I wasn't asking for forgiveness. I just wanted lower payments.
Tl;dr? I didn't ask for forgiveness. I just wanted lower monthly payments to live comfortably. I'm not asking to thrive, apparently that's too much. But I don't want to be stuck just barely surviving.
I wasn't in the court room. None of us were. And I promise none of the people there actually realized what a gift the SAVE plan was - and should be. I wasn't asking for forgiveness. I knew what I signed up for when I listened to the older generations tell me that I needed a degree to be successful in life. That I needed to go to school to be better than they were when they were my age.
What I did ask for was an affordable monthly payment. Take your $10/month. I don't care if it takes me the rest of my life to pay off. $10/month was doable.
But now? Supposedly my payments should be $270/month if I go on the current Standard Plan on the FAFSA website. Almost half of what the IBR says it's going to be. But I can't trust that calculation until we can actually see what 7/1 will bring. I'm lucky, right now, $270 is doable. But that isn't that case for everyone. Hell, it wasn't the case for me until I jumped ship from an underpaying job a few months ago. The increase wasn't tens of thousands. It was $2k. Two thousand dollars. But my insurance is much cheaper, so it netted to a higher increase.
But that $270 is still an additional $260 more than I was paying before. $260 more that could go towards other debt I accrued to survive when times were hard. A personal loan and credit cards. I'm lucky, my choice isn't between a student loan payment and necessities. But that's the money I need to crawl out of the pit I had to dig to not drown.
Everyone is congratulating me and my husband for buying our first house. But what they don't know is that it was out of necessity. The apartment complex I've lived in for almost a decade has been bought out and the rent hikes they're threatening are more than a house payment. We could have moved to a new one in a shadier part of town but, in a perfect world, we hope to have a kid in the next few years. The house we bought isn't lavish but it's in a good school district. No where near the best but at least it's far from being the worst. And the price was a steal. We didn't have a down-payment. Not a dime to put down anywhere. But we have his VA loan. And this house? We needed each other to get it. His income is too low but his credit is great. Me? My income is better but my credit is lower. Why? My outstanding $105k debt. They say student loans aren't a roadblock but the lender made it clear that the $80k balance was not in my favor. But we have a house, it needs some work, but it's ours. And it's set up in a school district for someone that might end up being a fleeting dream. I refuse to bring a child into a world where they will need. We grew up that way and vowed that our kids would only ever want. They wouldn't need to worry about if there was food on the table. It would be there. But it might not be what they wanted that night.
They wonder why millennials aren't having children. We can't afford them. It's not because we wanted some fancy coffee. It's because we've got debts that are coming due and why should we add another person on to a potentially sinking ship. And, my largest debt? Student loans. I'll pay them off but it comes at the cost of delaying that new generation. For a lot of people I'm close to, it's the same. Even those that make $100k+ are hesitating because their student loans are coming due. Payments that are tripling what they were before.
When this transition begins on 7/1, I'll be getting my masters degree. Not because I "want" to. But because that's the only way to defer the payments without screwing over my future completely. I'm lucky, my new job gives us a stipend. And one class is all I need to hold off that expense. I'll never have to take out loans thanks to my job. But that's an extremely unique situation. Most companies will reimburse you X amount, but that still means paying the cost upfront. A broken system in my opinion. But, in the end, at least there's some help. And help is something we could use. I'm going to try and take that additional $270 and put it in savings. But, if that doesn't happen because present day me needs it to stay afloat. It is what it is.
Edit: for those insulted by how low my payments were...it matched my income. I was making next to nothing when payments first came due. $10 was more than an hours worth of work for me then. Obviously I know that's not sustainable...you're missing my point. People who benefited from SAVE budgeted their lives around it. Now that's gone and we have to figure it out. They gave us a time limit but trying to switch to a higher paying job right now to make up for the difference isn't feasible. If you can, that's amazing. But that's the minority of people, not the majority.