if someonedoes contact the irs.gov and speaks to someone, they can get a better answer and amore confirmed answer.

but there's lots of websitesthat if you just type in "2015 tax brackets" there's alot of information out there. i don't know if it's 100% accurate, but it's probably close to it. but again, i like to directpeople back to irs.gov to talk to someone specifically there. and they do have those taxpayer sites that will answer questions like that. - [molly] great, thank you taryn.

makes sense, irs.gov since they deal with so many tax issues. alright, so calvin, westill have some questions that we didn't get to, butthe main topic is pslf, public service loan forgiveness, as well as income-based repayments and federal loan consolidation. so, in the next 30 seconds,what's your best resource for people to go to withquestions on those topics?

- [calvin] so, i thinkthat the best resource is going to be the departmentof education website. they are incredible. literally all of the information is there. when someone calls the vmsu andthey have a question for me, if i don't know theanswer that's where i go to look and search for things. their search features are very powerful. you just type anything in and you can find

whatever you're looking for. also, the educationaward, go to edaward.gov. that is also a greatresource for questions regarding the educationaward specifically. if you wanna call the vmsu, you can call the national service hotlineand ask them questions. you can send emails to vmsu at cns.gov and someone will get back to you with answers to your questions.

honestly, your best friend in answering any of these questions is gonnabe the internet and google, 'cause that's how i find all my answers. i don't really... none of this comes naturally. no one just knows all this stuff. you really have to do your research and kind of dig in deep andfind your answers there, because all the information is there.

- [molly] great, well thank you so much. and i have to disagree with you, because i think this does come naturally to all of our presenterssince you guys have done such a great job of workingthrough a really heavy topic and one that's really important. so, a virtual round of applause to shavonne, calvin, and taryn. and, thank you all again forattending this webinar today.

and we hope you canjoin us for our next one which will be onorganizational partnerships and collaboration: better together. that is scheduled for october28th at 2:00pm eastern. and remember that we dohave another partner webinar coming up about the educationaward in mid-january. and if you want to referback to this webinar, remember that within thenext few weeks it will go up on the vista campus.

and you can access a recordedversion of the webinar, you can listen to all the q&a,and you can also get access to the resources that were shared as well. so, thank you so much to our presenters and our esteemed guests. and i hope everyone has a great day. and thank you so much for your service.