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Showing posts from December, 2021

My One Year Student Loan Payoff Update

  January 28, 2022 marked my one year anniversary of paying off my student loans . Reflecting back on choosing to pay off my student loans leaves me with several take a ways that I want to share with you! In September 2020 I decided to become debt free by utilizing the debt snowball method to pay off all my debt. Before this I had struggled to save and really understand basic financial principles. As a first-generation college student, I received a scholarship to attend undergrad for free, but the scholarship did not cover summers. During the summers I took out student loans to cover costs without paying interest rates or how much I was taking out. By the end of undergrad I had amassed a little under $17K. Fast forward to graduate school I received another scholarship that covered my education. At the time I was a teacher in a new very expensive city and I had missed the cutoff to have my paycheck last me throughout the summer. So, I decided to take out a loan for two summers to ...
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How Did My Fall 2021 Semester End?

Another semester has come to an end, and I am more than excited to have a little rest. If you don’t know I am a second year Higher Education doctoral student. My program is entirely online, and I typically take two courses a semester. This semester I took a Law in Higher Education course and a Qualitative Research course. Figure 1: This is a photo of my YouTube thumbnail for my latest video "How Did My Fall 2021 Semester End?" where I am smiling at the camera with my hand under my chin. My hair is short black and curly, and I am wearing silver hoop earrings. I was the most nervous about my Law in HIED course as I had heard that it may be difficult. It also didn’t help that the professor emailed us early in the course and let the class know that he would be more than a stickler for APA format. This class also required a LOT of reading I’m talking at least a hundred pages a week. Throughout this class I mainly read various cases and wrote APA style summarizations of a given one...
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President Joe Byron Student Loan Forgiveness Update

  BING BONG! President Joe Byron has made an official statement regarding student loans. One that many of us were not expecting to hear. Well not me because I suspected this all along hence to why I am paying my student loans off. If you have not heard, Mr. Biden is not extending the federal pause on student loans. That means that on February 1, 2022 you will need to begin making payments again and your interest is back in affect. Figure 1: This is a thumbnail of my latest YouTube video “President Joe Byron Student Loan Forgiveness Update” where I am seated in my office while looking at the camera with a suspicious look on my face. I am wearing a black sweatshirt that reads, “They go low we go high.  As you all know I decided to pay off my student loans about a year ago when I started by debt free journey. Thanks to Jesus and all of my hard work, I am almost there and will update you at a later date on what I did to pay off my student loans. Many folks are in an uproar and fee...
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FedLoan is Extending their Student Loan Contract?!

  So if you are making student loan payments like I am and your loans are with FedLoan you have probably noticed the error message at the top of the screen that states that FedLoan will be ending their contract to service student loans soon. However, there is no date posted as to when the contract actually ends. So that prompted me to do some digging so that I could be prepared for when this happens. Figure 1: This is a thumbnail for my YouTube video “FedLoan is Extending their Student Loan Contract?!” where I am sitting in my office with my arms folded, wearing a yellow sweater, with a suspicious look on my face. My hair is short, black, and curly. Upon further research, I learned that FedLoan is actually extending their contract for one year, which will end on December 14, 2022. I’m not sure why FedLoan has decided to extend their contract but I suspect that it may be due to the PSLF or the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Act. FedLoan is the sole contractor for the PSLF and wit...
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Will There be Spring CARES Act Funding?

  Will there be CARES Act funding for the spring semester? I have gotten this question several times and wondered it myself! In case you have not been following my blog or YouTube channel regarding this the CARES Act provided funds for enrolled students in higher education that experienced a loss due to COVID. These funds could be used for expenses related to this lost like books, tuition, childcare, etc. I was fortunate to receive CARES Act funding last spring and this fall. Figure 1: This is a thumbnail of my latest YouTube video where I am sitting in my office with an inquisitive look on my face. I am wearing a yellow shirt that says “Black Girl Magic” and my hair is curly and short.   After receiving so many questions surrounding this topic, I decided to go to the source at my university. This person on my campus is the Associate VP for Finance & Administration who is very responsive to emails might I add! When asked about CARES Act funding her response was that all CA...
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