How a 31 Year Old Dentist Saved $750,000
Happy New Year. I hope this post finds you well and healthy. The student loan payment and interest freeze have gone on much longer than expected with the most recent “final” pause set to expire this month being extended until May. Since most of the readers of this blog are interested in student loans, you are also probably interested in personal finance. While it’s...
Emergency Forbearance
The COVID crisis effects on student loans continues. This pandemic has highlighted a complete lack of communication between the Department of Education and the loan servicers. You may have noticed that your federal student loans were automatically placed into forbearance last week. My loans are held with FedLoan and they automatically placed my account into an emergency forbearance in 2017...0% Interest
The last two weeks have brought many changes to student loans. I have delayed publishing any information regarding these changes because the details of a policy was yet to be defined. COVID-19 has interrupted our lives and the dental profession has many unanswered questions regarding how we will move forward during and after this crisis. Many readers are aware that student loans held by the...Should You Buy a Home or a Dental Practice First
It is typically recommended to delay home ownership until after a practice purchase because the practice generates income, while the home does not. Furthermore, ownership of a person’s primary residency is often more of an emotional transaction (it is a lifestyle decision) as opposed to a financial one. With this in mind, it is often wiser to purchase a practice before purchasing a home...Another Orthodontist with 1 Million Dollars in Student Loans
Deciding to become an orthodontist is an expensive commitment. We have already learned about Mike Meru (the first orthodontist to be highlighted for his outrageous student loan burden by the Wall Street Journal). Some interesting conclusions have been drawn from Mike’s student loans and Business Insider does a good job of explaining why dentists, doctors, and lawyers are no longer that...Public Service Loan Forgiveness Works
Audio is embded into this post that may not be displayed in our emails. Click on the title to view the webpage. A lot of questions surround the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program since 99% of first-time applicants were denied forgiveness in late 2017 and early 2018. Since then, the program has been temporarily expanded and still has problems. You can learn more on NPR...
How to Calculate Your Payments Under PAYE and REPAYE – Plus a New Course
Many students will be matriculating from dental schools and residencies over the next 2 months, and student loans will be on their minds. Developing a strategy to repay (or at least manage) your loans early is extremely important. If you want to calculated what your monthly payment will be under PAYE or REPAYE, follow the steps outlined in the post.
Calculating the Cost of Attending Dental School
Recently, there was a post on the Dental Nachos Facebook Group about what schools a young pre-dental student should apply to. You might have seen it. In my opinion, any answer besides the cheapest school with a cap (I put the cap around 300k), is absurd advice to give to a student you know little about, and it perpetuates the problem.
The Rule of 72
The Rule of 72 is a simple way to estimate how long a particular investment or debt will take to double given a fixed annual rate of return. Some students try to apply this rule to their student loans, but it is not applicable because direct loan interest does not compound. For example, if an