~Heath & Lindy

Round Rock, Texas

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In 2005, my husband and I had a three-year-old and a newborn.  We were facing daycare x 2 while both working in the field of public education.  My husband was a 7th grade math teacher and I was a School Psychologist.  Between daycare, diapers and my $500.00 student loan that we had to put on forbearance we weren’t making it.  The interest rate on my loan was outrageous and we were seeking solutions on how to reduce my interest rate.  We were told the only way to get a better interest rate was to consolidate my $67,151.81 with my husband’s $3,258.10 loan.  The rate that we consolidated to get was still 7%.  
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At this interest rate we continued to pay the $500.00 every month but never saw any real change to the principal.  My husband and I have been serving  in public education for 26 years.  While we both have had vertical movement in our careers we continue to live a very modest life.  Between the loan and now paying for our children to attend college it has been a challenge.  We are not asking for a handout.  We aren’t asking for special consideration.  We would just like to have equal opportunity to take advantage of current opportunities such as the PSLF program, which we can’t, due only to the fact that we have a spousal consolidation loan.  

The figures below do not account for the payments we made to our loans between 1997-2005.

Original Consolidated Loan 9/21/2005: $70,409.81
Aggregate Amount Paid as if 9/10/21 (unable to get an updated figure): $105,462.06
Principal as of 5/11/2022: $53,203.50 


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