If you’ve got over $50,000 of student loans, you’ve come to the right place for student loan help. I’ve seen everything defaulted debt to $1 million individual balances. The only reason to hire me to help with student loans is because I’m going to provide so much more value than the cost of a consult. If you check out my reviews from clients on Facebook, you’ll see how I’m helping transform even the most challenging student loan balances.
My Job is to Save You Every Dollar I Can Possibly Find and Explain All Your Repayment Options
If you’re struggling with five or six figures of student loans, I want to hear from you because I can almost surely get you student loan help. I’ve saved hundreds of clients millions of dollars by helping them craft a student loan repayment strategy. That means making sure you’re set up to save every dollar possible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness by minimizing Adjusted Gross Income if you qualify. If your debt to income ratio is relatively low and you want to be debt free, student loan help could mean refinancing student loans to get a lower interest rate. Additionally, we’ll make sure you’re saving for the tax penalty under the most advantageous income driven repayment plan if that’s the right path.
Help with Student Loans That’s Customized for Every Individual
The point is that every analysis done by Student Loan Planner is highly customized for you, the client. You might have a spouse with no student loans and a high income. Perhaps you’re weighing job offers between the public and private sector but are unsure of the future of the PSLF program. Maybe you’re looking to maximize interest subsidies while growing your business. The vast majority of clients who I work with have a lot of opportunity to adjust what they’re doing.
The average savings I find over the life of the student loan payback period is about $80,000 (this is projected over 20-25 years). At a one time flat fee of $199 for individuals and $299 for couples, this service is particularly valuable for current and soon to be graduate professionals with six figure student debt loads. The higher the student loan balance, the more student loan help I’m able to provide. Perhaps that’s why the average client balance I advise on is over $260,000.
Maybe you’re a reader wanting to give me feedback on this startup or provide suggestions on my blog articles. Maybe you’re a researcher or reporter seeking to understand the growing student loan crisis in America. I’d love to hear from you too. Contact me using the form below, and then keep reading because you really should do your research before you hire some guy off the internet to help with your financial future.
What is Student Loan Planner and How Do You Give Student Loan Help?
I’m Travis Hornsby, founder of Student Loan Planner. I used to be a bond trader for one of the world’s largest investment companies, and I’ve taken this level of rigor to analyzing student loans for clients. I’m a Chartered Financial Analyst, and I bring the same intensity I used when trading billions of dollars to my clients’ student loan portfolios. It’s a heck of a lot easier coming up with massive amounts of savings in the student loan space because frankly it’s a very confusing system with literally hundreds of ways to save money thanks to how complicated the American student loan system has become.
I’ve saved a projected $19 million for hundreds of borrowers with a collective $60 million in student debt since founding Student Loan Planner in late September 2016. To accomplish these projected savings over the life of a client’s loans, I use proprietary software that I built myself from the excel modeling skills I learned while trading billions of dollars in bonds for the world’s largest mutual fund company.
While every consult is different, I’m either going to provide you an exhaustive review of your repayment options and confirm you’re on a good path, or I’m going to save you tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you would like an expert opinion, send me an email at travis@studentloanplanner.com and I’ll let you know the steps for moving forward. See why close to 20% of my clients take the time to leave 5 star reviews.
Frequently Asked Questions about Hiring Student Loan Planner as Your Student Loan Consultant
Q: What do you do in a student loan consultation?
A: I educate my clients on the options available for student loan repayment that will save them the most money. Sometimes that means taking advantage of the government repayment programs such as REPAYE, PAYE, and IBR in a more optimal way. If the borrower’s debt to income ratio is low, I am often able to find lower interest rates through private refinancing partners. Usually this also results in a $200-$300 refinancing bonus for the client. The final way I provide student loan help is making sure clients are properly set up to take advantage of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
Q: Why should I work with you when I already have a financial advisor?
A: To be frank, most financial advisors do not have a lot of experience or expertise in handling complex student loan cases. I suggest to every client to only work with an advisor who has a fiduciary responsibility to put your best interests first. Ask any advisor you work with to explain the difference in the interest capitalization rules for REPAYE vs. PAYE vs. IBR. Also ask him or her to come up with an approximate estimate of balance you’ll owe after 20-25 years on income based repayment. If he or she cannot answer both of these questions, it means you should not trust them to give you the best advice possible on managing your student debt. Advisors are very competent on a lot of issues, but unfortunately I’ve met very few that have more than a working understanding of student loans.
Q: How do I know Student Loan Planner is legitimate?
A: Unfortunately that’s a fair question to ask because they are a lot of student loan scams out there. The first way to know is that my fee is a fraction of the $1,500 or more that some of the “student debt relief” companies charge. The second way to know is that I actually do detailed financial modeling. The scam companies only do one thing for the most part, and that’s send in the forms to do loan consolidation. As a general rule, if a company’s website says that they’re a ‘document preparation service,’ then they’re probably a student loan scam.
Another way to vet me is to check out what my past clients have said about my service. Check my Facebook page and see the reviews that show the lengths I go to so clients know all their options and that they save as much money as possible. You could also get my free student loan calculator. Once you look at it, you’ll realize that I would have had to really understand student loans to be able to create it.
Q: Why use a you when I could just ask my financial aid office or loan servicer for student loan help?
A: In a perfect world, you shouldn’t need to use my service. However, in practice, many financial aid officers are far more concerned with getting you loans to pay the college’s tuition bill than worrying about how students will pay it back in the future. Many will just tell you to sign up for IBR or PAYE and push you out the door.
The loan servicers are even worse. The average call center rep is only useful if you know exactly what questions to ask them, and even then they frequently give inaccurate information.
When you hire me for a flat fee consult, I work for you and have a huge incentive to save you as much money as I can on your student loans.
Q: What qualifications do you have to be giving student loan consultations?
A: There really aren’t any credible credentials specific to student loans. However, I am a Charted Financial Analyst. To obtain this designation, I had to study for hundreds of hours over several years. Other credentialed financial professionals might have a CFP or CPA. Even so, that does not necessarily mean they have any real knowledge of student loans. One friend who is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) told me that their curriculum did little to equip him to provide student loan help.
I did trade over $10 billion in municipal bonds and worked on a team that managed over $100 billion in assets for the largest mutual fund company in the world. That’s why I’m qualified to do student loan consultations, because I understand how to build excel models cold. No other student loan advisory firm has the capabilities I do solely because I was trained to write formulas and code for active trading decisions in the millions and billions of dollars.
Q: What are your typical savings for clients?
A: Every client is different, but usually I save at least a few thousand dollars. As of the end of January, the actual average client savings is about $90,000 on an average student loan balance of $256,000. Of course these savings are over the life of the loan and each individual is different. The vast majority of my consults are with graduate degree holders with six figure debt loads. That said, I’ve worked with folks with $10,000 to $900,000 in student debt and would welcome anyone who wants student loan help understanding their repayment options.
Q: When do you charge your fee?
A: I send an invoice after the phone call. I find that people are more comfortable paying after I’ve shown how useful my student loan help is. If I provide no new information to you at all and you feel like I haven’t assisted you in paying down your student loans better than you are currently, I don’t charge anything.
Q: Who do you work with?
A: The short answer is anyone with student debt. I can generate the most savings for individuals and couples with six figure debt burdens, though I’m frequently able to generate savings in the thousands for debt loads as small as $20,000. I’ve worked with professionals from most every major graduate degree program including doctors, lawyers, business owners, veterinarians, dentists, pharmacists, chiropractors, physician’s assistants, and more.
How Did Student Loan Planner Begin?
Student Loan Planner started by accident. I wrote an article for Business Insider how my fiancee and I are paying down $124,000 of student debt using my handy spreadsheet.
I mentioned somewhere in the bottom of the piece that I had a part time student loan consulting business. At the time, I just helped out a couple friends who had questions about their student loans.
After over 300,000 page views on that one article, I decided to start Student Loan Planner on the belief that I could help thousands of people save thousands of dollars on their student loans through low cost consultations and sophisticated financial modeling. Learn what a consultation could do for you.