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JerseySmarts.com

A New Student Loan Update – Many Years Later

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Sometimes the updates on this blog are few and far in between and this update, in particular, is long overdue. The main focus of this entry is how I went back to the student loan well to fund my doctoral education, which ended in May 2018. In fact, the last update that I made to the Student Loans category of this blog was a note about how I was going back to school to get a doctorate and I posted that updated in June 2015.

Graduating from the USC Rossier School of Education last spring

Well, that doctoral program has come and gone and I absolutely loved it. Soon, I intend to post an entry talking about the tremendous experience that I had as part of the University of Southern California’s online doctoral program. It was amazing and really rewrote the entire online learning experience for me. Again, though, that story is for another time. This update is about student loans.

To start, I do not intend to write a series of updates about my student loan repayment experience like I did after I graduated from Monmouth University and Rutgers University some 10+ years ago. Writing about my on-going repayment of the $120,603.31 in student loans that I incurred getting a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree was fun, but I have already provided that type of content to this blog and I do not want to write about the same issue in the same manner again. Also, my personal circumstances during this repayment are much different than they were back in 2006 when I started that repayment program. When I started repaying my first set of loans back in July 2006, I did not even have a full-time job yet. Now, I have two full-time jobs and two thriving small businesses… so yeah, my situation is a little bit different.

What is also different is the amount of student loan debt that I needed to incur to complete the doctoral program. All in, I took on $89,286.86 in new student loans. This number is comprised of $87,360.16 in loan principal, $1,878.84 in capitalized interest, and $47.86 in closing and refinancing fees. For those of you keeping count, when you combine all of the student loan principal, capitalized interest, and closing and refinancing fees that I have had to pay off in my lifetime, that number is $209,890.17.

Pretty amazing, right?

Just for fun, if you want to add in the $28,851.81 that I have already paid in interest during the first set of student loans, then the total amount that I have repaid and am still tasked with repaying is $238,741.98.

In terms of repayment, the first set of student loans took me seven years and one month to repay in full. Those seven years did not necessarily go by quickly in terms of financial time. In other words, repaying those loans was brutal to a young professional just getting his career started – in the nonprofit sector no less. Today, my repayment plan is a little bit different as my first payments began in December 2018 and I expect to have these loans paid in full sometime around the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021. My estimates are still somewhat off because I am unsure if I want to repay the loans earlier and, to be honest, I am contemplating a few different repayment structures that make more financial sense. Unfortunately, my income is at a point where I can no longer write off my student loan interest as a deduction on my taxes, so paying interest on the student loans really has no financial benefit at all.

But there are other ways to make student loan interest work for you. For example, I own a home now and I have a good deal of equity in the home. If I refinance my student loans into my mortgage, then the interest incurred on the increased amount of the mortgage loan would be tax deductible (up to a point, given the recent state and local Tax limits). Also, I could take out a loan from my 401k and repay my loans that way, too. By doing that, 100% of the interest paid on the 401k loan would go back into my 401k and I would earn all of the interest paid. Either one of these options seems like a better choice than just making payments on the student loans.

That is about it for this student loan update. Again, no regular updates on my repayment this time around, but I might post a random update here and there, so be on the lookout!

Why I Volunteer My Time to My Local Chapter of Sigma Pi Fraternity

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Since August 2003, I have proudly volunteered as the local advisor to the Delta-Beta Chapter of Sigma Pi Fraternity at Monmouth University. The role that I fill is called the Chapter Director and I officially held this position for the better part of the last 14 years. There was a two and a half year period where I switched from being the Chapter Director at Monmouth to Sigma Pi Fraternity’s Province Archon for all of New Jersey. The Province Archon is a volunteer advisor and coordinator for a specific geographic region. I held that position from August 2006 through January 2009 and the reason why I resigned from that position might be the focus of a future article here on the blog, but is irrelevant today. At the time that I resigned as the Province Archon for New Jersey, the Delta-Beta Chapter Director position was just vacated by the alumnus who held the position after me, so I was able to easily move back into the Chapter Director position again. I resigned as Chapter Director last August to focus on my obligations as a member of the national board of directors, but I still work with the young men at Monmouth on a daily basis.

Undergraduates and alumni from Delta-Beta Chapter in February 2017

Before I became the Chapter Director at Monmouth, our Faculty Advisor held the position. Our Faculty Advisor is probably the best, most engaged Faculty Advisor in the entire fraternity (in fact, when Sigma Pi started giving out a #1 Faculty Advisor in the nation award, our advisor was the first recipient). However, when I graduated in 2003, the position was ripe for a new person to hold it. I spent two years as the President of my chapter and during that time I was required to research the many events, reports, and issues that our chapter was completely out of the loop on. Shortly after I graduated, the new President of the chapter and I traveled to Sigma Pi’s leadership school and talked to the fraternity’s Executive Director about our situation. During our trip, I was asked to become the new Chapter Director and we implemented that change immediately.

What I learned from my time as an undergraduate leader through my time as a young alumni volunteer and now to someone who has some seasoning as a volunteer is that undergraduates are, naturally, not as connected to the on-going workings of the national organization as one might expect. In other words, national student organizations like fraternities and sororities should not expect every single undergraduate leader at every single undergraduate chapter to take an impassioned interest in the finer points of completing and submitting monthly or quarterly or annual reports. There is going to be an equally less-than-enthusiastic understanding of why it is necessary and beneficial to attend national conferences and regional workshops.

It is one of the many jobs of a local and regional volunteer to connect with their undergraduates in an educational, uplifting, and genuine way. The connection must be educational because we need to make the mundane reporting relevant to their everyday experiences as undergraduate leaders. The connection must be uplifting because today’s young men are berated and denigrated by nearly every corner of society just because they are young men. Who will tell our young men, “Good job!” or “I’m proud of you,” if not for us?

But most importantly, the connection must be genuine because undergraduates can see through lies and falsehoods with laser-like accuracy. And they should cut through the nonsense!

I’ll be writing more about mentoring undergraduates soon, so stay tuned!

Small Business Entrepreneurship and Doctoral Studies

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Last August, I started a doctoral program at the University of Southern California. Thus far, I have really enjoyed all aspects of the program from my fellow students to the incredibly talented professors to the online learning environment that our learning takes place in to everything in between. Even the textbooks that we are required to purchase for our classes are a cut above most of the textbooks that I used in my other graduate and undergraduate studies. Since starting this program, the majority of my free time is now spent reading different studies for my classes and preparing for small group and full class discussions. I am writing this short paragraph about the USC program to show that I am enjoying the program and to state how glad I am that I decided to apply to become a student again for the last time.

Greek State of Mind is growing!

Greek State of Mind is growing!

With the start of the USC program at the end of last summer, I opted to stop all of my activities in whatever was left of Usable Web Solutions, LLC. Those activities included keeping several websites updated on a semi-regular basis and working to promote those websites via social media. Before completely stopping my activities with UWS, I was keeping at least one website regularly updated (“regularly” = almost daily) for about 20 years. Stopping those updates and moving away from my online business was a big change for me, though not an entirely bad one. The best part of relieving myself of my UWS duties was freeing up more of my time to focus on my other small business – a small, niche apparel company.

The apparel company that I co-own with another alumnus from my fraternity is doing very well, too. Our company – Greek State of Mind – had its biggest sales year in 2015. However, we are about 10 weeks into 2016 and we have generated more revenue this year than we did during the first 40 or so weeks of 2015. In the world of small business entrepreneurship, this is the type of growth that most companies dream of achieving. We are very happy with GSOM and are excited about expanding our product lines including a shirt celebrating the Monmouth University men’s basketball team and their Bench Mob.

And speaking of the Monmouth Bench Mob, I know that I speak for all Monmouth University basketball fans when I write that we are hopeful the NCAA selection committee will make the right decision and send the Hawks to the big dance this Sunday! #FlyHawks!

This Was A Great Weekend For Sigma Pi Fraternity!

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This past Saturday was a great day for Sigma Pi Fraternity, particularly in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic parts of the country. In fact, Saturday was part of a much larger weekend of excellence for the fraternity in so many ways. Let’s dial it back to this past Thursday. On Thursday night, a group of young men who are interested in becoming members of Sigma Pi Fraternity met with their university’s Greek Advisor to lay out a path to starting a colony. Growth in the fraternity world is always an exciting accomplishment and speaking on behalf of Sigma Pi Fraternity in New Jersey, I know that we’re very excited about the possibility of having a chapter at Stockton University! Stockton is a growing, energetic campus and it is a place where Sigma Pi Fraternity needs to have a chapter. I’m thankful that these young men took the initiative to start something that will benefit not just themselves, but their campus and community as well.

Sigma Pi Fraternity is working with Stockton University on a path to colonization

Sigma Pi Fraternity is working with Stockton University on a path to colonization

The weekend continued on Friday afternoon when the Delta-Beta Chapter at Monmouth University welcomed back a recent alumnus to lead a discussion on recruitment. The talk lasted about half an hour and focused proven, successful strategies for recruitment at Monmouth University. Check out a picture of the young alumnus talking to the undergraduates of the chapter during the workshop below.

Alumnus Andre Torrecuso talks to the Delta-Beta Chapter about recruitment

Alumnus Andre Torrecuso talks to the Delta-Beta Chapter about recruitment

On Saturday, Sigma Pi celebrated the chartering of our newest chapter on the campus of St. John’s University in New York! The Iota-Tau Chapter chartered with more than 40 young men joining our brotherhood. These guys have spent the last few semesters working very hard to reach the pinnacle of the colonization process and this past Saturday, they achieved their goal. Take a look at the newest brothers of Sigma Pi Fraternity!

A shot of the the new Iota-Tau Chapter, posted by Joe Turck

A shot of the the new Iota-Tau Chapter, posted by Regional Director Joe Turck

Just across the river from the chartering was the annual New Jersey Province’s Fall Semester Workshop. This workshop has grown in size over the years to a point where it now hosts hundreds of brothers each September. On Saturday, just over 200 Sigma Pi brothers (including some interest group members from Stockton) traveled to Seton Hall University for several hours of instruction and brotherhood. Here is a picture of some of the attendees at the workshop (more pictures are available on the Province Facebook page).

More than 200 Sigma Pi guys gathered at Seton Hall University for New Jersey's Fall Province Workshop

Over 200 Sigma Pi guys at Seton Hall University for New Jersey’s Fall Province Workshop

And on the other side of New Jersey’s other river (the Delaware River), the Mid-Atlantic Province Workshop was taking place at the University of Delaware. The workshop drew in 80 brothers from chapters including the host chapter at the University of Delaware, West Chester University, Ursinus College, and St. Joseph’s University. In addition, another 11 guys from the Stockton interest group made their way to the workshop, too. While I don’t have any pictures from the workshop, I’ll update this post as soon as they come in.

The pictures from the Mid-Atlantic Province Workshop haven't been sent out... yet!

The pictures from the Mid-Atlantic Province Workshop haven’t been sent out… yet!

Then yesterday, the brothers of the Delta-Beta Chapter at Monmouth University held a suicide awareness event on the Great Lawn of Monmouth University. The event was held in collaboration with the sisters of Alpha Sigma Tau and focused on spreading awareness about suicide and prevention. One of Sigma Pi Fraternity’s national philanthropies is the Sean Vernon Feliciano Amazing Day Foundation, which remembers the life of Sean Vernon Feliciano through education about suicide awareness and prevention. Here is a picture of a balloon release that took place on the Great Lawn during the event.

Monmouth University's Greek Life gathered on the Great Lawn

Monmouth University’s Greek Life gathered on the Great Lawn

There was also a mini-reunion of some Delta-Beta alumni on Thursday night and nearly a dozen recruitment events around the New Jersey Province this weekend – and those are just the events that I know about! It was a great weekend for Sigma Pi Fraternity in New Jersey, the Mid-Atlantic, and New York City. In fact, Sigma Pi Fraternity needs more of these weekends, in more places, and much more often!

Monmouth Comes From Behind To Beat Canisius in MAAC Play

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Earlier today, the Monmouth University Hawks came from behind to beat the Canisius College Golden Griffins at the MAC in West Long Branch, New Jersey. The game wasn’t very exciting or thrilling until the final few minutes when Monmouth came from behind to beat the number one ranked team in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference with just one second left in the game. Instead of me trying to explain the excitement of that moment, take a look at the video below and you can see for yourself:

I’m not sure if the video adequately captures the excitement in the MAC when Andrew Nicholas sunk that 3 pointer to seal the deal for Monmouth. The place was electric. I’ve never seen the type of sheer excitement in the MAC as I saw after the game today. Even Monmouth Head Coach King Rice was jumping up and down, hugging Assistant Coach Rick Callahan the entire time. It was a great, well-deserved “feel good moment” for Monmouth.

There were a lot of players that came together with good performances to help push Monmouth ahead. You can read more about those performances in Josh Newman’s writeup over on the Asbury Park Press’ The Hawks Nest blog.