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Distinguished professor Kevin Nadal got $125,000 worth of student loans forgiven through PSLF.
Courtesy of Dr. Kevin Nadal
Before the pandemic, Kevin Nadal paid $1,000 a month toward his federal student loans.
He applied for PSLF and got $125,000 of student loans forgiven.
Now free from large monthly payments, Nadal will redirect his monthly payments toward building his kids’ future.
Kevin Nadal went into six-figure student loan debt to get his doctorate at Columbia University in the early 2000s. “I made that choice as a 24-year-old because I knew that being in a doctorate program that had majority faculty of color focused on issues related to racial equity through the lens of psychology — it was so rare. But it was the biggest financial risk,” adal tells Insider.
Today, the 44-year-old is a distinguished professor who has had a successful 12-year career at the City University of New York. His investment paid off professionally, but Nadal felt the years-long sting of giving up a percentage of his paycheck toward student loans each month.
According to records viewed by Insider, Nadal owed $893 a month on his student loan bill, but he rounded it up to pay $1,000 each month. He says, “At some point, I just sort of got used to it. It just became an accepted part of my life.”
Nadal learned about PSLF early on, but he was told he was on the wrong payment plan
After his second year teaching at CUNY, Nadal found out about the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. PSLF forgives the student loans of public school teachers and other nonprofit workers after 120 “qualifying payments” (about 10 years of consistent payments).
“I really lucked out. I didn’t intentionally seek out a position at a nonprofit. When I heard about PSLF, I was like, ‘Great, I’ll do that.'”
Nadal says he put his loans on forbearance for the first few years after school, then just started paying the minimum.
At year five of making payments, Nadal called his student loan servicer to make sure he was on the right track. Like many others who have applied for PSLF, he was told that he was on the wrong payment plan. None of the payments he had been making for the last five years counted toward the 120 qualifying payments needed to get his loans forgiven.
He switched an eligible plan after that. But, he says, “I was devastated, angry, frustrated, really hopeless. As a person of color, as a queer person, you just never expect systems to work for you.”
After learning about the temporary PSLF waiver, Nadal still didn’t have hope
Nadal kept making minimum payments on his student loans for years, although he still didn’t have faith that PSLF would actually work for him. Early in 2022, he learned about the temporary PSLF waiver that allows even more payments to count toward the 120 eligible payments to get your student loans forgiven.
Typically, only full, on-time payments made on a qualifying income-driven repayment plan count toward the 120 eligible payments. Under the waiver, however, which expires on October 31, the following payments are now being counted:
Forbearance periods of 12 consecutive months or greater, or 36 non-consecutive periods of forbearanceLate payments and partial paymentsPayments from non-qualifying repayment plansMonths spent in deferment
Nadal didn’t feel hopeful or optimistic about the waiver, even though he knew he would probably qualify. His husband, Kaleo Nadal, took care of filling out the paperwork. “He actually spoke to my servicer and had verbal confirmation from people that this was going to work. Even then, I was like, ‘I will believe it when I see it.'”
Soon, Nadal received emails that his application was being processed. “Then, I got one that said, ‘Your application has been accepted.’ And I’m still not celebrating. Until I see all the zeros in my account, then I’ll believe it.” Finally, weeks later, his student loan account showed a zero balance and he received a letter saying $124,572 of his student loans had been completely forgiven.
Nadal shared a screenshot of his zero student loan balance with his 13,000 Instagram followers. “I was relieved, like a really huge burden had been lifted off my shoulders. I could finally breathe. I’m not just going to be thinking about this debt forever,” he says.
Nadal is going to redirect his monthly payments to investing in his kids’ future
During the pandemic payment pause, Nadal got a taste of what it would be like to have his student loans forgiven. “I thought, ‘Where is all this money coming from? Oh, I’m not subtracting $1,000 out of my paycheck every month. I’m not paying my student loans.’ I felt that.”
Now that he’s freed up $1,000 from his monthly budget, Nadal plans on saving and investing for his two children. He says, “Before, it was a different feeling because I just had to pay off my student loans, and I couldn’t save money. Now I’m planning for my children’s future, thinking about ways that we can invest and create more financial stability and generational wealth for them that I didn’t really have.”