Internet Searching

While at work on Friday, I happened to get bored and do research. I know you all probably think I am a slacker, but I finished cleaning my room and posting grades on Thursday so that I would not have too much to do on Friday. I decided I would look into student loan forgiveness programs available for teachers. Since I am a science teacher, I should be able to qualify for a lot of them.

I found a program for teachers in low-income schools, or teachers in an area of shortage. I qualify for both of these. I then read further into it and it would only apply to Perkins loans. These loans are loans made specifically through the 4 year school. They have a Perkins loan fund which they will issue to students after completing the FASFA. This fund is replenished by the principle and interest payments made by other borrowers. Lucky for me, I have a Perkins loan through my school and it happens to be the biggest loan I have; roughly $8,300. The program will provide the qualified teachers with 15% forgiveness through the first two years of teaching, then 20% for years 3 and 4, and 30% for year 5. If you are interested in this information, here is the link - http://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/charts/public-service.

When I saw I was able to receive forgiveness for this much of my loan, I ran to my principal and told him to sign off on my paperwork. I got this in the mail on Friday afternoon. I am hoping to hear back from them soon. I have no reason not to qualify so I am pretty optimistic. I doubt I will hang on to this loan that long, but it will definitely be nice to get some relief at least for two years worth. If I qualify, and I if my assumption is right that they will forgive 30% of my total loan value because I have been teaching two years, then I will see a reduction of $2,493.28 bringing my loan balance to $5,817.65. That would be awesome! I will of course keep you guys updated on this.

We have done well to have some extra money in our checking account to absorb the new mortgage payment coming on June 1. I am not looking forward to this, but it could be worse I guess.

We have another $550 in payments waiting to clear and I am going to pay an additional $350, so another $900 will go to loans. This month we will have paid almost $2,000. That is pretty solid. Come the end of summer I project us to be under $70,000 and right around $67,000 in total debt. I am looking forward to that.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Memorial Day. My family has a lot of vets and I always go pay tribute to them and their service at the North Georgia Cemetery where they are laid to rest. Be sure you thank anyone you know for their service.