welcome to stop my crisis i'm your host vivian gas bar and if you are the parent of a high school student or perhaps even middle school you're kind of excited but maybe a little scared knowing that college is soon to be around the corner even if that's a few years away or if there are high schooler who is in junior or senior year it's coming upon you faster than you want to think about especially when you're thinking about the cost of the student loans that they have to worry about and i need to think about this as well i'm in that same boat however i know that as a parent we really want to help our children by giving them roots but colleges them giving them wings but the cost of student loan debt is absolutely scary for most parents forty two million americans oh one point three trillion dollars of student loan debt twenty nine percent of student loans is actually owned by people fifty five to sixty four years old and thirteen percent of that debt is by people sixty five to seventy four years old so let's think about this logically i brought here to our studios today nancy kavi nancy is here to educate us what every parent n know about student loans before they sign those forms thank you nancy for coming and helping us prevent a crisis in our family thank you nancy tell us what is it someone needs to know about a parent plus loan and if they haven't started thinking about parenting loans and what that means can you please start from scratch for us sorry let's start from scratch in terms of your child can get federal student loans but you have the ability to get a federal student loans called a parent plus loan and that parent plus loan pays the difference between the money that your college is going to be giving your your your child and what the real cost is so you as the parent can take out a loan it's called a parent plus lomb it's based on your credit your credit worthiness the bad news about a parent plus loan is that you not your child is responsible for the loan and the bad news is that as soon as that money is dispersed you have to start paying back on the student loan the bad news is look at you just saying all these bad news what's the good well ok know the rest of the bad news is that if you have a problem paying that loan back ultimately there are some ways that you can get some help there is to ferment there's forbearance but there's more bad news in the bad news is that the kind of repayment plan that you as the parent are in is primarily an income based program which is pretty limited it's and i see your program where basically a time based program so it's like buying a house you have a fixed payment  the sort of the good news if you will is that you do have the protections of the federal student loan program and that's to be contrasted with a private student loan so i understand those student loan unfortunately especially once given by the federal government if you want to do bankruptcy that cannot be included is that correct the general answer that is yes but there are some mix of exceptions as you may know and that is a very limited exception and the reality is that you basically have to show you've exhausted your efforts to pay the loan back that the problem would last the length of the law alone and more importantly that there's a really good reason why you couldn't pay the long back and normally that's the your decision disability is called the broader test the bottom line is it's incredibly difficult if not impossible to discharge federal student loans and private student loans in bankruptcy what is  difference between a private student loan or a federal student loan is there a dollar difference or perhaps an interest rate difference the great question and the answer is yes choice for example  offered offers private student loans it is again credit based it's easy to get the loan the interest rates are better than federal student loan the huge problem however is your legally responsible if your child the faults you as the cosigner stand in the shoes of your child and the bad news also is that if you stop making the payment for any reason you're automatically in default unlike in  the parent plus student loan situation you can be sued a judgment can me gotten against you your wages can be garnished your income tax refund can't be seized in a private student loan situation as a canon or in the purplish loan but your assets can be can be seized and the judgment can chase you the rest of your life so it's a bad situation if you have issues repaying your student loan for your child could it potentially become refund and they can take your soul story disability benefits and retirement benefits and leave you only seven hundred fifty dollars per month in benefits wow that sounds really scary it is tell me really quickly i am first of all i appreciate that you took the time to help people by writing a book because i didn't realize how complex this is so my question that i have burning within me is really how as an attorney is there something that we as parents should do is there bennett first to hire an attorney in regards to understanding student loans better before we apply i think that that would be a wise step because you need to understand the federal student loans that your child is eligible for lows you may be eligible for and the private student loan situations with you and i've seen families destroyed over cosigned private student loans where grandma mom and dad and the student cosigns and the and the title stops paying and the banks will look to mom dad and grandma grandpa they're the deep pockets i wouldn't want to family to be putting themselves in that by unwittingly signing up for a private student loan not knowing the consequences and putting themselves in that situation if they just sign for a parent plus loan and if you cannot include it in the bankruptcy it unfortunate can i see lead to a deeper problem such as a foreclosure if you cannot get away from making those payments it's a horrible situation so really quick is there anything we should know that's a quick take way because this is such an important subject an unfor running out of time well i have to say as dear abby said if you're asked by your child the answer is no i won't take out a parent plus loan and no i won't cosign if you choose however to do that remember on a pair of plus loan you're going to make the payment and you can make the payment for the life alone so can you afford to make that payment now five years now ten years now when you want to retire think about yourself first well i really think that what you have to say i never even realized that it's a wise move to salt a knowledgeable attorney on i just didn't know that's what's in a realm of an attorney could be helping with so thank you for enlightening myself and our viewing audience thank you so much nancy thank you as a foreclosure and a real mediation expert i've seen families put to the rim of bankruptcy but they couldn't file bankruptcy because of the large dollar amounts of monthly student loan payments that they had to make for their child if these are not small dollars i've seen payments from parents upwards between five hundred to over two thousand dollars a month and when people lose their jobs and they had to make those payments because there was no way around it that has literally led to people losing their homes it is wise to seek counsel of an attorney for a small fee in and to potentially may be losing your home unfortunately down the line and looking into the future what is the best way to prevent a tragedy like that let's stop those crises before they become reality welcome back to stop my crisis i'm your host vivian gasp are in one here today to talk about a problem that affects nearly everyone i've ever encountered in my professional life student loan  unfortunately one trillion dollars of student loan debt are active right now an auv which suddenly seven point four billion dollars of student loan debt are in default right now public service loan forgiveness program comes on line tobar two thousand and seventeen and that program will help teachers firefighters police officers and people who work for nonprofits get their student loans for given it new jersey alone there are over one hundred fourteen thousand five hundred eighty four full time teachers over fifty thousand law enforcement officers and three hundred thousand governmental employees again in new jersey alone so here with me today i have an expert on this very topic nancy katie nancy thank you so much for explaining this amazing forgiveness program i still can't believe it's actually coming on line i think that your audience is going to be enthused about what we're going to be talking about that i mixed through i still can't believe it i've seen so many people suffering when now they no longer will have to please explain it because i'm very excited how does someone know if this is a program they could take advantage of well let's talk about the things you have to prove to be eligible for the public service loan forgiveness program the first thing vivian is that you have to work for the right kind of employer or what's that it's a public service type employment which means if you work for the local government here in princeton if you work for the county the state for federal government that kind of employment qualifies if you work for a nonprofit that employment qualifies so you could be the dogcatcher the counted the mayor of princeton and you would be eligible for public service loan forgiveness the second element that i think your audience is going to be interested in is making sure that they understand that they have to be in the right kind of a loan program by that i mean when you pay back your student loan during a time based repayment plan or your into a income base repayment plan you have to be in the right income based repayment repayment plan to be eligible for public service loan forgiveness i need to ask a question when you mention profits ok what are the regulations and i mean there are so many people who have not for profits that are very very small and then you have them such so large this is the american red cross what size is it make a difference or as long as they're registered five one three six they have to be registered five zero one three c but what's important here is that it's actually the type of work that they're doing so if they're a religious institution and they're trying to convert someone for their political institution that isn't going to count those are  so how does this work you say it's coming on line in a sheer ten months from now is that the beginning or end of october somebody who is so anxious to start i might want to know that thirty day difference october first but one of the other why the other less important elements though given is that the person has to be current they can't be in default and they have to make their payments on time and you have to make ten years worth of current on time payment now you haven't asked me a question that you should ask me i need to know ok so there you go i want to know what is it is that i haven't asked you yes love and i guess are mind readers all right a lot of your members of the audience are teachers and a lot of our new jersey residents are tempted i have a fantastic school system here so i get questions all the time what happens if i'm only working a ten month contract well that's ok what happens if i stop working to raise a family and i go back as a school teacher do i lose the years that i've paid in and the answer there's no it's not ten years consecutive it's ten years came with it so what i suggest folks do is you can go to www dot edu go part of education site and download a form and you start filling it out now because you want to send it in and have the government say that your employment qualifies for this program that you know how many years you've got in this program and only yours you got left so you can check that now yes even when we're many months out ahead of it they can see if they qualified now yes and that's what i tell all of my clients to do because the form to actually apply for forgiveness hasn't been created yet is there a cap of how much money they're willing to forgive per person though there's no cap you can have one hundred thousand dollars and still be eligible to have all the about forgiven so let's say you have three hundred thousand dollars in loans you've been making payments for ten years and you have two hundred thousand dollars left guess what guess what guess forgiven the balance the two hundred thousand dollars and you want to know what's tax liability so is this something you might need an attorney for you could just go through the government because i know you have spent tass tick new book out can you mention it to us for the site help people certainly i have written a book student loans where they didn't tell you that do you need a lawyer no you don't need a lawyer to do this but i think it's wise to have someone to consult with because you have to have the right kind of loan and there are all sorts of federal student loans that only go into certain income based repayment plans you see those ads for consolidation have those can mess up your ability to get into the public service loan forgiveness because you may be consolidating into the wrong kind of law so i think people should consult with someone who has an expertise in studio loves not just some radio ad or t v ad what i hear is probably one of the best reasons if someone has fifty thousand one hundred thousand dollars or more outstanding debt i would think it makes sense to spend a little bit of money to make sure the best of that amount of money is forgiven that we're talking very large numbers for a lot of the people i know absolutely i would have encountered or who are viewers this is amazing public service that you're doing thank you i thank you and i appreciate you taking the time to come to on to our studio to our studios and talk about this because i don't think that many people were aware of this i had just one more question is your way to know for example how long this will be available for you said it starts october two thousand and seventeen but is there a finite amount of time that someone has to get in on it so to speak well based on the change in our administration i can answer that question i don't know in my fellow colleagues don't know what the trumpet ministration with the department of education is going to do with the public service loan forgiveness so i think we'll have to just wait to see what the future holds well hopefully if people take advantage of it quickly they don't wait sometimes waiting is the devil if you wait you lose correct so if you've been working for a qualified employer for ten years making those payments on time you should check to make sure your employment qualifies and on october first that application should be going in but the way one last question that we have to wrap up but if you've had multiple employers who are still might be qualified in that ten year period that's what the point of this form is is to have the government look at your employment history and say this one counts that one doesn't count so you know how many payments you've made and how many payments you have to make with the ri that's really helpful and the lesson learned is get the help of fresh ill will investment might yield some amazing amounts of money forgiven and a lot less debt and guess what money you don't have to pay well then help you get faster on your way to a better time and or a lot of just a lot more cash flow in your month so you more money left over at the end of your month and that helps steve yet levy eight e to stop my crisis i'm your host vivian gaspar and crisis is not just financial however many a motional types of crisis ends up yielding financial crisis as well and if you're a parent you understand that what you do with your children now shapes them for what type of adults the be in the future and don't you want your children to become independent and really not need you any longer when they're adults that ha start now while they're young and that way it won't lead to future crazes for you and them so what i have right now is a really big treat i have a fantastic guest here a layman chatman is actually a bestselling author a mentor and a speaker and she understands how difficult it can be to be a single parent although she's helped them olsen's of adults break out of self imposed prisons she has won reviews for her advice and blogging on parenting as a single parent herself and she is talking us with us today on the secret having children grow with self worth and confidence not just for now but completely into the future as adults for them hello viviane angelina jolie we all know her she has been saying and still says i struggle with low self esteem every day someone that votes while be successful in she's a humanitarian doesn't she work with the u n how can someone who does so much for so many others and obviously she loves being a mother she i believe has she has six us or those old beliefs that we were raised with that maybe gave us the low self esteem without even knowing it we pass it on to our children and then it just perpetuates a cycle hatch for so many things through cycles and this is just another one of them suffering with low self esteem so we don't have our children mirroring that behavior yes how do you recognize that nurse first of all when you're trying something new or you're just trying to stretch outside that normal box that you live in and all of a sudden you hear the voices listen to them and i'm not talking you know i'm talking about the voices that say i think you must be crazy you can't do that don't listen to those voices no stop in that listen to him for a minute and say w a minute what is weird where did that come from and just save weight is that true or not and my living my life by those voices that's the next thing because sometimes we do we will stop dead in our tracks when we hear those voices to fight to press upon your brain and think consciously to have a positive thought or three to overcompensate for that negative what little voice analysis you take that you need to listen to and you think that's not true and there's affirmations too that you can say over and over that help to bring it into the subconscious mind and actually combat that old belief that you hear that that thing you were learning when you were little that you weren't worth it or you are crazy for trying something new you can start to squish those down by building up the the type of esteem you want to have even if it's your parents or friends doing it to you now this doesn't stop i think for example if you want to do something that's outside of the norm as a career yes something a little bit more bold an untraditional yes and obviously when you want to do a career of any kind you need to invest in yourself get some some mentoring and of course things that you do but education of any kind it costs money it's an investment in yourself it is so when your loved ones or friends tell you are you insane for investing money to do that so then i think when you may judge yourself by others impression of you what do you do when that happens but you know what your passion you know you want to do this you have to believe that what we think is our passion what we have is our talent and what we really makes our heart saying is the right thing to do when i started writing my book for instance i went running home i had decided to write this book i had already been doing the notes ok but now i was putting it in book form and i went home and i called somebody who was very near and dear to my heart and i said i'm going to write a book and the first word that i heard was are you crazy have you ever written a book before are you crazy do since we have to absorb information that others in our lives put upon us they're giving us perhaps their own insecurities that's what it is maybe they're jealous to a degree maybe that person wishes they had the or das city in the bravery yes write their own book some consciously this was a person and it always is it's people who are scared of stretching yet pass what they call their world and on daring i'm  past that which is what we want our children to be able to do but yet there are so many people who are scared too that they try to hold you back so you have to believe in yourself and if you tell them you have to stay strong and say you know what maybe it's not right for them and they can't see themselves doing it but i can see myself doing it that i was going to have to do you have to try and has believe in yourself and you will transfer that on to your kids so give me real quick three ways that you can foster self esteem good positive self esteem in your children ah one way is first of all allow your children to be able to defend ok why didn't you get that day and really listen don't listen critically just listen and if they're presenting a good case then say ok i understand let's fix that and up and stop it there great what's another one and what hardest time so reassure them about their bodies reassure them about who they are and maybe as their mothers were women we should be careful of our language about ourselves i don't hear that totally catch myself wait well emphasized front of my daughter or at least never think it at last at all and so she doesn't start to mirror that knowingly but it would be even better if we changed how we thought about ourselves because it shows and then we don't have to catch ourselves because we're really stopping that thinking we're fat and it helps them so it starts with us it always starts with the third one and then the third one is to encourage them encourage them to try things new encourage them to go out for something that they might say oh i don't know if i can do that give it a shot fantastic i know that we want out time but as a parent if you don't feel good about yourself and how can we give something to children if we don't have our self and you were just mentioning that before so i know that's one aspect but i think that it's not stopping as a teenager tween or college age somebody at any age can have self worth and self esteem issues and it could be stopping our own progress in the face it i've read studies where if you have low self worth maybe you would hinder your ability to make an income which affects your ability to care for your family so can you give one quick tip that will help all people of any age group to increase their self worth going  truly want to feel good about where you're going in your life and maybe you're trying to climb a close corporate ladder yes you you have to do the self study i hate to tell you but you have to do the self study you have to do the affirmations that will build the strong self esteem and get rid of the low self esteem but it takes work and there is i'd love to give you a magic pill and say here it is you know but it takes time the most important job you can have as a parent once you become a parent is to really truly help your child prepare to be a successful and productive and independent adult and you cannot help them foster that if they don't have a very strong feeling of self worth and self esteem for themselves going forward regardless of where they are right now i don't care if they're