During 2021-2025, all forms of student loan forgiveness were tax-free. But as of 2026, there have been major changes to those rules. PSLF luckily remains tax-free. But student loan forgiveness in the private sector (the 20-25 year IDR kind) became taxable again as of January 1, 2026. There's a catch though. If you qualified for forgiveness in 2025 but had it discharged in 2026, it's tax-free. But if you qualify for discharge in 2026 and it gets forgiven in 2026 or later, that's a taxable...
19 days ago • 1 min read
For SLP Insiders and SLP Wealth clients, I wanted to share what might be my favorite spreadsheet update I've ever done. It shows how a bunch of life decisions or circumstances could impact your retirement and financial independence date. Here's the download. And here's a quick video on how to use it (for SLP Wealth clients, your advisor will show you how to use this sheet over time in upcoming meetings). Now for the usual weekly newsletter update. The main student loan news this week is Dept...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
When I see loopholes and potential pitfalls that could save you money, you know I'm gonna share it with SLP Insiders. I've got a summary at the bottom if the details below are too much. Right now, we're seeing a small but concerning trend where folks have their IDR payment unexpectedly recalculated to be much higher than they were anticipating. We think 2 things are driving this. First: when you recertify your IDR payment on the student aid website, unless your income went down, you need to...
2 months ago • 2 min read
I'm hearing that the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" student loan regulations will come out within a couple days. Hopefully that's true, but we're still expecting more new student loan rules to come out after that as well. Why? The Big Beautiful Bill was passed in July of last year, and the Dept of Ed has to write a bunch of new regulations to implement that law. There's a lot of details that have to be spelled out in order to enact it. But in addition to those regulations, the SAVE plan lawsuit...
3 months ago • 1 min read
I'll start with my usual newsletter. At the bottom I'm sharing a loophole I think I've found since you're part of SLP Insiders (note that not every loophole will help everyone, but know that I'm always looking for you). We've got some fresh data on how they're processing IBR and PSLF applications (thanks to the American Federation of Teachers lawsuit). I thought I'd share the raw data below along with some of my observations. IBR Processing: Slow but headed the right direction The main number...
4 months ago • 3 min read
Hello from the other side of the holiday break! I feel refreshed and ready to jump into the student loan muck again with you to hopefully relieve your stress and cut through the noise. At the bottom of this email, I'll share some special SLP Insiders content, but first the weekly newsletter. This week, I'm happy to share that the partial financial hardship requirement has finally been removed from IBR plans. What is a partial financial hardship? It used to be the case that you had to have a...
4 months ago • 2 min read
A few Insiders updates for you. First, we had Jonathan S, Melinda N, and Matthew M that won the $100 gift cards yesterday (we've already emailed them). This was for posting in our Profession-specific "slack-style" chat channels in our SLP Insiders community and app. Here's what it looks like below. I see all of the channels but hopefully you only see the ones relevant to you. When you see someone post something that's relevant to you, know that you can DM someone within the community (there's...
5 months ago • 3 min read
The main thing we've got going for Insiders today is a webinar on the SAVE settlement. Here's the link to register for that, it's at 1:15pm ET today. We post all Insiders recordings in our SLP app and community after it happens. Remember the SLP app is the easiest way to access Insiders content. Here's what to know about the SAVE settlement that came out this week In case you didn't hear, the state of Missouri entered into a proposed settlement with the Dept of Ed that formally ends the SAVE...
5 months ago • 1 min read
Hey Insiders. First thing is we're doing a webinar on what to look for with student loans in 2026. It's going to be Thurs Dec 11 at 1:15pm. Here's the link to register. You can access the webinar live just by registering. But the recording will only be posted within the SLP community app (all Insiders recordings will now be housed in there vs. me emailing them out). Cool posts we're seeing in the SLP community & app My favorite posts this week involved some folks swapping what the "golden...
5 months ago • 2 min read