6 Lessons From A Student Loan Counselor

If there’s anything I’ve learned after six-plus years as a certified student loan counselor, it’s that higher education debt hits close to home: my landlord’s daughter, and a neighbor down the street; a volleyball teammate, and a colleague from work; my wife’s client, and the parents of our daughter’s friends.

Obviously, student loan debt also stretches far and wide. I’ve counseled a minuscule fraction of the 43 million borrowers who are a collective $1.6 trillion in the red. But my half-dozen years as a pro bono counselor has taught me many things that might be useful as you handle your own student loans. So, here goes.

6 things I’ve learned as a certified student loan counselor

1. Many of us never learned basic personal finance (but we still can).

Repaying your student loans, as you might have found out, requires some know-how that our high school and college classes left uncovered. Take budgeting, for example. Creating and maintaining a budget is critical for zeroing debt of any kind, whether you’re making minimum or extra payments.

That’s why budgeting is often a first step for borrowers I counsel. I’m reminded of a couple in their 30s who were going back to school for nursing degrees. They had taken out student loans as well as a personal loan and an auto loan, all simply by eye-balling their bank accounts and estimating their side-hustle earnings.

So, we created a budget together to begin allocating payments toward their highest-interest debts (trimming a few unnecessary expenses along the way). They also needed to understand how interest works, another basic topic we often learn after leaving school. Fortunately, you don’t have to remember algebra to calculate interest — use student loan payment calculators for that.

2. There’s little that’s ‘basic’ about student loan repayment (but we can figure it out).

When I interviewed the last student loan ombudsman of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), she described the system for repaying federal education debt as a “labyrinthine.” It certainly has maze-like features: there are so many passages to consider, so many obstacles in the way.

Here’s the example of Yasmine Kasi, whose family I’ve counseled over the years: “When I heard about the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, I did look into that as a strategy to help alleviate my loans,” says Kasi, an Illinois-based speech language pathologist. “I applied based on my experience working for a [New York City Department of Education] public school for four years. However, I was denied.”

Especially after a roadblock like that, the job of a counselor is to help you figure out where you are and which routes lead to your destination. With student loans, however, possible routes can appear (or disappear) before your very eyes. For instance, the Biden Administration presented the SAVE repayment plan in 2023, only for the courts to strike it down. Then the Trump Administration temporarily removed access to all income-driven repayment (IDR) plans in 2025.

On the bright side — trust me, there is one — everyone has at least one pathway to either a successful payoff or much-deserved relief. The job of you, the borrower, is to participate in finding it.

3. Quick fixes are few and far between (but finding solutions is possible).

The first and most frequent question I typically get from clients:

“How do I get rid of these loans?”

If only it was so simple.

I typically tell borrowers that there are two main ways to “get rid” of education debt: the especially aggressive approach or the strategically slow one.

• Especially aggressive: A borrower with excellent credit and strong cash-flow who doesn’t rely on federal loan protections is more likely to benefit from refinancing with a private lender, perhaps multiple times, to keep lowering their overall interest rate. Even better if they can make extra, even biweekly payments, especially after windfalls like tax refunds or a pay raise, to trim their principal faster.
• Strategically slow: A borrower who works for the government, a nonprofit or simply in a low-paying career is more likely to benefit from keeping their monthly payment low on an IDR plan while working toward a forgiveness or loan repayment assistance program. It can and often does take years for relief to arrive.

Whether you more closely identify with the excellent-credit borrower or the low-wage worker — or more likely, are somewhere in between — the harder truth for everyone is that there are no fast and easy solutions. (If someone promises you one, that’s a red flag of a potential student loan scam.)

With that said, you can identify the right strategy, and by sticking with it, reach your goal of a zero balance.

4. It’s easy to get spun around in the student loan news cycle (but you can stay engaged without stressing yourself out).

I hear from borrowers all the time who ride the roller coaster highs and lows of what certain politicians say in public. This isn’t specific to any one political party either. Leading up to and during the Biden Administration, for example, mass student loan forgiveness proposals became a lightning-rod topic around the country. And more recently, the Trump Administration’s recent targeting of PSLF and its dismantling of the Department of Education writ large has undoubtedly left many of us uncertain, even confused about what the future holds.

It’s hard to blame borrowers for getting their hopes up or for hanging their heads. Too often in our media coverage of student loan policy proposals, we don’t contextualize enough. For every grand promise from someone in the District of Columbia, there are caveats: This is an idea for change, not change by itself. And even if it comes to fruition, it may not affect every borrower, and it may not come into effect anytime soon.

So, my advice to clients and to you: action over words. And if the words stress you out, avoid the headlines altogether. Instead, stay on top of the news morsels that matter to you by getting some assistance.

5. It’s hard to ask for help, let alone find it (but you’ll be glad you did).

The Education Department’s contractors are notorious for providing spotty (or worse) service to federal loan borrowers. And I haven’t seen enough evidence that private loan borrowers are significantly happier with their lenders.

“People overwhelmingly know what to do with their loans, but then they get bad information from their servicers that cause[s] them to second-guess themselves or make bad decisions or not do anything at all,” says education debt lawyer Stanley Tate, who has been counseling for 11 years. “We’re talking about the most complex consumer loan product in the world full stop, and you’re asking people who are call center employees to… advise someone on what to do when there are so many tripwires built into the system.”

Don’t misunderstand. Your federal loan servicer or private lender (be it a bank, credit union, online company or state agency) is a good place to get information about your loan and a one-size-fits-all menu of repayment options. It’s not a good place for nuanced guidance.

Instead, seek out a certified professional who can tailor a plan to your situation. And while you’re at it, yes, be skeptical. Clients have asked me for my company name (there is none) and how long I’ve been doing this. It’s also wise to ask counselors, lawyers and others whether they’ve successfully helped borrowers who were experiencing what you’re experiencing now.

6. The average borrower doesn’t have time for all this (but consider our final tip anyway).

There are a handful of borrowers I’ve spoken with who will reach out randomly, maybe once a year. Sometimes they’ll ask the same question they posed in the past, only hoping for a different answer. I usually remind them that…

• The so-called quick fix doesn’t exist (for most borrowers).
• The news is sometimes misleading (because it lacks context).
• The best way to end your debt is to set a strategic plan (and stick to it).

It’s not the most uplifting message. That explains why it’s sometimes met with a shrug, and a similar phone call a year or so later.

Again, that’s not to blame borrowers. But “not having the time” is a common refrain. And I get it. Life happens. Loans can wait, or at least it seems they can.

Consider Kasi, the pathologist who has a six-figure student loan balance.

“Beyond [PSLF], I have not looked into other strategies,” she says. “My family and I moved around between states the last couple of years, and I’m still settling down before I try to reassess my situation… I am hoping in a year from now, I will be in a better position.”

My advice for Kasi and for every student loan borrower: If you don’t have time to dedicate to your student loan repayment, you’re probably right. But go ahead and schedule it anyway. Write on your calendar, set an alarm or simply pick a day and time each week or month to check in on your debt, where your strategy stands and whether your options have changed.

Yes, like the rest of it, this is easier said than done, particularly when you have family, work, other bills and all the usual obligations of adulthood. But I still say, dedicate time to your student loans on a recurring basis. At least it’ll give you a break from all that other stuff.

Get going

Take it step-by-step, beginning where it makes the most sense for you. You might start by learning to budget, connecting with a professional or logging back into StudentAid.gov or your private lender’s portal. The key is to start and be consistent.