And that’s the end of my student loans.

And not only is there nothing due on the loan, but it looks like MOHELA actually owes me 15 cents! Ha ha!

In July 2006 I began repaying $120,603.31 in student loan debt. This debt was comprised of $106,070.00 in loan principal, $12,434.58 in capitalized interest, and $2,098.73 in closing and refinancing fees. I made the final payment on this debt in August 2013. My lenders included the United States Department of Education’s (USED) Perkins loan program, the USED’s subsidized and unsubsidized Direct Loan programs, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority’s NJCLASS program, CitiBank, and the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (the USED sold my loan to MOHELA in April 2012). In total, I paid $149,455.12 to these lenders including $120,603.31 in consolidated principal and $28,851.81 in interest. You can read my entire student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Before I started an aggressive repayment plan in December 2009 it seemed like today would be impossible to realize. Think about the situation that I was faced with (and remember that many current large dollar student loan borrowers are still in similar situations): How could a guy manage to repay approximately $121 thousand in student loan debt with a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in Public Policy? Further, how could a guy repay such an astronomical figure much quicker than the 25 and 30 year repayment plans his lenders put him on? Worse yet, how could anyone who worked at a nonprofit organization, did not rely on outside financial support, did not live at home, paid all of their own bills (on-time), lived in the most expensive state in the union, and who felt a moral obligation to annually donate at least 10% of his income achieve this goal? To say that the odds were against this day coming as soon as it did is an understatement! This goal was nearly impossible for anyone to achieve.

It's over!

During my last “major announcement” post back in December 2010 I happily reported that I was done repaying the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA). The NJHESAA’s series of smaller NJCLASS loans were – after consolidation – one of the two major student loans that I was obligated to repay after graduating from a master’s degree program at Rutgers back in 2006. The other major series of smaller loans – also consolidated into a single loan – were from the United States Department of Education (USED) and their Direct Loans program. Ultimately, the USED sold my loan to the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) – the lender that received my final payment earlier today.

I also had loans from two smaller sources including $1,400 from the USED’s federal Perkins loan program through Monmouth University and $7,000 (plus an additional $1,071.52 in interest) from Citibank’s student loan program.

Just as I reported after paying off my NJHESAA loan, here are the stats as they pertain to repaying my USED/MOHELA loan (these figures include both the amount of the loan and the capitalized interest; also, these are my figures and may be a few pennies or a dollar or two off from what the USED/MOHELA keeps on file).

The list above shows the various USED loans that I consolidated into the final $59,020.15 loan that I began repaying in 2006. If you study that list above, there are three lines that will probably bounce out and hit you – my summer session in 2002, my part-time graduate semester in 2004, and my first year in graduate school as a full-time student in 2004 – 2005. The first two of these line items probably stand out because I did not incur any USED loans during those semesters. Why didn’t I take out any loans, you ask? Simple. As an undergraduate, the USED would not advance me any loans if I was a part-time student – that eliminated me from potentially getting a loan during the summer of 2002 (I made up the difference from NJHESAA that summer). And in the spring of 2004 I was still deciding if I wanted to apply to the Rutgers graduate program where I was a non matriculated student. Again, being a part-time student didn’t allow me to take out any loans from the USED.

Of course, I did wind up applying to the Rutgers program on a full-time basis and that first full-time year of graduate school is the other line item that stands out in the list above. This line item stands out because it is so much higher than the rest of the line items at a whopping $19,156.45. What in the world could I need that much money for in a student loan?! Again, the answer is somewhat simple: somewhere along the line I figured out that the USED would advance loan funds to pay for my “living expenses” while I was going to school full-time.

If there is one thing that I can point to that inflated my total student loan debt more than anything else it would be the ability to add my “living expenses” to my student loan requests. Even though I worked part-time at two different jobs during my undergraduate years and full-time during my graduate years (in addition to owning and operating a small business), I still included my living expenses in my student loan requests. Those living expenses including my monthly rent payments, cell phone payments, food money, automobile payments, and Lord knows what else. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you the exact amount of my student loans were allocated to these living expenses, but let me put it in perspective this way…

Pretty much all of the tuition I was charged during graduate school was paid either by me, my family, or scholarships. You read that correctly – I did not need to take out student loans to pay for my tuition at Rutgers. In other words, if you look at the list above and add up the line items titled Graduate Year One (2004 – 2005), Summer Session (2005), and Graduate Year Two (2005 – 2006), then you’ll have the total dollar amount of student loans that I requested for reasons other than tuition. After doing the math, you can see that this amount equals $32,043.37. Just to be clear, of the $120,720 that I took out in student loans, at least $32,043.37 were for expenses other than tuition. I won’t set this number in stone as the definitive total amount of loan funds that I received for non-tuition expenses because I also applied for and received living expenses (primarily rent costs) from the NJHESAA’s NJCLASS program, too.

However, to estimate that approximately a third ($40,420) of my total student loan debt was for living expenses and not tuition would be a pretty good guess. Pretty frightening, I know.

And yet today still arrived. From an above-the-fold cover story in USA Today in June 2006 to fully repaying my NJHESAA loan in December 2010, to a nice mention in an online story on USA Today in May 2011, to the milestone of having repaid $100,000 in principal, to today – it’s been an incredible ride. If you’ve been following my student loan story from the beginning, then I offer my heartfelt thanks for your patronage and willingness to read my repayment story to the end. For those of you who have added comments to these blog entries from time to time, I thank you for being a part of the conversation. If you’re one of the many folks who’ve e-mailed me saying that I inspired you to take a more aggressive stance in your own student loan repayment, then I wish you luck.

Quickly and efficiently repaying a student loan is possible; even if that student loan is $120,603.31 on day one and you wind up paying an additional $28,851.81 in interest over the life of your repayment. The great truth that I learned over these past few years is that if you want to do something, then you will find a way to achieve it. In other words, no one can stop you – except you.

And if you’re trying to repay an enormous student loan, then contact me and share your story. Good luck!

In July 2006 I began repaying $120,603.31 in student loan debt. This debt was comprised of $106,070.00 in loan principal, $12,434.58 in capitalized interest, and $2,098.73 in closing and refinancing fees. I made the final payment on this debt in August 2013. My lenders included the United States Department of Education’s (USED) Perkins loan program, the USED’s subsidized and unsubsidized Direct Loan programs, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority’s NJCLASS program, CitiBank, and the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (the USED sold my loan to MOHELA in April 2012). In total, I paid $149,455.12 to these lenders including $120,603.31 in consolidated principal and $28,851.81 in interest. You can read my entire student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

I’m only sharing this information with the readers of this site and/or the folks who find us from Bing or Google because I want to show you that there is hope – even in the face of seemingly insurmountable student loan debt. However, success doesn’t just happen; you need a plan. The Excel spreadsheet that I uploaded on the other page was the primary tool I used to track and amend my plan.

I uploaded the “paid in full” letter just to show the world that there is an end of the rainbow that you can reach if you just plan it out. Set goals and meet them, folks. Make it your plan for 2011 to repay a significant portion of your student loan debt or consumer debt and then use whatever tools are at your disposal (maybe the spreadsheet that I uploaded) to keep a check on your plan and – more importantly – yourself. Enjoy!

It feels weird not having to decide whether or not I should drop my checking account down to $20, $30, or $50 so I can make that much bigger of a payment to NJHESAA. It feels weird checking my personal financial spreadsheets and seeing that I have a few thousand dollars sitting there instead of less than $100. It feels weird to think about reaching other financial goals that involve me paying myself first before paying some outside loan company (i.e. saving money instead of paying down high interest debt).

It all just feels weird.

None of these feels unknown, though, and that’s a strong distinction to make. You see, I’ve lived life as someone who didn’t worry about the money he was spending. When I was in college I had a troubling mixture of credit cards and semesterly student loan surplus payments that I used to wreak havoc on my personal financial situation. Hey – young people do stupid things, right?

But the big difference this time around is that while I am a little taken aback at the financial freedom that I’m now able to work within, I’m not overwhelmed by it. In other words, I’m not spending my money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Instead, I’m eagerly awaiting this Saturday to get here so we’re officially in 2011 and I can start attacking my new financial goals. Some of you might ask, “Why not start hitting those financial goals now, Joe?” And I would respond by saying that there is a clear method to my madness.

Each year I set out some 15 or so financial goals. These goals include how much I want to donate to certain charities (and, specifically, to which funds within those charities), how much money I want to save, how much money I want to invest, how much of each of my debts I want to repay, etc. Well, I never actually hit all of those goals each year… until 2010. Not only did I hit all of my financial goals in the past year, but I shattered them good.

So I’ve opted to let the few dollars that have come in from my various paychecks over the last two weeks just sit in my checking account so that on January 1, 2011 I can start aggressively pursuing my 2011 financial goals. Hey, maybe I’ll post those goals on here for you folks to read – that might make an interesting entry!

Ahem… that’s ten thousand, eight hundred and seventy-seven dollars and thirty three friggin’ cents!!! Go ahead, take a look at the damn check for yourself:

A Hard Check to Write...

Pretty revolting, huh? Look, I’ve written until my fingers hurt about how much I hate sending this much money to the student loan companies. But this is a good moment and it signals a much better moment that is coming up in the next few days. In the next few days I’m going to log-on to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority’s website and check my online balance. And when I log-on I’m going to see that the very check you see above was received and processed. And then I’ll see that my NJCLASS loan, which initially started at some $51,595.27 in July 2006, is fully repaid.

And then I’ll breathe a sigh of relief and be able to relax for the first time since I started this crazy, extreme repayment plan some twelve months ago.

And, unfortunately, this has completely consumed me to the point where I’ve not really been able to focus on writing consistent entries on the blog. In addition, I’ve spending a lot of time preparing a major final report for my Public Relations Specialist Certification program. That report will be submitted for approval in about ten days so between juggling the financial transactions, my day job, both of my teaching jobs, and the final certification project – I’ve been a little preoccupied!

However, I have some fun, exciting entries coming up on JerseySmarts.com in the next two weeks or so. Keep an eye on this place, because that student loan is going to bite the dust before anyone even knows it!

Down to $65 thousand overall

As of today, I’ve sold off all but one of my holdings from my stock portfolio. I’m still holding on to Sirius XM’s stock because I hate to sell thousands of shares of a stock that will only go up I think the stock will go up a few more pennies in the next week or so. And since I own so many shares, those pennies can translate into big dollars (hence the name “penny stocks”). However, at this point I’m all sold out of my Ford, Barnes & Noble, and other stocks.

It sort of sucks, actually. I spent two years building up a pretty powerful portfolio and here I am two years after my very first investment was made and it’s pretty much all gone. What’s more – it’s all gone in an effort to eliminate this NJHESAA student loan! So while I’m a little annoyed that my portfolio is all but eliminated in an almost-completed successful effort to repay a single student loan, I’m glad that the loan will be gone before the end of 2010 and that I can focus on rebuilding my savings and investment accounts in 2011.

Be on the lookout here at JerseySmarts.com. When that final payment is made in the next few weeks, there’s going to be a celebration!

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $65 thousand, which breaks down to $10.8 thousand owed to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and $54.5 thousand owed to the United States Department of Education. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

At some point yesterday afternoon I finally received a response from NJHESAA regarding an e-mail I sent them a few days ago. In fact, I received a response from an Assistant Director over there, so I was pleased that my problem was handled by someone in the leadership structure. And, to this gentleman’s credit, he wrote a real response instead of sending me something generated by a computer. Here, take a read of what I received and then I’ll pick up the story afterward the text of the e-mail.

Your check in the amount of $4,300 was received by our lockbox on October 25th. The lockbox processes all payments received and then notifies HESAA on a daily basis what payments were posted to what accounts. I do not know why, but your check was rejected from the normal process and was required to be posted manually to your account. Unfortunately, the bank did not notify HESAA of this issue until late this past Monday. Due to election day on Tuesday, HESAA’s offices were closed. When we received your email on Wednesday, we contacted our Accounting Department and they advised us your payment had been posted. Please be aware that it was posted as of the received date, October 25th. Please accept my apologies in the delay caused by our bank with processing your payment.

If you feel more comfortable mailing your payments directly to HESAA at the below address, please feel free to do so. These payments will go directly to our Accounting Department for processing. When you are ready to pay your loan in full, you may use the same address and please email me directly at XXXXXX@hesaa.org and I will be happy to supply you with a payoff figure.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact me directly

As I read through this message yesterday, I admit that I was impressed how the response directly answered my concern about no longer trusting the standard payment processing system and wanting to, instead, send my checks directly to NJHESAA’s administrative building. Most of the time when you complain to a company, they send you an automated response that doesn’t even come close to answering your question. This guy actually answered my question and concern directly.

I have to say that this response was impressive and clearly the best customer service experience that I ever had with NJHESAA. Usually when I call in to the help line I’m either told how I don’t know what I’m talking about or treated as though I’m ignorant of how finances work (meanwhile, my job is to manage multimillion dollar loans on a daily basis – I think I know a little something about this industry). But this e-mail was good and I applaud the gentleman that wrote it.

If only my experience with this lending institution was that thoughtful and impressive since the beginning… What a shame.

Only $69 thousand left!

The big news this week is that my student loan repayment plan broke through the $70 thousand barrier. That’s great! Seems like only yesterday that 2009 was coming to a close and I still owed $97 thousand in total student loan debt.

It would appear that I’ve come a long way since last December, huh? But the journey isn’t over yet. In fact, after going through my finances last night, I’m still on track to deliver the final repayment check to NJHESAA this December… only weeks away!

Sure, my savings and investments will be completely depleted, but that’s okay. The day after I make that final student loan payment, the work begins again to rebuild a savings and investment safety net as well as begin attacking the United States Department of Education (USDOE) student loan that I still have outstanding. But first things first – this NJCLASS loan must be repaid before I worry about rebuilding the safety net or attacking the USDOE loan.

Stay tuned – it’s about to get fun around JerseySmarts.com…

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $69 thousand, which breaks down to $14.6 thousand owed to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and $54.5 thousand owed to the United States Department of Education. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

And it was applied as of October 25, 2010, too. Since my bank account showed that the check was cashed yesterday, I have to reason that someone did hear my complaints over at NJHESAA and took some action. Assuming that my reasoning is correct, this would be a good action on behalf of NJHESAA – quite possibly the first good interaction that I’ve had with the company since I started repaying my NJCLASS loan during the summer of 2006.

In any event, tomorrow I’ll bring you another student loan repayment update and I apologize in advance for all of the student loan-themed entries this week. However, as you can tell from the tone of these entries I was getting more and more furious with NJHESAA for their lack of convenience and acceptable customer service. At the end of the day, the good news is that I’m down to about $14 thousand that I owe to NJHESAA and I’m going to pay that off sooner rather than later.