For students and former students who need help with Public Service Loan Forgiveeness

This is likely to be a popular topic. Full disclosure: I was "around" the political process at the start of the PSLF scheme. It was a recommendation in a 2003 paper I wrote for Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly. 

Here's the question: How can you succeed with student loan forgiveness? 

Especially given the basket-case that is the DoE under DeVos? 

Aimee and I have some experience with this because in February 2020 we managed to get our loans forgiven, all $110,000 of them. This sounds like a lot, but remember it was the cost of a BA and a BS, two MS's, and two PhD's. This was without counting the tuition remission and research assistant stipends we also had. 

We also got nearly $10,000 of payments that we had already made refunded. Without this event, losing our jobs at Unity College would have been a much bigger family financial disaster than it was.

First up, what is PSLF?

PLSF is federal student loan forgiveness for all government and non-profit employees. Your loans have to be federal subsidized or unsubsidized loans, not private for-profit loans. If you don't know the difference you need extra help and had better email us separately. And you must be employed by the government, (federal, state, or local), or a "qualifying" IRS 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit charitable institution. Again, if you don't know the difference between government, non-profit, and for-profit organizations, a) you should have taken economics in college!, and b) you need extra help and should email us separately. 

But many students that won jobs after taking degrees at the old, "real" Unity College will qualify. 

(If you are reading this and are a student at the new, purely online Unity College, you need a different kind of help. There are pedagogical reasons why so many of the old students are employed in their target jobs.)

How long does it take? Ten years qualifying payments or 120 payments on time and the rest of your loans are forgiven. There's no limit to how much, at least not right now. But, and this is a timely warning, Congress is very likely to overhaul the system completely after the Biden inauguration, so you should stay tuned. I'll add updates to the bottom of the page as necessary.

How do I start? You have to be enrolled in an income-driven repayment scheme (IDR) and your loans must be consolidated under Pennsylvania's FedLoan program. Fedloan is the federal contractor for all ordinary PLSF loan forgiveness processes. FedLoan has a seven-step start page here. Scroll down a little to expand the seven steps: 

https://myfedloan.org/borrowers/special-programs/pslf

What if I haven't been in an IDR? Congress realized that a lot of former students had been counseled by loan providers, including state and federal government ones like FedLoan, out of IDR schemes, so they approved Temporary Expanded PSLF (TEPSLF) to give these folks a window of opportunity for forgiveness (section 3 of the Act). The amount authorized is limited, but hasn't all been used yet because of how crap FedLoan is. (More on dealing with this below.) DoE has a start page for TEPSLF here:

https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service/temporary-expanded-public-service-loan-forgiveness?utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=

PSLF or TEPSLF?  If you work for government or qualifying non-profit and are in an IDR scheme and make 120 on-time payments, you qualify for PSLF. If you work for government or a non-profit, and have made payments under a different scheme, you may still qualify for TEPSLF. 

What if I've already made 120 payments? If you made 120 on-time payments that qualify as IDR for PSLF, you'll get forgiveness under that program. If you made 120 payments under a different repayment program, you may qualify for TEPSLF if there's enough of the tranche of money that Congress authorized left. or if they allocate more money. Both PSLF and TEPSLF allow for backdating of payments, so approval can happen in less than ten (further) years with that program if you have kept up. And even if you missed a payment, or were in forbearance for a month, that will only be one extra month of payments. (When we first started work at Unity College the pay wasn't very good, and so there were a couple times we asked for forbearance so we could pay an auto repair bill or buy a necessary household item. Or get married! We asked for and got forbearance to have more money to pay for our wedding. Not that it was a particularly "big" wedding. But that's how tight things were. There's a reason we had to build our own house!)

First step: You have to reconsolidate your loans under an IDR with FedLoan to begin PSLF or TEPSLF. It's advisable to do this in any case, because consolidation saves money and time, and, to be honest, none of the loan servicers are much better than FedLoan. Beware for-profit consolidation schemes. These vultures will charge high interest and drive you bankrupt. And there's no forgiveness if you are foolish enough to consolidate with a private student loan company. 

This is all too difficult. What do I do? It is way too freakin' difficult. The paperwork is unnecessarily difficult, even before FedLoan loses your papers and miscounts your payments! We have PhDs and are good readers, writers, and critical thinkers, but it still took us four solid months to figure it all out and qualify. The reading level for the documentation is way too high, probably around grade fourteen or fifteen (sophomore/junior in college) and it's very disorganized. And this is even before you get deeper into it and start reading the actual laws or the results of the various court cases, which we found ourselves doing before we won forgiveness. (As we tried to explain to you when we were your teachers, reading and writing are very important college skills -- more important than knowing how to dart monkeys or electroshock fish! Here's a great example!) But they could have made it easier. The DoE under Betsy DeVos is/was a terrible basket case. FedLoan lost our paperwork several times and gave us several different counts of qualifying payments. Congress really needs to fix this, but a new Secretary of Education will help, one that is actually an educator.

Be patient, be "Zen" and plug away at it. "Keep calm and carry on." Take a break if you need to, and get some rest, then come back to it. There are also counselors and lawyers who are beginning to specialize in PSLF and TEPSLF, but, of course, this "high priced help" comes with a cost.

But email us with any specific questions you may have and we'll try to help. 

If all else fails? If you run into trouble with FedLoan, and almost everyone does because they lose paperwork all the time, you can then go to something called the Federal Student Aid Ombudsman and appeal. 

It's this last step that worked for us: The Ombudsman will still send you back to FedLoan almost immediately, but you'll be in a different department that works much faster. They'll get back to you very quickly and if you have a good case it will take a month or two more and you'll be done. 

This is primarily because of the various lawsuits that have been brought against DeVos, the DoE, and FedLoan. There's a little-known federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act. The APA requires all government procedures to be consistent and rational. In particular, a federal agency or contractor (DoE or FedLoan) cannot treat people differently under the law. If one person gets forgiveness, all other people with the same relevant characteristics must also get the same consideration, or they can sue. The Trump Administration fell afoul of this law many, many times during its four years' reign, and DeVos was the very worst offender. They just couldn't get it together to treat people fairly and consistently under just about any law they tinkered with. (Especially if you were poor, of color, or Muslim. But "deplorables," from Mar-a-Largo members to Proud Boys got lots of help and support!)

Keep your bill stubs! I'm a packrat. I have all our paid bills filed for the last twenty years, since I moved to Maine in 2000. It helped enormously that we had nearly a full set of payment stubs for all our loan payments. Each previous payment date and amount, the loan provider, and in most cases the payment plan was documented on the stub. This meant that we could prove if necessary, and in in court if needed, that we had made the payments, putting FedLoan and DoE at risk of an APA lawsuit if they didn't follow the law. This record helped focus the ombudsman on FedLoan's deficiencies, not any of ours. They obviously couldn't pin any deficiency on us because we had such a good paper trail. As the ombudsman process got going, I went through all our saved bills (which are filed chronologically by biweekly pay periods), pulled out the loan payment stubs, made a spreadsheet of each amount, loan provider, and payment plan (when recorded), and also an electronic photocopy of the whole stack. I sent both electronically to the ombudsman. We had changed student loan providers as the government changed the system over the years, and so there were some stubs that didn't give the payment plan, and we had lost four or five monthly stubs, but we had enough to make the Ombudsman force FedLoan to check the records more carefully. So keep your payment stubs. This is usually the top two thirds of each bill, after you rip off the payment slip and send it in with your check. If you pay online, save similar records electronically.

Of course, now Aimee doesn't get to complain about my packrat habits, at least with regard to bill-filing! Car parts, hardware, and nuts and bolts are a different category, though (apparently).

Bottom line: It's a major pain to jump through all the hoops, took us hours of work and frustration, but considering the pay-off ($110K for both of our PhDs), they were well-paid hours in the end!

Russian long range climate strategy finally breaks the surface

The Times is telling us all about Putin's climate strategy:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/16/magazine/russia-climate-migration-crisis.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

You heard it here first, folks.

https://taskandpurpose.com/thelongmarch/endgame-key-putins-long-range-grand-strategy-climate-change/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8UyUpM3l10

The truest word I'll ever say...

"Let’s start with the force field. No-one tells you about this when you start teaching, but it’s as true as the live-long day, the truest word I’ll ever say. The average developed world teenager comes with a supernatural force-field around them that inhibits communication from any person older than them, but especially teachers. Learning to identify and penetrate this force field at will, on a regular basis, is an a priori requirement to be successful in teaching liberal arts classes."

(I wrote this as part of a critical essay for the CHE this spring. They turned it down. But I still like it. You can read the whole thing here for free.)

Advice to a former student who wants to learn to weld

The phrase "MIG and TIG" is misleading, although it alliterates nicely and so somehow stays in the lexicon. There are actually five choices for welding steel, of which TIG is the least useful under normal circumstances. In order of usefulness: 1) arc-welding, AKA "stick welding," using flux-covered welding rod, where the flux prevents oxidation of the molten metal; 2) MIG or "metal inert gas" typically using argon gas as a shield to prevent oxidation; 3) "flux-core" welding, typically using the same equipment as MIG, only without the gas; 4) oxy-acetylene welding and brazing that uses a gas torch and filler rod; and lastly 5) "tungsten inert gas" or TIG which uses separate welding or "filler" rod and an expensive tungsten electrode, needs two hands at all times and so is horrible for vehicle or boat work, but can more easily be adapted to metals other than mild steel. Most welders only need the first three. In a pinch you can do 95% of what you need to do around a workshop, farm, or shop with a stick welder, although having the other types makes life much easier. If you can learn to weld with a stick welder, you can easily pick up the other types in very short order, so it's best to start with stick welding, then add MIG and flux-core, which often use the same welding sets these days anyway. In forty-plus years of welding I've never needed TIG, and I've only used oxy-acetylene welding equipment for heat during other mechanical procedures, or for brazing, not for actual welding. I regularly use all of the other three. I use stick for heavy steel fabrication and cutting, flux-core for most vehicle welding, and MIG for some bodywork when I need an especially good finish. I also have an aluminum "spool" adapter for my MIG/flux-core welder, and cast-iron rod for my stick welder, a classic Lincoln-Electric "tombstone", negating most of the need for the other two types of equipment. The best way to learn to weld is to get shown the basics by someone, then practice. There's no shortcut, and in fact, all you'll do different in a class is learn the theory a bit better, then get shortchanged on the practice because there isn't a vo-tech or community college in the country that can afford to let you practice as much as you actually need to. And a certificate won't do you any good if your welds fall apart because you can't practice. You can pick up a cheap but functional stick welder at Harbor Freight for a Benjamin, less than the tuition at the vo-tech AND you'll then have your own welder. It will come with a cheap and nasty but functional welder's hammer. You'll need to buy some one-eight mild steel rod and find some scrap steel to practice on. A good light-operated welding mask, good welding gloves AKA "gauntlets", a long-sleeved coat made of something that doesn't burn or melt, and a place to work outside that won't catch fire are also needed. A hand grinder with a selection of heads (cutting, grinding, steel brush wheel) and googles are also very helpful, but optional at this stage. Work outside because fumes are nasty. Have an ABC-type fire extinguisher handy. Then practice, practice, practice. The best advice I ever got for welding was "focus on the molten pool." The pool of molten metal is all-important and your ability to put that pool where you need it and to shape it makes you a good welder or not.

Thriving

 

I occasionally get emails and FB messages from students and former students asking how Aimee and I are doing, given the recent hostile takeover of the college and the loss of our jobs. 

This very useful chart came across my FB feed today and I studied it carefully. It's quite relevant.

The short answer to the question is in my title: "Thriving." 

Why? When we just lost our jobs?

As responsible, diligent, and ethical faculty members of the real Unity College, we had been in conflict with the administration since the early 2010s. Our Peace Church background didn't help much. Neither of us ever feels the need to lie or kow-tow to those in power. It's literally "against our religion." And so, by "speaking truth to power," we made sure that the last two Unity College administrations understood that two of their highly qualified and experienced senior faculty disagreed with their strategy for the college.

Their two strategies differed greatly, by the way. Dr. Mulkey wanted to focus the college on climate change education and research. He was quite saddened to discover that he was instead directed by the board to raise money from rich people and find ways to grow the college by teaching more of the usual kinds of students, who present as primarily interested in bachelors degrees that qualify them for positions as game wardens or wildlife technicians, not as climate scientists. Setting the students' priorities first never seemed to come to mind. One response he adopted, for lack of any other, was to lecture them, over and over and over again about climate change. I still have several of his slideshows. They are quite good. But our students, the majority of whom had a tenth-grade reading level, found them hard to comprehend and boring, and eventually just laughed at him or complained to his face. I felt a little sorry for him, because even if his methods were wrong, prioritizing climate change was correct. Experienced UC faculty, like myself, had ways of teaching climate change that didn't involve as much lecture, and so had more success. 

But he wouldn't listen to any of us when we tried to tell him any of this. So we disagreed.

The students (or their parents) are paying. They need education that meets them where they are. That is what they pay for. This is a moral imperative. You have to teach the students in front of you. That's the job. And most of those students at that time, by far the majority, perhaps 99.5%, were never going to be climate scientists.

Had he been less volatile, there was room for compromise. We could have shown him how to raise money for climate education while also properly teaching the students in front of him. But he decided, before he ever really bothered to get to know us, that we didn't come up to his standards, and planned to replace us with "proper" researchers.

Dr. Khoury, for his part, wanted to put his dissertation into action, and create an online, for-profit college in which the price of faculty labor was bid down to the lowest possible level (making sure you were left with the least capable and least experienced faculty), and in which student engagement and experiential learning )post-recruitment) was an afterthought. Eventually he got his wish. 

But this will be the death of the institution as we knew it. Unity College was founded as a peace protest against the Vietnam War. It became an environmental school in the 1970s and 1980s when such a thing was essentially unheard of and likely to be unpopular. It became famous during the 2000s because of its place-based, Kurt Hahn-style experiential education. Giving up on experiential place-based environmental education is giving up on the soul of the college. 

It also had a reputation for being led by its faculty, for including faculty and staff in decision-making, and for being the best place to work in Waldo County.

My wife and I were among the faculty who earned that reputation. 

So Aimee and I fought both the Mulkey and Khoury programs tooth and nail, voting down initiatives in faculty meetings, designing better ones, bolstering faculty morale, making sure students were not sidelined. We won against Dr. Mulkey in the end. His violent temper and frustration at our unwillingness to give up on teaching the students in front of us using experiential approaches, to instead spending our time and students' money planning and implementing his egotistical program, which we felt impractical, led to outburst after outburst, and eventually they became, in the jargon of HR professionals, "documented" and "actionable." He quit after a particularly loud one was witnessed by unimpeachable observers.

Dr. Khoury, who keeps his shouting for behind closed doors, seems to think he's won, but I tend to think the whole despicable scheme he's created is fragile enough to one day collapse around his ears. There's a difference between being a striver and being a schemer. You sow what you reap.

All this took a toll. For most of this decade 2011-2020, my working life was carried on in the space between the red and orange zones above. Quakers are supposed to struggle against dishonesty, unfairness, and greed, so we didn't really question whether or not we had to do it. We didn't give ourselves the option. We never seriously thought about applying for other jobs. But we know that one day we might have to quit or be fired and so we made careful plans, socking money away against that day, and planning out a new business for me to run in retirement (while I write my book). 

This planning allowed us the freedom to continue to oppose the administration's plans. Other faculty were forced by financial circumstance to be more circumspect -- although in retrospect, with 20-20 hindsight, they might now realize they were going to lose their jobs anyway and so should have perhaps been more vociferous while they had the chance.

The the pandemic struck and provided an opportunity for Melik to rid himself of his "turbulent priests."

Our business is now bringing in revenue, if not yet profit, and the day when it will be profitable is not far off. The process of making the business was about a six-month daily physical workout, which despite some pulled muscles, was cathartic and likely to extend my life.

So I'm happy to report that now I'm in the green zone of the chart. In my newfound and only somewhat unexpected semi-retirement, I sleep well, get exercise, play with my kid more, and am generally more content. I "chop wood and carry water." I can't ask for much more from life. I miss teaching, but I expect I'll teach again after Covid is over. There are other colleges in Maine.

Aimee, for her part, has a new job where she is constantly amazed at how well they treat her.

Most importantly, and relevant to the chart, our consciences are clear.

Zen and the Art of Land Rover Maintenance

 With apologies to Pirsig.

Suskind warns of a coup

Everyone should read this and circulate it. Like some of the people consulted, I don't believe that there are enough of the totally batshit crazy Trump loyalists to successfully pull off the kind of coup that the government officials are warning against in Suskind's article. The 42% approval rating is soft in this regard. Most ordinary people, when it comes down to the wire, shy away from violence and are not actually good at it, and so there won't be enough truly violent and practiced extremists within the core Trump brigade. The real threat is manipulation. There will likely be some incidents, and these can get blown out of all proportion very easily. And like the article says, there are some people who will believe just about anything that comes out of this guy's mouth, even unto their own deaths from Covid. The rest of us have to be ready to counter this manipulation in real time on the day. Particularly, don't "take the bait." Don't let them set fire to the Reichstag. Remember, most of the vote is already in the bag and "too big to rig." If you find yourself in a confrontation on Election Day, don't take matters into your own hands. Back away, then call the police and make them do their job, even if they appear to be biased themselves. Even if a local incident isn't resolved, it's better to keep the peace. The complete and very rapid crash of the economy, particularly the stock market, that will take place if any larger scale unrest develops will be the decisive factor. That will mobilize support for stability very quickly. Have faith. Keep calm. Carry on.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/30/opinion/trump-election-officials.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage