The Income. The REAL Income

[JaynaAli]

I don't think planning to work er or relief shifts during internship is realistic. My internship doesn't have any restrictions on working outside of the program, but we are way too busy to make it feasible anyway. When my days off roll around, the last thing I want to think about is working more. I need that day off to do laundry, buy food, and sleep. I think an internship does prepare you nicely for working these shifts after internship, but if your plan is specialty (especially one that is notoriously tough) I just don't see how that would work with residency hours either. But then again, some people can make stuff like that happen.

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[lianali]

Anyone have any insight or experience with the loan forgiveness programs? Seems if you go large animal there's a possibility of $10-20K from the USDA or state.....

Be exceedingly careful with loan forgivness. I worked for 5 years at a not-for-profit company (501(c)3) that qualified me for a loan forgiveness - I just had to work for approximately 10 years at the same company (or roughly 120 monthly pay cycles). Yes, my loans could have been forgiven.

HOWEVER, you still owe taxes on any amount forgiven after the 10 year period where you make regular monthly payments. Those taxes can be very, very ugly, painful, and high if the student loan amount is high. This is especially true if you are on an income-based-repayment plan. If you're on one of those plans, chances are you didn't have a lot of extra income to pay off loans in the first place and now you're stuck with an ugly tax bill after being "forgiven" for you student loans.

Also, those payment plans all tend to set you up so that you pay off your loan in roughly 10 years. (Mine did.) So it wouldn't have mattered if I needed loan forgiveness after 10 years, I would have had nothing to forgive at the end of 10 years. Do the math. An excel spreadsheet on income versus loan payments will give you the timelines on how long it will take to pay off your loans.

Edited to add: Qualifying for loan forgiveness is lots of fun,headache-inducing reading. If you work for a 501(c)3, commonly called a not-for-profit company, you probably qualify (not all d0). If you work for a federal/state agency, you probably qualify. Fastest way I found out whether or not I qualified was a quick chat with our HR department. I recommend that route, because the legal language gets super annoying and dense very fast.

 

[epivetlove]

Just to note, that if you qualify for PSLF and pay the 120 payments while working full-time at an eligible job, your forgiven loan amount will NOT be taxed. It is not considered income by the IRS. PSLF is special that way. That being said, PSLF is coming up in its 10 renewal and there are likely to be unfavorable changes (for those wanting to take advantage of this program) made after October 2017.

 

[KCgophervet]

Be exceedingly careful with loan forgivness. I worked for 5 years at a not-for-profit company (501(c)3) that qualified me for a loan forgiveness - I just had to work for approximately 10 years at the same company (or roughly 120 monthly pay cycles). Yes, my loans could have been forgiven.

HOWEVER, you still owe taxes on any amount forgiven after the 10 year period where you make regular monthly payments. Those taxes can be very, very ugly, painful, and high if the student loan amount is high. This is especially true if you are on an income-based-repayment plan. If you're on one of those plans, chances are you didn't have a lot of extra income to pay off loans in the first place and now you're stuck with an ugly tax bill after being "forgiven" for you student loans.

Also, those payment plans all tend to set you up so that you pay off your loan in roughly 10 years. (Mine did.) So it wouldn't have mattered if I needed loan forgiveness after 10 years, I would have had nothing to forgive at the end of 10 years. Do the math. An excel spreadsheet on income versus loan payments will give you the timelines on how long it will take to pay off your loans.

Edited to add: Qualifying for loan forgiveness is lots of fun,headache-inducing reading. If you work for a 501(c)3, commonly called a not-for-profit company, you probably qualify (not all d0). If you work for a federal/state agency, you probably qualify. Fastest way I found out whether or not I qualified was a quick chat with our HR department. I recommend that route, because the legal language gets super annoying and dense very fast.

If you're referring to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, you actually ARE NOT taxed on the amount forgiven afterwards. You can also do Income Based Repayment as qualifying payments (which most likely will not line up with a standard 10 year repayment plan and may not even touch your principle). Finally, you also do not have to work at the same job for the full 10 years (and they don't have to be a consecutive 10 years either). You just have to make 120 qualifying payments while employed somewhere that "counts" (ie government, non-profits, etc).

However I think what the poster was referring to is the state-based agricultural loan forgiveness programs that offer money if you go and work in an "underserved" rural area. Unfortunately, even with the loan benefits (which are typically dollar amounts vs. "we'll pay off your remaining balance) these underserved areas often just cannot financially support having a vet practice there, and you typically have to work there for so many years before the loan repayments come into effect. This is all hearsay at this point but I've heard that it's hard to get these programs to work for your benefit because its just so hard to make ends meat while in those areas that qualify.

 

[Lady_Koolaid]

Are you at a school getting your Bachelor's degree right now?

No. I was about two classes away from an AA in English, but because I switched my major to animal sciences, now I have a bunch of extra math and sciences to complete. Which is just more time consuming than anything, because of you have to take this class, before you can take that class...so my class schedule looks pretty thin every semester...because it's all I have to take....everything else I already completed as an Eng. major....before I am working on my BA degree, which I would do at UF.