MFPE member and educator Adam Burke recently took advantage of a benefit offered to all MFPE members: the NEA Student Loan Forgiveness Navigator tool. Adam will now save $18,500 over the next 3 years. Read his testimonial below.

The NEA Student Loan Forgiveness Navigator tool, powered by Savi, helps MFPE members determine whether they’re eligible for federal student loan forgiveness programs and how much they could potentially reduce their loan debt. To learn more, click here.

Adam Burke’s Savi testimonial:

I took advantage of the NEA national level partnership with Savi. I have been trying to go it on my own since 2014 when my loans were consolidated to qualify for the Loan Forgiveness Program. Since that time, forgiveness of my loans has been denied over and over due to small clerical errors. 

We have had loans since 2004 when we finished school and we owe $116k. We have paid out over $90k to the government over the 16 years we have loans but still have the full amount due. We knew in 2014 that would be the case, but the $40,000 we paid from 2004 to 2014 was as if we never paid it. As a result, I have been in an income-based repayment plan for the past 83 months, but I have still been paying anywhere from $500 to $709 a month.  

Enter Savi this year. I contacted them after my loan went from $614 a month to $709 a month next year. SAVI helped me to redo the income-based repayment plan and had me pick the PAYE program, which is not the plan that my lender had chosen for me. Big surprise.

Savi did their own audit on my paperwork to make sure it was correct and I submitted it to my lender. Today I got the payment amount from the lender. With SAVI’s help and putting me in the right program, my payment is now only $200 a month. Over the next 37 months, that will save me $18,500. 

Adam Burke (right) and his spouse.

Having that payment amount come back at $200 a month, instead of $709, and knowing that Savi is still going to be there to make sure everything continues on track, makes all the difference. That there is someone in my corner working for me to succeed in this long journey is amazing. I just wanted to pass that on, and hopefully you can share this with those who would like to know. 

This is life-changing for my family and me, an extra $500 a month we can use to pay off other bills or save. Having that choice makes all the difference in what happens to us in the foreseeable future.