You will have no income for two years and a lot of expenses. Somebody should talk about that.

Evan and Ginger are recent PA school grads who built a budgeting tool specifically for PA students, because they went through it and found nothing that fit. Their whole thing is knowing your actual numbers instead of borrowing a round number and hoping.

Standard disclaimer from me: I'm not a financial advisor and this isn't financial advice. This is two people who just did it sharing what they learned.

The piece I'd underline for anyone pre-PA is that the borrowing decisions start before you even matriculate. Where you live, whether you have a car, whether you take the max loan amount because it's offered. Those choices compound.

What we cover:

• Why budgeting in PA school is different from budgeting anywhere else
• The tool they built and what it tracks
• Understanding what you're actually committing to when you borrow
• Cost-of-living decisions that make the biggest difference
• Habits to build before you start school
• What they wish someone had told them

Resources:

Free Application Timeline: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-application-timeline

PA Program Map: https://www.thepaplatform.com/pa-platform-map

Pre-PA Counseling: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pre-pa-counseling

Pre-PA Academy: https://prepaclub.thepaplatform.com/landing/academy

Mentioned in this episode:

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Money plus PA School.

This is something we've been talking about more this year.

And today's episode comes from a webinar with PA MoneySense.

Evan and Ginger recently finished PA school, and they created a really cool budgeting tool that helps you to see where your money's going, what's happening to your loans, and they have really great advice on just managing money while in PA school.

So if that's something you're planning on doing in the future, going to PA school, becoming a PA or you're in PA school now, this is an extremely helpful talk from them that I think you'll enjoy.

Welcome to the Pre PA Club Podcast.

If you want to learn how to become a physician assistant, you're in the right place.

I'm your host, Savannah Perry.

Let's get to it.

Hey, guys.

Welcome to the Pre PA Club Podcast.

Savannah here, your host.

Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode.

I think this is a really good one with a ton of great info and so I think you'll really get a lot out of this.

This will also be on YouTube, so if you'd rather watch and actually see their presentation, you can watch it there.

Just so you know who we're talking about.

PA MoneySense.

They're on Instagram.

If you go to MoneySense, that's the best place to kind of see more about what they're doing and hear from Evan and Ginger.

They are awesome.

I am so impressed by what they created and also how they were able to do this in PA school and kind of work their way around Excel, which I honestly am not great at.

So they're really cool.

And we're going to be talking a lot about budgeting and what that looks like in PA school.

And if you go to their Instagram, you'll find their spreadsheet that they created.

So it's called the PA School Budget Tracker.

It's in Google sheets.

It's very interactive.

It shows your monthly expenses, your monthly spending.

Really cool.

It's only $10, which I think is a very reasonable price for this because it is really cool and really extensive.

I get nothing from this.

Like, it's not.

We're not affiliates.

Like, I really just think this is a really cool thing that can be super helpful.

So if you are interested in that, make sure to check out their Instagram and we'll put the link to that in the description as well.

For the PA platform.

It's December, which is.

I can't believe this year is over.

We are still Seeing some interview invites go out for this cycle and usually we see them pick up a little bit more in January, a little bit in February and then March.

They tend to trickle off as the next cycle gets ready to open up.

So if you haven't heard back yet, don't fret too much.

But now is a great time to start revisiting your application, kind of look at it, see if there are areas that you can work on.

In January we're going to be doing a personal statement challenge.

If you follow HEPA Platform on Instagram or if you're in the Pre PA club on Facebook or on our newsletter, which I'll put the link to, sign up for that.

It's just the PA Platform.com newsletter.

You'll hear more about this.

But we have, and we have for I guess a year now had a free two week email course to help you get a draft of your personal statement done.

Basically you get an email each day that has 10 to 15 minutes of kind of exercises to do to get a draft done.

And you don't necessarily have to do it in that time, but in January I thought it would be fun.

I don't know if that's the right word.

I thought it would be good if we all did it together.

So you can go ahead and sign up for the emails if you want or you can wait till then to make sure you get them and then we'll start going through them together in January to get your draft done.

We'll have a Facebook group and kind of ways to connect and some webinars and Q and A sessions to really help motivate you to stay on track with trying to get that done.

Because I know writing your personal statement or editing it, editing it if you are reapplying can be very stressful.

So that'll be fun and something to look forward to in the new year.

Other than that, we'll jump into today's episode and if you are still needing help with interviews or personal statement editing or you want to grab the personal statement guide before we do the challenge, you can use the code future pa for a discount on the pa platform.com and all the information for all that is also in the description of the episode.

I hope you enjoy this one and definitely go give Evan and Ginger some love and their accounts.

Awesome.

I really love what they're doing.

Alrighty.

So my name is Ginger and I'm here with Evan and we are two new graduate PAs who started PA MoneySense just because we realized so many of our Classmates would come to us with questions about what we thought were very normal questions that everyone should have.

And being responsible with finances now can make such a big impact later.

So I am Ginger.

Legally it's Virginia, but I go by Ginger.

I have an MBA and I'm a pa.

I graduated from Baylor College of Medicine and I now work in pediatric physical medicine and rehab in Houston.

And I'm Evan.

I graduated with Ginger in December from Baylor.

I work in hospital medicine in a tiny community hospital in Lake Jackson, Texas.

And I work nights.

It's super fun.

So I've always had an interest in finance.

I got an MBA right after undergrad and right before PA school.

And then Evan and I started talking about it a lot.

She listens to a lot of podcasts.

She's read more books than anyone I know.

So while, you know, we're not attorneys, we are not certified tax professionals, and we aren't Joe Biden.

We don't know what's going to happen with student loans in the future, but we're hoping that all of our collective experience and research can help you guys quite a bit.

So just as a quick overview of our lecture, little lecture for the day.

First, we're just going to talk about student loans.

We get that they're scary, so we're just going to talk about breaking it down very basics, how you take them out and how you repay them.

Then we'll talk about how to budget so that the loans you take out don't have to be so big.

And we'll talk about strategic borrowing.

So very first thing we're going to do, we have two quick questions.

The first one is what is the median debt of new PA graduates?

The second, what is the median starting salary for a new grad pa?

Just kind of think on those.

Which one do you think is higher?

Which one do you think is lower?

Which one do you think is changing the most over time?

The answers so the new PA graduate will have almost $140,000 in student debt and the average starting salary is almost $100,000.

So those are both super high numbers.

You know, we take on a lot of debt, but then we very quickly start to have a really big, almost six figure salary.

And we're kind of unique in that situation.

A lot of people don't have that high of salary straight out of school.

But also our debt is way more than the national average.

Which is why we think helping people in that short amount of time that two to three years of PA school, when you're taking out so Much money can really affect your finances for the rest of your life.

So to kind of set the stage, we made a little scenario to kind of help show little amounts of money you borrow now make a big impact down the road.

So let's say you've already taken out a loan for tuition, but you realize you needed to borrow an extra thousand dollars just for rent for the for the month.

How much of that will you pay back?

You take out $1,000, are you going to pay back $1,000?

Are you going to pay back more than $1,000?

Or do you feel attacked right now because you have bigger fish to fry?

So first step is, if you need $1,000, you're going to need to actually ask for more than $1,000.

And that's because of the origination fee that all federal loans take out.

So on your first $20,500, you can ask for the direct loan, which has typically a lower origination fee and a lower interest rate.

But beyond that, you're going to have to ask for the plus loan, which has a 4.3% origination fee and typically higher interest rates.

So if you need $1,000 in your bank account, you actually have to ask for that plus the 4.228% fee to make sure you get $1,000 in your bank account.

So now you have $1,000 in your bank account, but you already are going to owe $1,043 back to the government.

So at a 6.3% interest rate, which is, I think, standard for the grad plus loans right now, you pay that back over 10 years, which is the standard repayment time.

You will have paid back $1,365 for that $1,000 you originally borrowed.

But if you assume that your salary is $100,000, your income will be taxed at about 24%.

And that doesn't include any state or local taxes you have.

So I think this example kind of shows the importance of little bits that you borrow now.

You'll end up paying back way more down the road.

So going back to the different loans I was talking about earlier, there are federal loans and there are private loans.

So just in terms of federal loans, federal loans will have a set origination fee.

It's something you can check before you take out the loan.

And they have fixed interest rates.

So the interest rate you're given when you first take out the loan will not change over time.

You also get a six month grace period guaranteed with the federal loans so that you have some time to really nail down that first job right after graduation.

So also on the other side of the screen, you can see here that there are different interest rates for the two different kinds of loans.

You can take out $20,500 a year, that's unsubsidized graduate loans.

And that will have the lower.

Right now it's 5.3% interest.

And then anything you need over that $20,500 will be a higher interest rate with the plus loan at like 6.3%.

So you'll apply for this in the summer before you start school.

But you can do it.

The deadline is June 30.

Don't wait till June 30.

Do it as early as possible.

The earliest you can do it is October 1, the year before you start school.

And then your other option, if you don't have the cash to pay for all of PA school up front, which most of us don't, is private loans.

So with private loans, there's typically no origination fee.

The interest rates could be much lower or much higher.

With the private loans, you're more likely to need a good credit score or a cosigner to get a better interest rate.

So if you have a great credit score, this could be a better option for you.

But right now there's a lot of talk about potential government loan forgiveness and private loans will not get any of that.

I think it's also super important to know that 120 days after you get your federal loan distribution in your bank account, you, you can return unused funds with absolutely no penalties.

So that means no interest that's accumulated, no origination fees.

It's like you never took it out.

So I think once you have that extra like three and a half months to kind of decide where your budget is going.

If you realize you took out too much, it's super important to give it back.

That way you're not paying interest and origination fees on money that you don't end up needing.

So there are some different repayment strategies you can use with federal loans.

The most common one is the standard 10 year repayment.

Everyone is eligible for this one and they just basically take the amount that you'll owe plus interest and divide it up into 120 payments.

So just one payment a month for 10 years and then you're done.

They also have an income based repayment strategy.

And this is based on your debt to income ratio.

So they'll make your payments just based on like 10 to 15% of your discretionary income.

And you kind of have to let them know your income every year.

If you take a lower paying job right out of school and you take a better job later that pays more, you'll have to pay more later.

Then there's also public service forgiveness.

And if you work for a qualifying employer like a nonprofit hospital or some government facilities, then after you make 120 payments, everything left over goes away.

And then these are more of like a personal strategy for paying off loans.

There's the debt avalanche, which means you make the minimum payments on all your loans and use as much as you can to pay down the loan with the highest interest rate.

This is the one I personally like best because high interest rates means more money that you're paying.

So this one I would pay maybe like a 7% or 8% loan first and then let the ones like a 2 or 3% interest rate sit for a little bit longer because they'll accumulate less interest.

So with this one, you end up paying less over time.

But there's another strategy called the snowball strategy.

And this is the one where you'll make minimum payments on all your loans, but then you'll take the smallest loan.

Like for example, if you have $5,000 in one and 25,000 in another and 30,000 in another one, you're going to go for that $5,000 loan first so that you can just make some progress right off the bat.

This is good for people who need the extra motivation and they're maybe overwhelmed by the amount of loans they have.

So just start small and tackle the little ones first so that you can really amp yourself up and then be like, okay, I already knocked one out.

I can do this.

And that motivation can be really helpful for some people.

And then I think this is a little secret insider tip that not many people know about until it's time to pay.

But you can usually get a good interest rate discount just for signing up for autopay.

I also like that because you can't forget.

There are fees for forgetting.

So if you borrow $10,000 and you sign up for autopay, that's $300 you save and you can't forget.

Now Evan has another quiz for you guys.

Okay, y' all go ahead and pull out your phones.

You can scan this QR code or you can type in the link pullup.com backslash our special code.

Or you can send in a text to that number.

It'll give you a second to log in, and then I'll launch the the quiz.

Okay.

First question is, do you currently have a budget?

And having a budget means more than just looking at your bank account sometimes.

So now we're at like 30% of people have a budget, 70% don't.

And I'd say that's pretty much what our class looks like.

Yep, last year.

All right, I'll go to the next question.

And it's how confident do you feel about your knowledge of student loans and budgeting in PA school?

It.

We're seeing about that 70, 30 split also.

So 30% of you feel average confidence and almost 70% of you feel not at all confident.

So let's try to fix that.

So why I think it's important to talk about federal loans before you start PA school is because a lot of our classmates didn't know what they were getting into.

So I know it's scary and kind of frustrating to hear that you're about to take on a lot of student debt before you start PA school.

But you need to know what the terms of these loans are, what the rules are, and what it's going to look like for you in the two and a half years following PA school.

So now we're going to talk about budgeting.

And that's important for two reasons.

Because one, it's different budgeting loans than it is budgeting income, because you're about to get six months approximately worth of money all at once in your bank account.

And you need to make that money last for six months without having any other stream of income come in.

So our goal with teaching you how to budget is that when it's that two weeks before the next time you get your disbursement, that you're not eating ramen noodles and not able to afford gas.

And then the second reason that it's important Ginger touched on is that you don't want to take out a ton of extra money that you don't need because that money is gaining interest while you're in school.

So if you can know your budget and know how much money you're going to spend over those six months and not take out extra, then that's interest that you're saving yourself in the long run.

I'm going to go back to our slide.

So first thing is, how do you pay bills with your loans?

So.

So I would say that whatever bank account you use, you can make a separate checking account and Just title it bills and your loan disbursement will go there.

So if your school gives you three months at a time, six months at a time, put all that money in there and then link all your bills to that account and have it automated so your rent, your electricity, your WI fi, any subscriptions you have, just automate it.

Because the first came around during our finals week, I don't know how many times.

And rent will slip your mind so that you save your money on late fees and that you know how much is being taken out each month.

I would just automate everything and then I would also put your bills in a separate account because then you know that, you know, if you're spent a little extra on groceries or spend a little extra in another category for something, you know at minimum that all of your bills are going to be paid.

And that's really what matters, because you don't want to be in PA school and have the lights go out or something else.

And then the other important thing is to have another account for your emergency fund.

Now, some of you might already have an emergency fund or you might be working before PA school starts and you're able to save some money to put into emergency fund.

But if you don't, I would take out a little extra cash in your loans to create an emergency fund with loans.

And why that's important is because even though we do have interest collecting with our federal student loans, it's still a lower interest rate than if we were to use a credit card.

So, so your pet can still get sick, you can get a flat tire, you could have a medical bill, you don't know, and you need to have some cash on hand to handle those expenses.

And like I said, just to reiterate, the point of having the budget is to help you strategically borrow money, and it's helping you not take out excess that is going to set you back in the long run.

So let's talk about other types of debt that you might have before going into PA school.

So the first one is credit cards.

And as many of y' all know, credit cards have interest rates that can be high as 25%.

So I would recommend that if you can, when you get your first loan payment and you still have credit card debt, I would take out extra and just knock out that credit card balance with your loan.

And the reason I'm saying that is because the loan interest Rate for federal student loans is around 7% and at least it is lower than the 25% on the credit card.

But the caveat is that if you do this, you cannot rack up credit card debt every single semester.

It's like one time thing, like you're going to do it when school starts and then you're not going to do it again.

And if that means you can't use a credit card for PA school, that's okay.

But it's one way to save yourself some money that you're not, you know, racking up high interest credit card debt every single month of PA school.

Now, car payments are a little bit different because they tend to have lower interest rates.

It could be around 3 to 5%.

So if you do have a car payment going into PA school and it's reasonable, I would just treat it as another monthly bill, just pay it every month because it's not going to set you back as far as credit card debt would.

And then if you have student loans remaining going into PA school from undergraduate, your unsubsidized ones like won't generate interest while you're in school and you don't owe payments on them while you're in school.

So now let's talk about why it's hard to budget in PA school.

I think the biggest difficulty for me and Ginger, who we know how to budget, we have budgets, is that there's a lot of expenses in PA school that are not typical.

So I'm going to run through a couple of the things that you need to think about.

So the first thing that you'll run into is your program deposit, which could be around 500 to $1,500, and that will be right when you get into PA school.

Consider if you're going out of state for PA school, that you're going to have to buy plane tickets home for the holidays.

And these are around Christmas and Thanksgiving when the plane tickets are more expensive than they normally are.

Make sure to account for moving costs.

You're going to need renters, insurance.

You might need a security deposit done down at your apartment.

And then depending on where your school is, you're going to have to pay for parking on campus.

Or you can live super close to campus, which is what I recommend in walking or taking public transportation to school.

Schools require you to have health insurance, so they'll offer you their plan, which will be a part of your budget.

A smaller expense, like some schools may cover it, some don't.

But AAPA and state PA membership are things that you might want to have for networking purposes and to get access to their resources.

And then getting close to graduation is when things start to get expensive.

So pants is around $600.

And then getting your license and your DEA.

Hopefully your job will reimburse you, but if they don't, it's running $300 for the license and about $800 for your DEA.

And then the biggest thing that I didn't know about going in PA school is that after you graduate, it takes about two to three months to get a license and get credentialing done with your job and everything.

So you need to have living expenses for that time after graduation and before you start working.

And then when did you start?

I started in June.

Yeah.

So you have to account for that time after graduation.

So these are my big hitting tips for living on a budgeting PA school and not feeling like you are depriving yourself of every form of fun.

So the first thing I would say is save on the big three.

So your big three are housing, transportation and food.

And that's where I think 60 to 80% of the American budget goes to.

So saving on housing.

Consider a roommate.

Consider an apartment.

I would say the biggest thing is look on Facebook groups for your school and surrounding schools because you might be able to find a resident or a fellow who has a house and they're running out of room.

Or you'll be able to find roommates that aren't in your program and things like that.

And then transportation.

I touched on try to live as close to school as possible.

A lot of our classmates walked to school, biked to school, took buses or trains to school.

And so that saved us a lot of money as far as not only gas, but car maintenance and oil changes and things like that.

If you can go without a car at all, kudos to you.

But often programs will require you to have a vehicle to go to rotations.

And then the last thing is food.

I'm a huge foodie.

I love a meal out, but I would go out to eat on Friday nights and then the rest of the week I would eat breakfast at home, pack lunch, cook dinner at home, meal prep, because eating out every day will start to add up and your budget really can't sustain it in PA school.

Other tips?

Textbooks.

Always look for PDFs or share textbooks with classmates.

A lot of classes, I mean, don't tell your professors this, but you probably don't need the textbook.

And then Study subscriptions, the same thing.

And then you can always carpool to rotations that are far, carpool to school with classmates that live close and then big hitters as well as computers.

Me and Junior, neither of us got new computers for PA school.

I know it's nice to have a brand new imac and Apple pencil and iPad, but you don't need it.

I definitely got through school with my computer, no issues.

Medical equipment, definitely try to buy used from classmates in the that have graduated before you.

And then luckily we've been able to wear scrubs more often and so kind of save money on buying business casual clothes for certain rotations.

And then another place you can cut expenses.

Is anything that subscription based, like if you can share with family or cut it out completely.

I know a lot of us, I mean our age group, we don't really have cable anymore, but like sharing your Netflix, sharing your Spotify, getting your student Spotify account, things like that.

And definitely the biggest thing for not feeling like you are depriving yourself of everything is choose what makes you happy.

So you can't afford everything in PA school, but you can afford the things that bring you true joy.

So for me that's like a nice meal out.

So I had my Friday night meals and for some classmates that was investing into their hobbies or having one gym membership.

But like you cannot afford to do all the things but think about what truly brings you joy and keep that up in PA school.

So now I'm going to show you our budget spreadsheet.

So Ginger and I developed this right after we graduated from school.

We thought of what we would have wanted to have to help us figure out how to calculate loans in PA school.

So I'm going to give you a quick tutorial.

Like Savannah says, we sell it for $10 on our Etsy and we think it's good for any pre PA student that's been accepted to PA school or current PA students.

Okay, so this is our landing page.

So it tells you now how much of your program you've completed so far and how many days you have till graduation.

And this is just where we show you a visual picture of your money.

So where your money's going every month, how much you estimated you would spend versus how much you're actually spending and how much you're spending on things that you need versus things that you're splurging on and buying things that you want.

So you fill out your monthly budget page.

We have categories here for you, but these are customizable.

So we account for groceries and rent and study dates at coffee shops.

And you just plug in how much you're spending each month.

The most important part here is the estimated expenses.

It's more up to you if you want to keep this up month to month.

But an important part of our spreadsheet is the cell right here.

And I'll touch back on it after I show you the rest.

But it's showing you how much you expected yourself to spend versus how much you're actually spending.

So you can see, you know, based on each month, like are you overspending or underspending?

And is that money going to last you the whole semester?

And here's where we accounted for all the PA school specific expenses.

So we account for your AAPA membership and your medical equipment and your computer fund.

And we do that for however long your PA school is.

So your first year, second year, third year, depending on how long your program is.

And it factors in, you know, your monthly spending versus how long you need it to last.

And then like I said, we talk about factoring the post grad living expenses and graduation and pants.

And in each semester we give you a little bit of emergency fund that you can give yourself as well.

But the most important part of the sheet is that it helps you calculate how much to take out in loans.

So the sheet calculates for you how much you expected to spend each semester, adds that to your tuition and fees, and then it subtracts, you know, if you had savings, if you have family helping you, if you have scholarships, if you have any other form of income.

And it tells you how much you need per semester and how much you need per year.

So it's essentially helping you estimate how much you need from fafsa.

And so if you need to add on a little bit of a buffer on top of that to pay off your credit card or to have an emergency fund, you could do that here.

And then you just plug into the sheet how much you accepted in loans.

So it'll tell you how much funds you have available for that term or semester, what have you.

And like I said, I would talk about the sell again.

So that number that you accepted will go into your total semester fund.

So that way when you're plugging in your budget each month, it's telling you how much money you have remaining.

So if you are spending about $2,500, it's telling you like, okay, you have 22,000 left and it's got to last you until next.

So that's the overview of our Spreadsheet, super easy to use.

All the calculators are in there for you.

It's customizable for whatever program that you go to.

I know some people have, like, very interesting schedules, so if you need help customizing it for your program, just reach out to Ginger and I through DM or through email and we'll walk you through it.

But there's some programs where they bought it for their whole class, so we customize the sheet for their program.

So were familiar with adjusting it for any schedule.

So overall, what did we talk about?

We talked about, what are federal student loans?

What are private student loans?

What do they mean to you?

How do you pay them back?

What are the interest rates and origination fees and things like that.

And then the most actionable step you can take as a PA student or a pre APA student is budgeting, spending your loans appropriately, making sure that they last through the semester, not taking out too many loans so that you're not collecting interest rate that you don't need.

And this is preparing you for graduating from PA school, because as a new grad, you're going to be using those same budgeting skills.

And if you're already familiar, that's just going to put you that much more ahead in the loan payoff journey.

And I think the best thing about having a budget is that it allows you to kind of focus on PA school.

I know I had, like a lot of stress surrounding student loans, but having a plan helped me ease that stress.

Especially now making PA money like you truly see that.

Yes, we have a lot of debt, but we also earn a lot more than the average person coming out of undergrad.

And then, like I said, you can reach out to us through email or on Instagram.

I post a lot of tips about negotiating, we post about budgeting, we post about student loans, all the things.

And then you can buy our spreadsheet for $10 in our Etsy shop.

And then, like I said, if you need any help customizing it, just reach out to us.

And then we are so excited to hear all of Yalls questions.

Yeah, I think we have about 15 minutes for questions.

So if we aren't able to make it to every single question, just know that you can DM us on Instagram, email us messages on Etsy, whatever you need.

All right, one of the questions, and I think somebody else had a question about this, was the scenario at the beginning about the amount you take out for rent and how much you pay it back.

Could y' all walk us through that again to Help understand how interest plays into that.

And somebody else asked, which I put a response in here, but y' all may have more to expand on.

Doesn't the interest rate pause while you're in school?

That's how it was during undergrad, which, from what I understand, subsidized loans.

Pause.

Right.

But they don't offer that for grad school anymore.

I was actually the last year that got that.

So my first semester I got that for one semester.

And then the rest of the time it was the unsubsidized.

Where the interest does accrue while you're in school.

Unfortunately, yes.

Yeah.

So we can talk through that scenario a little bit more.

Just to preface, it was an example that I completely made up.

It's.

Or the second one, the Grad plus loan.

Those are like your two options for federal loans.

I went ahead and used the second one because this seemed like an example where it's just like an extra thousand dollars that you realize you needed to take out.

So if you're using a Grad plus loan, that's the one with the higher origination fee and higher interest rates.

That thousand dollars, if you need exactly $1,000, you need to take out a little bit more just to make up for that origination fee, because they won't give you 100% of what you request.

They'll give you that minus the origination fee.

So off the bat, you need to ask for $1,443 for that 4.3% origination fee.

And then after that, it's accumulating interest as long as you have it.

So while you're in grad school, sadly, you're accumulating interest.

When you cannot have a job, there's nothing you can do about it.

You just have to sit there and accept it.

It's really sad.

But then as soon as you get out of school, you get a job, you pay it back over the, let's call it standard 10 year repayment plan.

You can absolutely pay it off sooner than with the federal loans.

There's no penalty for paying off your loans earlier than your repayment plan tells you to.

And then once you're actually earning money that if you borrow a thousand dollars, do not expect to pay back a thousand dollars.

It should be like one and a half times that.

Yes, I think that makes sense.

And I think people are confused about the percentages.

So the first percentages were the origination fees and then the interest rate and.

Then that paying back with after tax dollars.

All right.

Okay.

How much do you recommend saving before going to PA school?

As much as possible.

As much as possible.

Every dollar that you don't have to take out loans for is, you know, a dollar and a half down the road.

So whatever you can save, the more the merrier.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend, like, putting off PA school to save more money, though.

I would assume that whatever job you have before PA school will pay less than you would make as a pa.

So don't put off your career goals to save more money.

Definitely.

The earlier you become a pa, you have an extra year to make that beautiful little six figure salary.

So the earlier you can start, the better.

The more you can save before that even better.

Yes.

And I think Evan talked about, like, having an emergency fund, which MPA school.

I mean, stuff comes up, you.

You just never know.

I'm trying to think of stuff that happened to people in my class.

Like there are definitely lots of car problems, unexpected rotation to have on hand if needed.

That would be really, really helpful.

And then maybe you wouldn't have to take out loans for that part of it at least.

My strategy for that was a little bit different.

I had parents that said if anything crazy happens, we can still help you.

You're on your own for PA school, but if someone slashes your tires, we don't want you to skip a meal over it.

We can always support you in case of emergencies.

I was fortunate in that I didn't need an emergency fund set aside for something like that.

If you have a family member who, in case of something crazy like ridiculous, unlikely happening, I think that's an okay option, too.

I think everyone understands you're a grad student, and if you can pay them back when you graduate and they're okay with that, and you think you promise you'll do it, that's an okay answer, too.

It kind of depends on your personal situation.

Yes.

And, I mean, I think that for sure can help too.

All right, if.

It's a download, correct?

Yep.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean it.

You could go ahead and start, you know, filling in your budget.

And in PA school, it can be really helpful once you're actually there, I think.

I don't know if y' all agree.

I like that.

Yes.

All right.

When should we start looking into Loans as soon as we are accepted to a school or once we figure out living cost, etc.

And this kind of goes with it.

Can you apply for financial aid before being accepted?

I don't know the logistics of these.

I don't know if y' all do.

I wouldn't, I mean, I don't, I wouldn't apply to FAFSA until you get accepted into PA school.

I don't think you can apply without.

I think you can apply.

I remember applying for FAFSA with all the schools I had already applied to, just being very confident I would get in, I guess.

But you do have to list schools and I don't think they give you an unlimited number of schools to list.

So I would wait until you get accepted.

There's no reason to do it excessively early.

There's, there's.

Yeah, there's no benefit to doing excessively early.

You just don't want to wait till the last minute.

So as soon as you get accepted, I would start applying to fafsa.

If you're on a wait list, that gets kind of sticky, but you should still have enough time to apply to FAFSA before the deadline.

As far as private loans, I think most people, you should be able to live quite comfortably on federal loans unless you find that there's a private loan that you could get a lower interest rate on.

In that case, the timeline is a little different.

Okay.

Oh, this is interesting.

Again, I don't know the specifics of this and I think it varies between program, but if a program doesn't offer an insurance plan for students, what do you recommend for going about getting insurance?

Like health insurance?

Yeah.

You don't know anything about it?

I thought it was legally required for a school to have health insurance for students.

So I'm not sure on that one.

So I don't think it is.

And I think so I've talked to a few students about this.

I fell into the still under 26 and on my parents insurance as long as possible part of things.

But I think if your school does not offer insurance, which I don't think they absolutely have to, a lot of people just go to like the open marketplace and sign up for their own policy and then you can account for that in your loans to make sure you're paying for it.

Because I think the schools, I think the schools do require you to have health insurance, but I don't think they're required to provide it.

I would say open market is probably the most affordable option also.

Yeah.

Okay.

Is there loan Forgiveness for working in a rural or medically underserved area post PA school.

Yes.

So the biggest, most popular option is the NHSC scholarship or loan repayment program.

You can apply to it before you start PA school and then you can also apply for it again a year after PA school.

And I think they offer about 25 grand a year of loan repayment for.

For two years.

For two years of service.

But it's another loan repayment option.

And then certain states have programs where if you work in certain areas that they will offer certain loan forgiveness.

So it's more like the midwestern states that offer it.

I have a friend who has like full ride for doing service in Alaska.

And then lastly, certain hospitals will offer loan repayment as well.

So we have a friend that moved to Maine and her hospital is also offering some loan assistance.

Next.

All right, do we have time for any more questions?

This apparently is a popular one.

Do you have any recommendations for married couples?

Going from a two income household to one.

Can't relate.

But I think your best bet is to start living on that one income as right now, yesterday.

Just start seeing what expenses you can cut.

If you can save for PA school using the dual income while you still have it so you don't have to take out the loans as much later.

Try and do that.

See if there's any duplicate spending.

See if you guys spend the same.

Like surely you have the Duo Spotify account by now.

You know, work in the little ways you can merge finances and then just start living off the one as early as possible.

You think of anything else, Evan?

Student loans just to pay for childcare and things like that.

Of course it's fine because once you guys are back for that dual income, you'll be making way more than you were for.

Yeah.

And I would just say from talking to students, don't feel pressure.

As someone who is married or in a relationship and has that other income, don't feel pressure that that means you can't take out loans and you have to survive on only that one income.

It's normal to take out loans for PA school.

The majority of people are going to do that whether they are single or married.

And so it would be awesome if you could say like, yeah, I'm just gonna, we're gonna live on this one income and it's gonna pay for all my schooling.

But that's not very realistic.

So if you could at least, you know, maybe use it for fees or living expenses and take out less loans, that's going to help you in the long run, a ton.

The.

The least you can take out, the better.

Even if it seems like it's small amounts.

See, you know what you can do.

But don't feel pressure to make it to where you don't have to take out loans just because you feel like you have this other income at all.

All right, let's see.

There's a question I don't know the specifics of.

This is very specific to fafsa.

When putting in your information for fafsa, as a grad student who is paying for school independently, do we have to put our parents information in?

As long as you're not a dependent on their.

I don't know if y' all know much about this.

What are your thoughts on Stride funding?

That's something I've talked about a little bit, which does income shared agreements, which are a little different than traditional loans.

Do you know anything about those or not too much.

I have an idea, but I don't want to say it because I haven't really researched it enough to be confident in my answer.

I would say DM us on that one.

And I would say it's interesting.

Stride funding is definitely interesting just because I think for somebody like some of you mentioning like, what if I need funding really quickly or I don't want to do private loans, whether their options are out there and if you talk to Stride, they'll tell you to like, use FAFSA first.

Use federal loans first.

Like, that is your number one.

Always your first.

Don't go straight to private loans.

Don't go to something like Stride first.

But then after you've exhausted that, if you need more money, that's when you've got to start really comparing these other options.

And with loans, like, just look at the terms.

I didn't take out private loans, but in my friends who did and talking to them about paying it back and stuff and refinancing and all this things they're having to do.

A lot of them did not even like read their terms.

Like they honestly didn't know what they were getting into.

And that can be a headache later.

So re.

Read it all.

Thank you, guys.

I think we are wrapping.

I'm sure there's so many more questions slide in those dms.

I think Savannah accidentally left us.

Maybe she'll be back in a minute.

Thank you so much.

I've been so stressed out and that.

So anyway, yes, thank you guys so much for this.

I. I really appreciate how like straightforward y' all are and I think that's the hard part is it gets so confusing, all of this.

So thank y' all for your, your definitely your time and your expertise.

And everybody go make sure y' all are Instagram.

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