If you accidentally become the patron saint of lost student-loan causes, these are some of the things that will happen.
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Messages will arrive from many strangers seeking advice.
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You will get recognized in person years later as “that guy.”
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Your name will be the subject heading of emails to The New York Times, as in “I’m your new Jed.”
That Jed is Jed Shafer, an educator in Eugene, Ore., who has helped about 825 teenagers get general equivalency diplomas.
Starting in 2017, I wrote a series of columns about his efforts to navigate the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. His difficulties sounded the alarm about its epic dysfunction just as the first cohort of borrowers got in line for loan cancellation — only to find that they were not eligible.
Readers noticed. So did senators, who coughed up hundreds of millions of federal dollars to help. After initially receiving word that he would need to spend another decade in repayment, Mr. Shafer did indeed qualify.
And now? He’s about to send his own firstborn child to college.
Once again, Mr. Shafer, who is 55, is in the vanguard, this time as a parent. Scores of people who spent decades repaying large student loan debts are now explaining themselves to their children.
What did they borrow and why, and when and how did they repay it? And if they can’t pay for college out of current income, what advice are they giving their kids?
Mr. Shafer — the son of a fisherman and a writer-teacher, a former college catcher and a political spouse owing to his wife’s successful run for tax assessor — does not relish the spotlight. He mostly steers clear of social media.
But he also chafes at the Online Guy rhetoric around P.S.L.F.
“I see people on Facebook saying, ‘Oh, sure, I want the government to pay my truck loan, too,’” he said in an interview in his backyard, with a dog named Sir Snax-a-Lot interrupting at regular intervals. “I made large payments on my loans for 15 years, 10 of which were in the program.”
So it’s different from a car loan. “I wasn’t declaring bankruptcy,” he said. “Hopefully that gives people a lot more clarity than the knee-jerk reaction that progressives are out there excusing each other’s debt.”
In fact, the opposite is true. It was President George W. Bush who signed the 2007 bill that established loan cancellation for public servants.
P.S.L.F. participants must work for a qualifying governmental employer or nonprofit, make 120 on-time payments and be in a qualifying repayment plan. Poor communication and misunderstandings had led to the confusion that Mr. Shafer and others faced.
Now, it’s his job to keep his sons from being confused. His elder, Julius, will enroll at Oregon State this month at a cost of just over $38,000 per year.
So first, the work. Julius has done well in the classroom, good enough to win a $2,000-per-year merit scholarship from the university. He has also made money at a local club. Eighty percent of those earnings are going to college.
When Mr. Shafer’s student loan payments ended, more regular (and larger) contributions to Julius’s college savings account began. Then, Mr. Shafer and his wife took on extra work. First they, along with other family members, built an accessory dwelling unit behind their home for his mother. Now, in the wake of her death, it’s a short-term rental that makes money.
So that’s one good example Mr. Shafer has set. If more money becomes available, save a decent chunk of it. Drive the 2018 Toyota RAV4 far beyond the term of any car loan. Keep the 2007 Toyota Highlander.
The family’s good habits mean that it has about $21,000 saved for Julius and that he will finish his first year free of debt. Not that Mr. Shafer has a particular problem with borrowing.
“I don’t necessarily think that accruing a small amount of debt can’t be a positive experience,” he said. “It can be. But I didn’t get much education around it.”
Mr. Shafer and his wife will provide the education when needed. “Debt is not something to take as lightly as we were told to take it by our high school counselors,” he said. “‘Just get a degree and there will be all kinds of jobs out there for you.’ It wasn’t necessarily true.”
Nor can there be certainty that P.S.L.F. is going to persist and work well for young adults who want to spend a full decade in public service. This week came word of new trouble in the program, as borrowers pursue so-called buybacks of their loans to speed up debt cancellation. Julius wants to major in public policy and run for office someday, so maybe he’ll be the one to finally fix it.
His father persevered and ultimately prevailed. Many others have, too, as I’ve chronicled previously.
“You’re part of this community of people who’ve been through this thing that wasn’t going as well as we all hoped it would,” Mr. Shafer said. “And then it had a happier ending.”
The post He Fought to Have Student Loans Canceled. Now His Son Starts College. appeared first on New York Times.
