How Anna Got $127k Forgiven Through PSLF
Anna Santoro shares her journey of pursuing and receiving Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
About Today’s Guest
CDR Santoro received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from MCPHS University and earned her Masters of Arts in counseling, specializing in emergency response and trauma from Liberty University. She is an officer in the US Public Health Service, assigned to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). In the BOP, CDR Santoro is a Mental Health Clinical Specialist at Federal Medical Center (FMC) Devens in Ayer, MA, and also serves as a Federal Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) Regional Mental Health Clinical Pharmacy Consultant. CDR Santoro developed and implemented the BOP’s first Mental Health Clinical Pharmacy Program, and assisted with the expansion of pharmacy mental health services to >8 facilities with both inpatient and outpatient psychiatric pharmacist services as well as a national Mental Health Consultant program serving 122 institutions. Additionally, CDR Santoro is the Lead Consultant for pain management and for the Memory Disorder Unit at FMC Devens, the BOP’s only dedicated service for the treatment of inmates with dementia.
Summary
Finally, a real-life pharmacist who has received Public Service Loan Forgiveness! Anna Santoro, a pharmacist and officer in the U.S. Public Health Service, joins Tim Ulbrich to talk about her journey to PSLF. She talks about what it felt like ultimately receiving PSLF, her experience along the way, and lessons she learned that ultimately may help other pharmacists pursuing the same path to loan forgiveness.
In 2009, Anna had about $225 in loans, with approximately $145,000 of those loans classified as federal loans. She prepared to live on a shoestring budget and make huge payments, loan payments more costly than her rent payment at the time, to keep up with those loans. Luckily a colleague provided some information on PSLF and Anna was on her 10-year journey to having $127,000 of those loans forgiven. She explains that the feeling of having the balance on the loans as zero was surreal, but something that she had worked for diligently, and it was fun to see the outcome.
Anna shared two of her challenges along the way that may help other pharmacists. While making her payments toward PSLF, she enrolled in a Master’s degree program, which triggered her loan payments to go into deferment while in school. Because PSLF required consecutive, on-time payments, Anna had to request her loans be taken out of deferment and never go into deferment for the reason of attending educational programs in the future. After making this request in writing, she was able to automate her payments once again. The second challenge that Anna shared was regarding her tax filings and how filing “Married – Filing Jointly” affected her income-driven repayments, which had to be adjusted after she updated her filing information to “Married – Filing Separately.”
For those pharmacists pursuing PSLF, Anna says, don’t get discouraged. Ten years is a very long time but seeing the final results makes it worth it.
Mentioned on the Show
- YFP Planning: Financial Planning for Pharmacists
- Register for the Free Webinar: Financial Considerations When Having or Adopting a Child on August 12 at 8:30 PM ET
- Seven Figure Pharmacist by Tim Church, PharmD and Tim Ulbrich, PharmD
- The Pharmacist’s Guide to Conquering Student Loans by Tim Church, PharmD
- Baker’s Dirty Dozen: Principles for Financial Independence by Joe Baker, MBA with Lindsey Jordan Baker
- YFP 018: Maximizing the Benefits of Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)
- YFP 078: Is Pursuing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program a Waste?
- YFP 187: How to Maximize Your Student Loan Strategy While Federal Student Loan Payments are Paused
- Commission Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service: SRCOSTEP
Episode Transcript
Tim Ulbrich: Anna, welcome to the show.
Anna Santoro: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
Tim Ulbrich: I’m so excited to have you on to talk about your journey of reaching Public Service Loan Forgiveness, PSLF, something we talk often about on this show, but a real, live pharmacist who has actually gotten forgiveness and excited about being able to feature your story, your journey, as others I suspect may be interested in learning about that journey, what worked, what went as planned, what didn’t go as planned, and we’re going to dig into all of that here in a moment. And for those that are listening, you know that we have talked about student loans in depth on this show. And we have covered loan forgiveness before as well. So if you want to go back and revisit some of that material, Episode 018, we talked about maximizing the benefits of PSLF; Episode 078, we talked about is pursuing Public Service Loan Forgiveness a waste and we’re going to dig into some more of where that background came for that episode on this show today; and then on Episode 187, we talked about how another pharmacist, Stephanie, got $72,000 forgiven through TEPSLF program. And so the PSLF program has definitely had its share of bad press, but I think it’s exciting and hopeful to see someone in our community reach the finish line. So Anna, tell us about your journey into pharmacy, what ultimately drew you into the profession, where you went to school, and some of the work that you’re doing now.
Anna Santoro: Yeah, absolutely. So I actually kind of fell into pharmacy. I originally went to undergraduate to become a Spanish teacher and worked in pharmacy to pay my way through school and realized that I absolutely loved it. Transitioned into pre-pharmacy my junior year of undergrad, and then I went to Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in Massachusetts for my pharmacy school. I did their three-year accelerated program. And I had all intentions of working retail pharmacy, kind of translating within the Hispanic community and using my language background. And through their program, one of the things that they did was kind of really try to expose you to different types of pharmacy. And I met a pharmacist who worked for the U.S. Public Health Service with the Bureau of Prisons. And she really just kind of found a new passion for myself and for my ability to kind of help serve others after meeting with her and kind of learning about her work. And she introduced me to a program within the U.S. Public Health Service where you can sign on as a scholarship student called Senior Costep, and you’re able to receive an income your last year of pharmacy school and then you repay that back for two years after you get out of school. So I ended up doing that and just decided, you know, serving and being able to serve in uniform, helping those who need and helping our country in times of emergency was just something that I really liked, and I liked the fact that it was always changing. Plus, working within the federal pharmacy field, you know, you’re working at the top of your license. You can do a lot more than I had initially realized that a pharmacist could do when I went in with the hope to be a retail pharmacist.
Tim Ulbrich: And another benefit, which we’ll get to through the rest of this interview, is obviously working for a qualified employer that opened up some of the PSLF opportunities. So before we go down that path, Anna, tell us about your debt position, what that was like after graduating, how much you ended up paying for school, and how much of that did you borrow with student loans?
Anna Santoro: Yeah, so I ended up doing five years of undergrad because I changed my major so late and then three years of graduate school. So I was really lucky, I had a scholarship as well as some parent help for my first four years of undergrad. For my last year, I ended up taking about $8,000 in loans and then I paid $10,000 for my tuition there. I ended up financing 100% of my graduate pharmacy school loans. So I came out of school with about $225,000 or so in loans altogether. It was a mix of federal and private. I had about $145,000 within the federal system.
Tim Ulbrich: OK. And that was 2009, just to give our listeners a timeline, 2009 when you came out of pharmacy school.
Anna Santoro: Yeah.
Tim Ulbrich: OK. So before we talk about your PSLF journey, I want to take a step back and give some quick background and information about PSLF to our listeners that might be hearing some of this for the first time or for folks that also want a refresher. And we talk about this in much more detail in our book “The Ultimate Guide to Pay Back Pharmacy School Loans,” and so I’d encourage folks to check that out, available at PharmDLoans.com. And as I mentioned a little bit earlier, PSLF has certainly gotten some negative press along the way. And we’re going to talk about whether or not that may be fair. And I believe, we believe, that despite its rocky past and in some regards, some questions around what the future means for PSLF, I believe that it’s one of the best payoff strategies available for pharmacists and without question is often the most beneficial to the borrower in terms of the monthly payment. Obviously the goal with forgiveness is try to maximize forgiveness, minimize the monthly payment, and then what that means for paying amount over the life of the loan and then what you’re able to do in terms of moving other financial goals forward as well. And so there are really several key requirements that folks need to be thinking about that are pursuing Public Service Loan Forgiveness. And for those that have read some of that negative press and perhaps are intimidated by PSLF, I think it’s often one of these rules and these requirements that folks may feel like there’s a burdensome process. And some of the horror stories you hear around PSLF ultimately come from folks that may not have followed one of these important steps along the way. So quickly, No. 1 is you have to work for the right kind of employer. That’s a government agency, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit, as well as some other not-for-profit organizations. No. 2 is you have to have the right kind of loans, and those are direct loans. So in some cases, you have to go through an important step of consolidation if you don’t have qualifying loans. No. 3 is you have to be in the right repayment plan, and that’s an income-driven repayment plan. Also counts would be the standard 10-year repayment plan, although that wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense since you’d pay them off. No. 4 is you have to make the right amount of payments, that’s 120 monthly payments that do not have to be consecutive but 10 years worth of payments. And then finally, you prove it and you apply for and receive tax-free forgiveness. And so now that we have some of that background information or reminder on PSLF, Anna, tell us about ultimately how much was forgiven for you and forgiven tax-free through PSLF.
Anna Santoro: Yeah, so I ended up — like I said, I started out with about $145,000 in loans, and when all in all was said and done, I think I had a little over $127,000 forgiven, all of it tax-free.
Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and that — so just thinking of the math right there, $145,000 in federal loans, $127,000 forgiven tax-free, a little over a 10-year period, that just shows the impact of the interest on these types of loans, right? Because you obviously were making some of those income-driven payments along the way but still had a big chunk of that that was to be forgiven because of what that interest accrues. And I think a lot of pharmacists are feeling that they’re at a crossroads upon graduation with trying to figure out if they should work with a qualifying employer and pursue PSLF or if they should pay off their loans in the federal system sooner or perhaps even refinance them with a private lender. And of course, some folks inadvertently end up pursuing PSLF because of the work that they’re doing with a qualifying employer. And so my question here for you is how and why did you make the decision to pursue PSLF instead of some of the other options that are out there for loan repayment?
Anna Santoro: Yeah, so I originally went into the standard repayment. I was making the extremely large payments when I first got out of school. And I had a coworker who was like, “What are you doing? No. Here’s this program,” and basically gave me the phone number to call, helped me consolidate my federal loans so that I would be into a qualifying program, helped me enroll. And as we kind of got farther down the road when I first graduated, the National Health Service loan repayment option and a couple of the other loan repayments weren’t available for pharmacists. And as those changed, I really kind of had to make that decision of like, do I stay with this? Do I move over to this program? And I think I just kind of said, “Well, you know, it’s going well. I’m getting closer, I’m getting closer. Let’s just keep my fingers crossed.” But I was really lucky. I had no intentions of doing anything other than just paying off my loans and living on a shoestring budget while I did so at the beginning. But luckily, I had some really good colleagues who were looking out for me.
Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I too am glad you had the colleagues looking out for you because one of the things I share is that in 2021, the information I think available is a lot better for the borrower.
Anna Santoro: Yes.
Tim Ulbrich: You know, we have to remember this program was enacted legislatively in 2007, 10-year timeline at a minimum, so the first borrowers that were really starting to experience forgiveness, it’s not that long ago, right? And the information has gotten a lot better, and so I think sometimes some of the stories and so forth that we hear, it’s important that we have that context of what information available, folks had available. And when you graduated in ‘09, when I graduated in ‘08, I didn’t even know what Public Service Loan Forgiveness was, let alone the rules of what needed to be involved. And I think today’s graduate is certainly much better informed, of which I’m grateful for that. So $127,000 that was forgiven and forgiven tax-free. What was your journey like paying off these loans? Did you have any reservations or concerns about PSLF before you started or even during the forgiveness pathway?
Anna Santoro: So I think for me, it felt really similarly to like graduating from pharmacy school and taking the NAPLEX. Like I was working, and I was kind of doing all of the steps, but you just worry that until that — I mean, even up after I made my 120 payments — that the program’s going to shut down or I will have filled out a paperwork wrong or maybe even though U.S. Public Health Service has the words “public health” in it, they’re not going to accept it. So until I actually got the like, “Congratulations, your loans are forgiven,” and I saw that $0 balance, I think I kind of just always had a little bit of concern in the background. But you know, at the same time, I kind of said, “Well, it is the government and it is in writing, and so usually they have to uphold what they put in writing.” So I kind of said, “Well, let’s just do some blind trust and hope.” But luckily it worked out.
Tim Ulbrich: A little bit of trust there. And that’s one of the reasons I’m excited to share your story is I think it’s really helpful for folks to hear from another pharmacist, someone they can relate to, that has gone down this path that maybe had similar reservations and we’ll talk in a moment here about hiccups along the way. But some trust that’s involved as well in the process if you feel good about following those rules along the way. You know, one of the things, Anna, that I like to think about here is that it feels like everybody has their own PSLF story. And what I mean by that is we know the rules. I just listed them off one by one. But inevitably, everyone’s got some variation that happens, whether it’s with paperwork or dealing with the loan servicer or something unique to the employment situation or non-consecutive payments — I mean, there’s just a whole lot of different scenarios and situations that can come. So for you and your individual journey, were there any issues or hiccups along the way that yes, you got to that $0 balance but it also had some bumps along the road?
Anna Santoro: Yeah, actually two. So throughout my career, I work in clinical pharmacy and I decided to go back and get a Master’s degree to kind of further my education beyond just my PharmD. And when I enrolled in school, PSLF and the loan repayment program just automatically moved my loans into deferment because they said, “Well, you’re in school, so you don’t need to pay.” And I actually had to fight with them to say, “No, like I want to keep making my payments.” And with PSLF, one of the requirements is that it has to be an on-time payment. So even when they defer, I would have to call and say, “Please take my loans out of deferment, please take a payment today. I do not want this marked late.” And there was some question as to whether or not those payments that I even did make were going to count or not since I was having to do them manually. So I was a little concerned about that. But after my third semester of grad school, I actually reached — you know, sometimes you just get the right person on the phone. And they said, “Well, if you fill out a memo or send us an email saying you never want your loans to be moved into deferment because of in-school status, then this won’t happen again.” And so that was really helpful because then I didn’t have to worry OK, it’s August, or, it’s the beginning of a semester, double check that my loan — that my payment was taken out. So that was really helpful in being able to kind of finish my Master’s degree and not have to worry that those loans were being taken out. The other thing was when I graduated from pharmacy school, I wasn’t married, it was just my income. And then in 2013, I got married and didn’t even think about it, and I just started filing my taxes as married filing jointly. And my husband was in graduate school at the time. He actually went back to school to go to physical therapy. So the first three years that we were married, we had zero income on his income, so I just noticed that our total monthly payment went down because he was earning nothing, but now I had an extra person in our family size. But the year that he graduated and his loans came in and we sent our taxes in — or his income became factored in, I said, “Whoa, whoa, why is my payment three times what it used to be?” And I just kind of thought, OK, well this is how it is. Alright. It’s still better than if I was making the standard payment. And then I was actually listening to I think one of your podcasts, I think it might have been podcast No. 18 that you mentioned, and it said, don’t forget, file married filing separately. And I was just like, ohhhh. So luckily with PSLF, you can go in and adjust your income or say that you have an adjustment to a family size or adjustment to personal income really kind of at any time. So I went, I was able to refill out my income-based repayment and then did my taxes married filing separately from then on. And that made a huge difference in my payments. But I had about 18 months to two years where I paid probably double or triple what I should have.
Tim Ulbrich: I can tell you from sharing those, you’re going to have a positive impact on others. And thank you for sharing those because those are two common things I think pharmacists that might pursue additional degrees or training, right, that could be residencies that are combined with Master’s degree, I’m thinking of like Health System Admin, MBA, or even just Master’s, PhD programs that are independent of residency. So that probably is fairly common. And then certainly we know firsthand the tax situation is a common one and changes in tax situation. And I think this is a great example about why the tax part of the financial plan needs to be wedded and married to other parts of the financial plan and considerations that we make. You know, student loans and taxes in this case can very much go hand-in-hand, and we want to make sure we’re considering the implications here. So two great lessons that are learned along the way. Not glad that you had to pay a little bit extra along the way, but I am glad that we can help share some of that with other folks. What about the best moment or two that you had during this journey? I think so often we talk about the hassle and the hiccups and the bumps along the road, but some of the best moments on this journey in ultimating getting these loans forgiven.
Anna Santoro: So I had my loans forgiven earlier this year, so I was still paying through COVID, I knew exactly where I was on the payments. But I did not realize that the legislation because of COVID was going to — I know they said that we don’t have to make student payments, student loan payments. And I said, “Well, I’m just going to keep paying because I want to get my PSLF.” And I had no clue that it would change your payments to $0 payments and still qualify for PSLF. And I was actually having my check-in with Tim with Your Financial Pharmacist, and he was — I can still see his face on the computer — and he said, “Actually,” he’s like, “No,” he’s like, “This should be done.” He’s like, “So you have made your last loan payment.”
Tim Ulbrich: Wow.
Anna Santoro: And I remember thinking like, OK, no, like that didn’t just happen. How did I not get to enjoy my last loan payment? But then I said, that’s fine. And then once I hit my number of payments, I submitted all my paperwork, and I actually had three or four colleagues that were all — we all graduated together, we’re all within U.S. Public Health Service, we were all submitting and emailing. And we knew whose stuff had gotten submitted, like what day their applications were in. And one of my colleagues sent me an email — I knew her application was about two weeks ahead of mine — and she said, “My payments just went to $0. I’m good.” And so I started checking every day. And it was about 10:30 at night, I had logged on. I had logged on that morning and nothing, my normal student loan balance, and I remember checking in that night and all of a sudden it said $0.
Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome.
Anna Santoro: And I looked at it, and I looked at it again, and then I hit refresh, and then I logged out, and I looked at it again. And it was just so like surreal to see nope, that balance is gone and it’s $0. So that was really fun, just finally seeing it go to the $0 balance. It’s what you work for. So it’s fun.
Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, absolutely. And I would have done the same — I would have logged back in, logged back out, logged back in. I probably would have hit “Print,” you know, make sure it’s real and I have record of it.
Anna Santoro: I took a couple of photos with my phone.
Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.
Anna Santoro: Yeah. It was funny.
Tim Ulbrich: That’s cool. Obviously there’s that emotional joy of hey, we’ve had these steps, we’ve been following this journey for over 10 years, we finally see the $0 balance and there’s been some hiccups along the way. What a cool way to end too. So because of, you know, the COVID provision that you mentioned that there were $0 payments. But those were counting as qualifying payments. So you got to the finish line through those COVID provisions out of the CARES Act. What was the timeline or estimated timeline between when the last qualifying payment — even though it was a $0 payment — was made, what was the timeline from that to actually when the $0 balance showed up in your account?
Anna Santoro: OK, so COVID delayed some of that. But there were a couple of steps along the way. So I should have met, based on my calculations, had my final payment in August. I was able to submit my application in the beginning of October because once you meet your final payments, you then have to send in another annual certification because they have to certify that yes, the payments that you made for that last few months, even though you had — like I had my annual certification in March. They wanted another certification in August before I could send in my application. So after I did that, then I sent in an application and got that done in October. The big thing is you also have to show within the application that you are also still employed, even in the months in between and while they’re processing your paperwork. Then in October, because of COVID and government budgetary changes and all of that, they had kind of a delay of processing within their system. So my loan I think finally got approved in February. So it took a long time. But part of that is I think they tell you 60-90 days to process your application. Once they process your application, they then go in and re-audit every payment you’ve made. And I got really lucky in that they determined that even though they said I had made 120 payments, I had really made 124. And that was counting some $0 payments. It must have been more than that. I ended up getting refunded.
Tim Ulbrich: OK.
Anna Santoro: For four overpayments that I had made. So instead of being done — I guess my last payment was in March. So I should have been done in December of the year before.
Tim Ulbrich: OK.
Anna Santoro: But they don’t tell you, “Hey, we approved these overpayments.” They just say, “Hey, your filing approved,” and then refund you random money into your account.
Tim Ulbrich: Happy day.
Anna Santoro: Right? So I had to call them and say, “OK, what’s going on?” And they’re like, “Oh, those were overpayments that you had made. You had actually made 124 payments, so you will get these refunded back.”
Tim Ulbrich: OK. And that makes sense. It takes a little bit for the reconciliation of that to catch up, but another good reminder to try to keep your own records as well if there ends up being a discrepancy for whatever reason. One of the things, Anna, that we often say is that if you’re going to be in the forgiveness boat, like be in the boat, right? Don’t be half in and half out. What I mean by that is I think there’s a strategy in terms of maximizing forgiveness, which ultimately means minimizing what you’re paying out of pocket, which then naturally leads to the conversation of might I be able to pursue and move other financial goals forward if I’m pursuing loan forgiveness because I can then use some of those dollars that might be going towards student loan payments and allocate those towards other goals? And so for your situation, did pursuing PSLF allow you to focus on other financial goals beyond debt repayment that might not have otherwise been either possible or as likely if you were down more of that traditional standard repayment path?
Anna Santoro: Oh, absolutely. So I kind of set up my payments — I had automatic payments, so it just automatically came out on the 2nd of every month, and I knew I didn’t really have to worry about it. So I set up a budget based on what my loan repayment was and I was able to kind of move towards other goals within my life and my career. I was able to buy a house 2.5 years out of school, which now looking back on it, I’m like, wow, that was really fast. But at the time, I just said, “You know, I don’t want to pay rent. I want my money to be worth something and kind of get that equity.” So I was able to buy a house, put a good amount down on the house because I wasn’t having to put extra money into the loans. And then like I mentioned, when my husband and I got married, he ended up going back to school. So his first year of school, we weren’t sure what the budget was going to be like so we did end up taking out about $60,000 in loans for his first year of his physical therapy program. But after that, we said, “You know, we have this cash. Our budget is set. We know what these loan payments are going to be,” so we were able to pay the next two years of his doctorate degree in cash at the time. You know, we didn’t have to take out any loans. We paid $120,000 on his. And then we were used to his $0 income on our budget, so when he did start working, we were able to take his income and pay off that $60,000 that we borrowed for him within like 9 or 10 months of him being out of school, which was really nice. So by the time he was out of school and earning money maybe six years into the program, that extra income he earned really was just like extra for us, which was nice. Now we have kids, so we’re paying for child care and that type of stuff. But it was really nice to just be able to say, “OK, this is my payment,” and just kind of put it on the back burner, automatically taken out of my account, and it wasn’t this huge, crazy amount of money that we had to try to — you know, it wasn’t a second mortgage.
Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.
Anna Santoro: When I was making those first payments the first few months, it was more than my rent at the apartment that I was in at the time. So I can’t imagine having done that for 10 years and still be able to do the other financial things I was able to do.
Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and that makes a whole lot of sense. Going back to the beginning of your story, a little over $225,000 in debt, $145,000 or so of that was federal, so just rough numbers, we know that if you’re paying that over a standard 10-year period, those are big monthly payments. And so the PSLF pathway and maximizing forgiveness, minimizing payments, sometimes it opens up the door, as it sounds like it did here, to be able to pursue other financial goals and here, one being obviously being able to pay most of a degree for your husband in cash and then pay off the rest of that balance quickly. So two doctorate degrees with $0 in the balance of either, no debt anymore, that’s great.
Anna Santoro: Plus my Master’s degree.
Tim Ulbrich: Oh yeah, that’s right! Plus your Master’s degree.
Anna Santoro: Yeah.
Tim Ulbrich: Very cool. Now that your loans are out of the way — and the reason I want to ask this question is I talk with many folks that are graduating, within the first few years, and you know, I think sometimes the student loan mountain can seem so big that it’s hard to see what may be on the other side of it, right?
Anna Santoro: Yeah.
Tim Ulbrich: And now that your loans are out of the way, what other financial goals are you focusing on and are able to do so because you don’t have to worry about these monthly payments anymore related to the student loan?
Anna Santoro: So we had Murphy’s Law at our house. We got my student loans forgiven in February, and in April, we got a roof leak. So we have used all of the money that we would — well, not all — but we had to buy a new roof. So that has been kind of our big financial hit this year. But we have — the way we have our budget set up, we had a home repair budget, so we’re just working on kind of redoing that. Our goal over the next couple of years, we want to take a family vacation. But then I think we are going to be working towards kind of setting up a nest egg to possibly buy a vacation home or do a renovation on our house here, something like that. But we’re trying to kind of say, “OK, we’re used to making that payment, so let’s use that money in a thoughtful and meaningful way as we move forward,” versus just buying extra coffee or something small.
Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, that’s great. I think the intentionality of that and the planning process of hey, we were putting these dollars towards student loans, and now what are some other goals that we can shift it and put these in other buckets that we want to see forward with other parts of the financial plan? That’s great. Last but certainly not least, Anna, what advice would you have for other pharmacists that are out there that are either actively pursuing PSLF, maybe considering it, and might even be a little bit skeptical about whether or not that path makes sense for them?
Anna Santoro: So I think the two things are — so I take a lot of students, and I’m always big with my students on this is — if you at all end up in a residency, in any type of employment with a qualified employer, enroll. If you’re enrolled now and the program closes, you get to stay in it. If you are a resident and you have no income, your payment will be $0, and that still qualifies, which is less money that you’re going to be paying 10 years down the road when you’re on payment 120 and you have an income. So that I think is huge is getting enrolled as soon as you can. And if you are a qualified employer for 2-3 years, and then you leave and you come back, you’re still enrolled and those payments still qualify. So I think that’s huge. The other thing is, you know, not to get discouraged. Ten years is a very long time and the six months it took for that application process after that seemed like eternity. But you know, watching it change and seeing the final results makes it worth it.
Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, absolutely. And I think your comment about the timeline and being patient, if you will, is another reminder of the value of colleagues and community and other people that are going through this as well so you don’t necessarily feel like you’re on an island and hopefully being able to share stories or we’ve heard many frustrations from folks that are calling in asking questions and often don’t feel like those questions are getting fully answered. We’re getting ready to turn the page — I’m sure you saw the news over the past couple weeks where the loan servicing company for PSLF is about to change, and I’m sure that’s going to mean maybe some good things in the long term but probably a whole lot of frustration in the short term. And so having that accountability, having that coach, having somebody alongside of you I think could be very powerful on this journey and really keeping that end goal in mind. So really exciting stuff, and great wisdom that you have to share there. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show, for sharing your story about getting $127,000 in federal loans forgiven through PSLF and certainly wishing you the best of luck in the future. So thank you again, Anna.
Anna Santoro: Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate you having me.
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