Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor joy hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for session four fifty one of the Things for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our
conversation after word from our sponsors. Student loans have always been a source of stress from many of us, but with recent policy changes shifting repayment requirements and propose funding cuts to certain graduate programs, that stress has reached a new level. From confusion about repayment restarting, to fears about forgiveness programs disappearing, to conversations about reclassifying degrees like nursing, psychology,
and social work. There's a lot of information circulating and not all of it is accurate to help us or through what's really happening and what we can do about it. I'm joined by doctor Sonya Lewis, also known as a Student Loan Doctor. Doctor Lewis is a financial expert who has helped tens of thousands of borrowers navigate repayment, forgiveness, and financial strategy. What began as her answering questions after church has grown into a seven figure consulting business with
coaches around the world. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social media using the hashtag TVG in session, or join us over in our Patreon to talk more about the episode. You can join us at community dot therapy for Blackgirls dot com. Here's our conversation. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, doctor Lewis.
Thank you so much for having me.
I would love for you to tell us more about how you got into the work that you're doing supporting families with financial aids.
So this work begun two thousand and fifteen in Philadelphia, PA. That's where I'm from. I was really on a journey trying to figure out my own financial situation as it relates to just becoming an adele understanding student loans. And also that's my professional background. And I took a financial literacy course at church and what I realized and this course was there was no one to really talk about
student loans or what to do with them. And so because that's what I have already been doing professionally, at that point, I said, well, I can help people and teach them after class at the church, having lines of people coming in for a consultation that I never said I would give. But we're in the house of the Lord, so how because you not? And then I said, oh okay, I said, well, if people are willing to come, I said, they could pay me for my time. We could meet
at corner bakery. I feel like every great business starts at a bakery somewhere with the plug and Wi Fi. And then sometimes you have to flirt to get the table with the plug. But it's all right. So that's how it went for like the first six months. I didn't know any better. I was just trying to charge an hour when I got paid at work, because there's no concept of where you're supposed to be paid as a business owner and then I was like, I think I need to go up with my prices. I need
a row office. Long story short, I was able to growing into well technically it's a seven figure business now consulting business, and I have coach all over the world, but it really just started with me answering and helping people at the church. So here we are today, yea.
And I would imagine that you have seen so much in terms of how the landscape has changed from year to years. Are there some major themes that you feel like have come up in your work with your students or with your clients, and you've been maybe your coaches and their clients that you think are important to kind
of highlight. I think that every administration has a different tone of how they handle student loan repayment, and so we brace ourselves because I've now been through a few administrations with this and unfortunately right now the timing of this podcast where it is miss stuff just making sure that people understand that this administration they won't require you to pay, They're going to not make things so easy.
We're coming off of a five year repayment pause because of the pandemic, so there's a lot of anxiety there's a lot of unknown There's a lot of unclear and not true information circulating around too that we try to clear up for people. But we know that student loans lives in the middle really of everything, financial health, emotional health, just even.
How people interact with their personal relationships. If I get married, do I have to tell my partner about my student loans? Yes, it shows up later it's time to go buy a home together. So depending on what they come to the table with will depend on the problem that we're tackling.
Yeah, so it sounds like a lot of the questions recently have been around like repayment, right, Like, whereas you know, in the past couple of years, we've had a little bit more laxed, a little bit more leeway, And you're saying, now with this administration, folks really should be focusing on, Okay, how do I actually start to repay these loans?
Yeah, because if you don't, they will. So what I'm telling everyone is that the process of repayment has started, right. A lot of people didn't know that, which is okay. Over half of them have started repayment, but over half of them didn't know. You only find out when your credit score drops or when you go to make a big purchase and then it shows up. So people are really surprised that. And I think that there was like this thing that people were going to be notified that
that repayment was happening. They're not notifying anyone.
And so you mentioned that you feel like there's also a lot of misinformation out there, maybe about the repayment process or maybe about the process of getting loans in general. Can you clear up maybe some of those nets or
bad information that you've heard out there. So a change that was recently announced with this administration was that they're going to be reclassifying or declassifying certain programs that really put people on the uproar because it feels like a personal attack, like, what do you mean my nursing degree is not professional? Right, we'll use that field for example.
Technically, what the administration was saying is that certain fields, because of the return on investment from a student loan perspective, did not pay out as well as others over the years. I think this administration did not lead properly with we are declassified or we classify in certain fields because there's a high default rate. If the administration would have led with numbers. I think people could understand numbers better than
just you're not a professional. I think that there was an opportunity to educate people instead of like penalizing them. But here we are. So that's one big change. You have to know for those listening that are going to go back to grad school or just in general go to college, or they have family members, or if someone's listening to their child's about to go to school, if your child wants to be let's say, a teacher or a nurse, the question is there enough funding to take
them all the way through? Therapists are including this too. There's a lot of people business owners like for nbas is there enough funding to take you all the way through to complete your degrees at a master's or a doctoral level? So should you choose right? That's first big change because if not, that requires people to say we're gonna need scholarships, were gonna need grants, We're going to
need to help our child pay for school. The second big thing is they're eliminating some repayment plans, So now we have to make sure that people are educated on Okay, this is what repayment looks like. This is what you're going to be required to pay all your credit score is going to drop. We want people also to be aware that forgiveness programs still exists, they're still around. The problem with that, though, is that the funding for forgiveness programs.
I want to use an example like Barber's defense. If you went to a school that was a for profit school like University of Phoenix or DeVry, you're eligible to get some of those loans or all of those loans forgiven. The challenge with that is that after July they can
take some of that funding away. So in our space, we're trying to educate the new person coming in, we're educating the person that's in, and then we're educating the person that doesn't yet know about forgiveness programs they're eligible for. So every day we're kind of like in three headspaces with our clients. Just depending what the person has going on, we kind of see what part of the conversation they need to deal with first. Does that answer your question? Because there's so many things.
Be does and I have a lot of follow up questions that I'm sure will also help to kind of clarify. So one you just mentioned that like people are in three different phases, right, Like they are coming into the system, they're currently in, or they're like kind of out and still figuring out. Like what the repayment options are, So student loans, I'm wondering they do not work on like you follow the guidelines that were set when you answered
the program. Right, So if I like got loans ten years ago, and like the rules were that, you know, I had ten years to pay it back or whatever, does that change with every administration? Or am I locked up or whatever I signed at the time I signed it.
I'm going to answer this question professionally. People signed a promisary note, you can't do that. They're like, okay, take it back. So to answer your question, in general, that is not legal to do. So I always say, we don't know what this administration, what day, and what hour you'll get. So to answer your question, if you signed up for student loans ten years ago, there's a promisary note in which you will abide by those terms are still so relevant today.
God very okay, perfect, Like you said, in general, right, because we don't know what could be happening tomorrow. So the next question, and I definitely want to spend more time talking about this. I am trained as a psychologist, so there has been lots of conversations in the mental health states around this, like declassifying and changes in classification
to things like psychology, nursing, social work. This is the first time I'm actually hearing it put the way that you put it, and so I do agree that you know that is the messaging that maybe could have let it. But I think for a lot of people this has felt very targeted, right because we also know that this is a space where we find lots of black women,
right like in the helping professions. I'm curious if these seals are the ones that you're saying are not having like a high return on investment, what feels actually had a higher return on investment in terms of the ones that maybe are still classified as professional.
So when we talk about the reclassification, we know that historically students entering these fields that we're targeted are coming from a people of color, working class families, first generation backgrounds, right, you name it, and so there's already financial barriers there.
And so what we're seeing is that when we looked at the data, like let's just talk about data, the data show that students that completed degrees, particularly not so much at the bachelors of I do want to stress that though, and the masters in the doctoral level had a higher default and less repayment rate. Now, there could be a lot of things that we could really dive into, right, and now we're talking about adults too. We're having trouble
with prioritizing repayment. And so this administration said, and I don't agree with this, by the way, I'm just saying data data shows that there were high default rates in these areas, but it also could be that there just could be a lack of understanding money, understanding how student loans work, understanding repayment options. And I want to say this, a lot of these programs are really expensive. So doctor Joy, what I always like the answer here is that don't
make just the student or the barrower accountable. Make the colleges, the universities accountable. Why are these programs six figure programs? So then when someone comes out they're going into the field of psychology, for example, everyone's not starting off with six figure salaries.
Most people are not.
But they borrowed it, right, Yeah, So the problem is is that it's not a good investment in terms of money wise, that we would say, okay, borrow two hundred thousand, but you're only going to get paid fifty. But when we talk about fills that are on track with repaying their loans, let me say this too. This administration has taken away a lot of data driven websites. So my background is that I was studying how African American women
were impacted by Loan Day. So there were websites that I would use to pull on for data like this because that's what I will study it and my doctoral degree. Girl, they're going now. So what I will tell you to be true is when we think about someone that is going to be agnor well, they probably won't take that financial funding away from them because the school won't comply with changing their prices. See what I'm trying to say is that this is a big problem with our entire ecosystem.
The education system is so messed up that why are we allowing schools to charge this amount of money? Then people have to borrow this amount of money. This administration does not believe in federal funding period. This administration believes that funding should come from states or private So when we saw them pull what I call a chess move and say, hey, we're going to take some funding away
from these degrees. What they want people to do doctory let's not forget who makes money from this when they leave office. They want you to go to a local bank. Let's say go to a local P and C. And they want people to apply for a private loan at P and C. Now we know that credit is not treated fairly amongst black and brown women specifically, so then
there could be what denials. I see your question directly by saying that there isn't necessarily a published site that shows the programming of who are paying back their loans, right, It's just that they honed in on these particular fields which historically affect people of color, particularly women.
More from our conversation after the break, and I think it is a conversation around the larger ecosystem of care because you mentioned like, oh, they're probably not going to take away funding from people who are going to medical school, for like the neurosurgeons. But the neurosurgeon can't do his work if the nurse is not available to also of this.
It's right here.
Well, so it does feel like this weird ranking which I think is always a conversation in the medical space, right, see six people in an hour. A social worker is only seeing one person in an hour, right, and so the rates are already not the same, and so it is a larger conversation I think around just the hierarchy that exists both in the mental and medical se but also then what does that mean in terms of care
for our community? Because we know when there are more black therapists, like social workers, black nurses, then we are also typically working or at least a higher rate of us are working in spaces where our community is also serviced, right, And so that means I think a lack of care or the level of care and consideration that we would be expecting for our community to be able to get.
So, doctor Joe, I could trigger with this conversation a couple of ways, right, because as a black woman, when the information first came out, I was all in my feelings, let's just I'm human. I was like, oh wait a minute. Then I'd put my scholar head on. Okay, they had put a scholar head on. And then I started doing some data research just to kind of see what they were saying. And something I think that was important to come out was that it wasn't just about any particular profession,
although we know who it impacts the most. It was really re evaluating the program and the borrowing limits because of the data. Just the money part of alone, right, And when I look at what I do, I've helped over fifty thousand people collectively with my team, and if I could be honest with you, yeah, these fields have a higher borrower and default rate. I have data that
shows it just in my back end. Now let's just put that on the table and say that this doesn't make people bad people, and I mean paid enough to pay back what they borrow. But we still need these people in these fields and professions. But then doctor Jorie put another hand on and this is just me personally
moving into a more philanthropic stage in my life. I think about what we really need our community to start being community, Like we really need to start looking at where are our dollars going and how can we support students in these fields, Like where could my dollar be
better served at in terms of scholarship money. Now, I also want to demystified in this season that everyone listening could do a scholarship back to one person at their church, their high school, their college, to help our next nurse, to help our next therapist, our next psychologists. And it really is going to have to start to look like that because I just think that the funding window federally is going unless we get some change of administration, it's
going to get smaller, more restrictive, more biased. And then I think that we're going to have to really call on bigger entities like with the NAACP does right, our churches are going to have to be more targeted with the students in our community, our community members such as you and I. Could we have a scholarship for the therapy for black girls. And I think that's where I'm leaning into because sometimes there are problems that are just
bigger than us. The first question I just asked myself when all this came out is well, what can you do?
So?
I know what I can do as a professional. I can on my platform, I still long doctor platform. I can educate, I do free classes every Monday. Anyway, I maybe I do some more right, Maybe I could and actually not. Maybe what caused me to do this was when this news came out, I reached out to a lot of specific platforms like those that do, for example, with nursing, and I said, hey, I want to go to a hospital and see a black nurse. That's what I want to see. I want to work with black therapists.
I want my dinnis black. Like I'm really very selective. That's what I want. But if I want that, then I got to support that too. And so now, see, doctor Jerry, I got to open up the ecosystem. Now we got to open up the community. We really in this country, we have an education problem, down to investing in ourselves, down to let's not support these institutions that are costing this much money. Why don't we support our community in state colleges more. We got to destigmatize that
you went to a community or state college. You should go there, right because it's the same teacher teaching. Hear it and I lead school at the same day. And then as a community, what can we start doing within our own communities. I know this year, doctor Joy, I gave a lot of money to my high school, and I'm committed to giving more to my high school and to my college. That's where my giving between that times
in the community. That's what I'm doing because that's the only thing I could think that would make me feel better about investing in the future of the landscape of these professions. Okay, I'm answering your question in several ways because I'm a woman, a black woman, you a practitioner dollar. This is a huge, huge problem, and I don't want
this conversation to be it. So I appreciate you asking these questions because I don't want this conversation to be swept under the rug because it's not a headline anymore because someone's listening their kids or their cousins.
Or their We're in that window right now, like people are getting their acceptances and yeah, so this is the time to really start thinking about it. So when does this like new law go into effect, doctor Lewis, So at what point is this.
It's still got if right?
Okay, so it's still it's not official yet. This is just something on the table.
Let me say something about this administration, Honey. They can put out something like it's done. I need the laws, like I mean, but it doesn't matter because he's not really following the laws and rules as it's written. Pull out your chat GPT. It matters because when we have mid term elections and we have bigger elections at large because we know that these things aren't law yet we can still have things in place to change them. It
does matter. And I'm glad you said that because you could feel listening or seeing headlines like it's right here and then you can check out. I'm telling you almost to me, So I'm telling everyone listening to check back in. You can still enforce change. So they're proposing for these changes to occur as of July first, like there are opportunities with really just at our local, our state government that impacts what happens even on federal levels. So yes,
to your point. When this administration shares things, I'm saying this for everyone listening, it could feel like that's it. That's how they drop announcements these days. I ain't see nothing about it. Now you will think that there's no judicial process. What I do appreciate is that there are still judges and there are still courts that are cutting this stuff down the side. They put out an announcement and then you got to stay with the news, right, you got to see that the courts over said, no,
overrided it. No Congress stepped in. So I'd be like, Lord, thank you for letting somebody be there normal.
So that feels like it could be like an intervention point is to actually, like when you talk about writing letters to Congress or getting on the phone and calling your congress son, this is an opportunity because this is not something that has been signed into lawduss, Well, I do.
I can even share with your team what I share out on my Monday classes of how they can get into contact with people who would make a change in this space. So yes, I'll get that information over to you guys, because we can still do something and you have to be annoyingt and you have to call, and you have to be documenting, but you still have to be professional, like we don't want a bunch of people
calling up there customing you know, things of that nature. Literally, I gave my students a script what to say, what to do, hang up? Yeah, okay. Change.
So it sounds like, you know, this is changing the ways that you're having conversations with your students about maybe would they even want to pursue? Right, So, if I'm somebody who has dreamed of being a psychologist and now maybe I find with this, you know, maybe proposed change, I have to think about funding differently, right, because I know for a lot of people psychologists specifically, like there was a forgiveness program and you may know more about
this ten years than your loans were forgiven. And that's something that's also on the shopping block as a potential that's going to go away.
There's a program called Public Service Loan Forgiveness, yes, and it doesn't necessarily have to be rural. It just has to be a nonprofit or not for profit. That program did not get clipped or cut. That is still through Congress. So I need everyone listening to know that there are two types of programs, a Congress program and a Department of Education program. Department of Education programs can be changed, clip cut, modified per administration. Public Service Loan Forgiveness is
a Congress program. So we're good.
More from our conversation after the break. But I do think Stilvi, it's back to my original point of you know, I think this could lend itself to people thinking differently about like what kinds of things they want to pursue in terms of career. Because you mentioned you haven't seen it so much kind of getting cut at the bachelor's level, but a lot of these programs that you're talking about. There's very little that you can do with a bachelor's in psychology, right, like you have to get a master
that leads to be able to practice and stuff. And so what kinds of conversations are how are you helping your students think through.
A lot of our clients are already done with school. So I bring these conversations to our platform because we were working with a lot of parents and a lot of people who are investing in their loved ones that
are going to school. To answer your question, what I would advise anyone listening that's think about going to school for their masters or their doctoral degree, Let's just make sure we have enough funding to be able to cover it, because they cut out what's called grad plus funding, which is very significant to pay for your master's or doctoral
level degrees. Also, the thing is someone could still go for a master's or a doctoral degree, but it's probably going to require them to work and go to school. So before you could just do one or the other because there was enough funding to support your lifestyle while you were in school. But now it's not the case. And I want to also say this, can we find
someone else to pay for school. Can we find an employer to help us pay because there are employers that will help you pay for write offs too, And that's one thing I think this is underutilized. I've often seen people get a master it's not really doctoral degree, but a master's and then not even work in the field, Like why do we take this degree on? So we need to make sure that people have a clear understanding before borrowing at this level what it is that they
want to do in the world. Too. This is not the season to enroll and then figure it out. This is the season to have things pretty already figured out and then wrong? Am I saying that right, doctor Jory? Because you know if this happened to you, but it happened to me in my undergrad In my undergrad I was a psychology major, Yes I was. I got to my junior year, I tell you, and I could not pass the class called methods. I had to the staff cuss yet methods. And then there was another class I
couldn't pass. It was too I had to keep a rat alive. What was that class called?
Oh, experimential psychology? Uh huh.
I couldn't pay it, can't pass it. And I was on a scholarship too, and they were about to take my scholarship because I couldn't pass a class, and I said, may not be for me, So then I had to pivot. My bachelor's is in anthropology, but the core of it, what I really really wanted to be, doctor Joy was a teacher. But there was a negative connotation that teachers don't make money. All the people in my family are teachers.
But I think that I wish that there was an opportunity to have some more coaching career coaching for myself at that point around what did I want to be or do before going into college. So I'm using the story to say anyone listening to has children, family members, we have to sit our young people down and ask them what do you want to be? What would make you happy before just allowing our students to just blindly study and figure it out. It's a hard thing is
the times are changing. There's not an infinite amount of money anymore to be able to just kind of figure stuff out.
Yeah, yeah, it does feel like because I think historically, you know, college is a time where you explore, right, like, I don't know what I want to do. That's why you take a bunch of stuff, right, and you're saying the landscape has changed so much that it's expensive to try to explore like at that point, right, Like the exploration almost has to happen ahead of time before you spend a bunch of money pursuing something that's not going to be a good bail for you.
Yeah, internships can help with that. Pre college experience can help with that. I would rather someone go to a community college before a traditional college to alleviate costs with that. There has to be a way to explore without putting out all of that cost because that money is so short now that that pool of money is no longer available like it once was.
You mentioned doctor lewis an option, and I would love to hear other things maybe that you share with your students in terms of looking at like employers who will sometimes help you to pay for the cost of schooling. Are there other creative things that people should be exploring that maybe they're not aware of in terms of finding other entities to pay for a school.
Well, I think that let's just go back to employment. You ever look at your employment policy and they say that they'll help you with tuition reimbursement. You know, you can propose to your lawyer, and I don't have it in front of me, so just use chat, GPT or you know, just find this out. But you could take that same policy and ask them for student loan reimbursement. Employers are able to reimburse student loans the same way they give up front for tuition, but people don't think
to ask that because it's not a common practice. But I dare someone listening to have a meeting with your manager and say, I see that there is a tuition re imbursement policy, but what's missing is a student loan re imbursement policy. Is there any way that could be consider if I was able to show proof that I'm paying on my student.
Loans, doesn't hurt this questions there.
This is actually something that's in the text code that allows employers to do this. And when I found this out, I was like, oh wow. I was like, I wonder why more employers don't use it as a tool for hiring. So we just have to access number one. Number two, doctor joy, something I've done in my real life. Anyone listening, did you all just starting to negotiate in some things in your raises and your bonuses when you are please don't do this if you're not the best at your job. Okay,
so that's my carry. I got to be sharp. So I was really really good when I was working at the college, and I can say that when complained about it. I really love my job. And I realized that the metrics that were set up for bonuses and raises that were just a little low for me. And I was doing the work of like two or three reps. I was working in college admissions, and I just simply asked, I said, hey, listen, just wondering if there's a space for a couple extra thousand for my bonus this year,
said my student loan payments have gone up. That was my sact words. I just asked. But I was really good at my job, and I said, please don't answer now. I say, if you want to mean about it and get back to me. I'm laughing because that was a lot of audacity in my twenty something years alife. But girl, my payments went up. I needed to acts right, and they came back and say yes. So I don't know.
I'm just saying some unconventional conversations might need to happen this season because employers want to retain good talent, right, Okay, So if someone's listening that's not eligible for public service on forgiveness and they already do charitable good work and they want to have their own nonprofit, Like, don't just start a nonprofit for the sake of getting your loans forgiven.
But if you have a nonprofit or you're starting one and you have a board, you've taken the time to formalize it legally and you're compliant, your board member could sign off for you to get credit towards public service loan forgiveness. So there are quite a few thousand people we've helped with this. What I appreciate is I know that we impact change because I noticed that the studentad dot gov website started changing their verbiage around what to do if you have your own nonprofit and how to
be compliant. I was like, I know we impacted some things in the world. You get tell me nothing. But anyway, Also, at this time, we were doing a lot of work with the Biden administration and Secretary of Cardona or how we miss them so much, So it wasn't unbeknownst to me that there could have been someone on our free class hearing us talk about that, because we do have people that, especially those that are listening to your podcasts
that are therapists. You know, sometimes it's hard for therapists to get qualified for PSL left because they're doing private work. But what if you're listening and you have your own nonprofit and you do do great work in the community, could one from your boards sign off to be able to attest to you working in this nonprofit. Just thought.
If we're thinking about going back to school, I think what I see is that a lot of my older students that are going back for a master's or a doctoral degree feel a little like embarrassed, if you will, or a little ashamed for going towards scholarships because they feel like that's not something for older people, and it's like who gave you that? I like to take that away from them today, so that a way this year and go apply for some money. So we have something
in our community called don't be weird. And I say this to my students. People say the all the time, Doctor Lewis. When I worked at the hospital in twenty fifteen, I left there, But I don't know if they liked me when I worked there, Like did you work did you work there for thirty hours? Or your student loans and good standing? Did you work there? Yes? Like, go get your paperwork signed, and let's get this credit towards forgiveness. So I do want to say that, because I didn't
say that early. Anyone listening that worked in a qualifying field nonprofit or not for profit two thousand and seven. In twenty and twenty two, you can go back to your employer you work there at least thirty hours a week and have them sign off a testing that you work there. It doesn't matter even if you never made a student loan payment, as long as you work there, your student loans were good standing, you worked there for thirty hours a week, you can still get credit towards forgiveness.
And that that program public service on forgiveness because people will forget that they work places, or they think because they left and they don't remember leaving on the best terms, or did you work there? Where are you're a good standing thirty hours a week? Go get your credit? You know what I mean? People we get forgiven a week with that program, about like sixty people a week get forgiven just for that one. They got to go do the work right, they got to go get a sign.
Then one lady, oh my god, God bless her, almost blocked her. She kept messaging me and she just kept saying, I just feel uncomfortable reaching out to them. It's been so long ago. I told her, I said, this is my last time responding. I said, you need to go do the work all right, fast work I'm speaking at I think invest fast or something I don't know. And she like flew in just to give me a hug, and she said, thank you for not blocking me. She said, I wanted to tell you because you motivated me to
go and to get my paperwork signed. She got two hundred and fifty thousand forgiven. So we were say in our community, don't be weird, go get your paywork cred. So anyone listening, I'm telling you right now that has some work history that they have not claimed towards forgiveness and that window is still open to get that paperwork sign.
So where did you start this process? Like is this something that still exists on the studioa dotm website? So what should people look for to like maybe check on this studenta.
Dot up and then type in TEPSL left so Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness. The form will come up and then you just go to your You want to fill out the first one or two pages, but there's an employer section. All we need is their name, their email, their phone number, their signature they're testing. The middle hours a week is thirty hours a week for that time period two thousand and seven to twenty twenty two. Okay, here's the next question. Well, what if they closed? What
if my manager no longer works there? Errol, don't you know it's something called Facebook LinkedIn Instagram. Most times we're in connection with our old employers and some capacity. But go find the people that used to work in management HR at those jobs.
So it doesn't need to be like your direct boss. It could be somebody who was in HR over the entire company that didn't even have any And even if you never knew them, they should still have your records, right, so they can still pull it up and say, yes, I can see this person worked there from this date.
To this day. Doctor Joey. There's a lot of women that listen to this podcast. Ladies. If somebody was coming after your men, he was fuying her. But pull up somebody listening. Let's say they owe three hundred thousand study loans. Act like the person to this signature owes you three hundred thousand dollars, because they do. We need to get rid of these student loans. Go find someone to sign this. You want it to be if possible with signature, or
you can like email the form. They could scan it back. In my experience, like, but not to be funny, you might need to pull up on the job, like, go get a signature. Yeah, three hundred thousand is on the line here, You've got time. So that's why I tell people when we start framing it that way, you'd be surprised we saw all these signatures coming through our community.
I love that.
I love that I'm here to be respected. So why I'm pleasant, I'm very straightforward in this community because these are adults that we do not have time to coddle in the world. Their student loan forgiveness is dependent upon home buying. It's depending upon the people that are counting on them. So why we do not have the time to baby people in this community. So yes, we're giving it to straight today.
Yes, So I love the example that you're giving me because I do think like you mentioned, right, like, there are so many stories that we create in our heads that are not based in any truth, but are often based in fear or like anxiety or insecurity. Are there other things that you find yourself kind of having to challenge people around in the best interests of you know, kind of going after their money or getting the support they need.
This is True Therapy podcast And by the way, I really do love your brodcast. Listen, this is up here near over with me, honey. So there's this conversation with money that I was having with myself that I didn't know I was having. Now I'm working some stuff out because I was telling my therapists, but from going from overdrafting like I used to overdraft my account, like I planned for that all right, so my account is overdraft
to now I don't overdraft. Now I'm in surplus. I do very well with money, right, but there's still some broke behaviors that are showing up in my life, right, Like why is this still showing up? And it's because even though I have some money, and even though I pay my bills on all the pay you know, there's still a thing that I haven't let go, which is a scarcity mindset. And so what I'm seeing here with those
that are figuring out their student loans. Some people, yes, cannot afford to pay their stud loans, Yes I agree, but there are some people who can. And that there's this old stigma that you don't have to pay them back. You're not going to pay them back. You may not be using the degree, why should you pay it back? And the only person that's hurting is themselves. You're hurting
you right now. If you're listening, you're hurting you. You're not keeping up with your counterparts who are in the world that are buying homes, investment properties, crypto whatever, we're doing right with our moneyes and we have to doctor Joey. We've got to start having some real conversations to say, let's figure out what we can afford. Let's figure out what we can do with our student loans so we're
not left behind in this ecosystem. Because the student loans shows up with the credit, it shows up with the home buying, it shows up when it's time to invest, it shows up if your child needs you later on.
So we've got to overcome these conversations about money with ourselves, and I think that for anyone that truly believes in therapy, I would like for them to ask themselves what are their thoughts about money this year and let that be a conversation to work through with their therapists, because it's starting to play a role into what people are are not doing with these loans. So what's coming up for
me with our clients is we're not therapist. Let me be clear, Okay, So we always take it back to what is showing on student a dot gov and what happens is before we can even talk about what a payment could look like and figure out, you got to hear the client for ten minutes talk about the shame around what they borrowed or the feelings about what they borrowed or and we let people talk. But the theme
is people it's like they feel bad. We want to move them from feeling bad to empowerment to going to doing something about this. So that's what's coming up a lot for us right now. There's a lot of shame around what people owe.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and I think just historically we know this, right like, there's a lot of shame just around money, I think in general in our community, right, like and and it does them from the scarcity and like us just not having it historically, right, And so now even if you do have some, they're all these old messages, old stories that really need to be reconstructed.
Something you said made me think of For a long time, people thought about student loans as good debt, right, like, this is not something that you have to worry about, like, oh, you can pay the least amount. And so I'm glad that you keep bringing us back to like no, no, no, y'all, Like this shows up on your credit report, Like there's not a separate credit report that exists only for like
student loan stuff. It's all lumped in together with like credit card and anything else that you have accumulated.
They're using defaulted loans as a metric they as in government officials to not give people government clearances or jobs. Okay, you could have and this is what's really crazy. You could have went to school, you could have did, and if you ever default on a student loan, you could block yourself from a clearance with the government, even as a contractor. And so that's keeping a lot of our black and brown people from advancing because they didn't know.
Like I'm sharing it on this podcast. This happened like in the last year at least like fifty of our clients reported that they lost a job because of it, Like, so they got hired. I'll use an example, Lackey Martin, contractor of the government hires you, loves you, excited about you. You can't pass the security clearance because of the default is still a long yeah, yeah, what do you want to do the like Also you can't like get it out of default and like being reapplied, but you defaulted
at least once in your life. I feel like being more talked about because people are going back into repayment and are finding out a surge of it because now people can actually be in default and that wasn't the case in like the last five years.
Mm hmm, got it. There's so many more questions, but I do want to I don't want to take up your whole day, but I do want to make sure we address you know, instead of going into default, Like if you realize, okay, I just got laid off, this is going to be difficult for me. What should people do instead of defaulting on loans? Like what kinds of options do you have.
First of let's just take a depreath, because life happens right and you are not the lay off. It's about tell people like stop to joy the layoff, be the layup. Okay, pocus.
Great.
But what I want people to know is that if they can remember, because life is lifeing, they would go into student hay dot GUV under the loan repayment tab, click the income driven application and they're just going to do an update or a new application. And there's a question that says do you have taxable income? The answer would be no. So you go through the applications like
on page three or four, do you have taxtble income? No. You have to then check where it says do you want your loan provider to do a manual review of your income? You have to hit yes. Okay, so income change or taxable income no, manual review? Yes? Has there been any changes with your income? Yes? And then says do you want your loan provider to do a manual review? Yes?
Do you have taxable income no? That's it so very important how you answer those questions because those questions will then trigger you to have a zero dollar payment for the year. So that way you don't go into default. They require no payment of you because we're saying that there's a life change, there's no taxtbal income, We're fine. So that's important for people to hear because if not,
most people won't do anything. They're in a headspace and then they go into default and the application could have taken care of that.
Okay, I appreciate you sharing that and walking us through those tips.
Yeah, God's go like this. Let me say this, hopefully people stay in touch with me after this episode because every Monday apm eest we do a free class where we literally log in the student aight dot gov together and we see what's going on together. After I'm not making this up. Every two weeks, they're changing that website and application, so they're like re ordering the questions, very sneaky. I don't like it because you might have heard me say this before, but now you got to go click
another place. And so we just want people to stay connected with us. And literally we have people that show up for the last year every Monday because stuff is changing all of the time. Where would you find out about these updates? It didn't get published anywhere, it didn't get published on the website and didn't get published on the news website. So it's like unless you're in there clicking around, you wouldn't know.
So necard Lewis, you've mentioned this a couple of times. I definitely want to make sure we know where to point people, So where can people stay connected with you to find out about the classes and all the things that.
You offer, So we act like a news reporter. Our Instagram page, the student Loan Doctor is where it's my favorite social media platform for where I put up like ninety second to three minute clips of what's happening in the world right. And then outside of that Monday nights, they can register through the Instagram page or the website is doctor Please help Me dot com. It's a free class.
You don't have to pay to be there. It's about a two hour class and we literally teach you from the rooty to the two D re payment plans forgiveness programs. Let's log in together. You'd be surprised people put in the chat. I haven't logged in four years, so they're filling in power right. And then from there, if we can help them, we will. But most times people just need to be in an environment that's safe, that we're
all tracking the same way. Sometimes I do a poll like I might do one tonight that says how much do you all ow? I do that sometimes because I need people to see you ain't the only one that got five hundred thousand, you know, like last month we got a guy forgiving nine hundred and ninety seven thousand dollars right, that's right at a million, and we didn't
make him fel bad about it. So we want anyone from the little bit to the lot in class so that they can just learn without pressure and then you go in the world and figure out what you need to do. So I really love the community we're creating. Nobody's showing up weird, nobody's being no bully. We actually set the tone for class. I love doing that. If you show up me where you will be dropped from
the zoom never to return. We don't have those issues, and it's a safe face and people you could see with their notebooks taking their notes and really participating and playing along. And then I just feel really proud that we're a part of educating the community at large about their student loans and before our class, I just love to say there was not a lot of people that were talking about this topic. Honey, don't mix this in with credit either. We're not that, Like, we just want
to talk about student loans, right. And then I love that we are Finally, we've been in business now for ten years, doctor Joy. We're doing press like CNN, we just the ABC World News. We're doing some really big stuff in the world. And I'm like, we aren't that
because we show up every day all day. I had to put my appoint at that for the world to do my little update because see you, I remember and you know about this, like when something big comes out, people's brain can't always process it and they're looking for someone they trust to give them the facts right in a safe space and then they can go on with
their day. So that's what we do. So when you came to see my little AI advertire, mind your business because that work to day that by makeup wasn't done or something. And I got a little AI that looked like me. I say, it's Ai. I'm be trying to trick nobody say powered by Ai Yasha because when news comes out, who am I to go get you or buy lashes done or something. Christen just take information going about to day.
I love it when it's definitely needed right now. So thank you so much for that service because it sounds like it's helping a lot of people, and we will be sure to include that information in the show, not so that people can get connected with you and your coaches, so that they can learn even more about how to take care of themselves and their financial health.
And thank you so much for your platform. I'm telling you, girl, you done gotten me through some stuff, but you have help, and so I think your platform is just so important because it's a lot like this is not yesterday's yesterday, yes, and you're trying to process personal relationships, professional relationships, the different roles you wear, Oh you got your finances on fire, like who are we? And sometimes it's just good to just take a moment, take a beat, to be like
is it really that serious? And then I feel like your voice is so befitting, Like I don't know, God gave me the voice because I'm like, if doctor Joyce's son, go get some shy tea and work out the problems. So just continue, doctor Joyce. I don't know how much longer you want to do this work, but we love itppreciate the work that you're doing.
Thank you.
I was so thrilled with the invitation. It really was. I mean, this is like my Oprah moment. I mean the Oprah you could call me though. Nice. No, no, don't forget it.
Confused, Okay, we will still accept the invitation.
But I love, love, love the work that you're doing. You've helped me out many times. You got a lot of people say for being cussed out, the Lord is doing a work in you. Because I said, what did she say before? I call this? Persons back?
There you go, there you go. I appreciate that. Thank you, and thank you for spending some time with us today. I appreciate it.
Yes, thanks so much.
Of course, I'm so happy doctor Lewis was able to join us for today's episode. To learn more about her, or to register for her free Monday night student loan classes, or stay up to date on policy changes, be sure to visit the show notes at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash Session four fifty one, and don't forget to text this episode to two of your girls right now and tell them to check it out. Did you know that you could leave us a voicemail with your
questions or suggestions for the podcast. If you have toime topics you think we should discuss, drop us a message at Memo dot fm slash Therapy for Black Girls and let us know what's on your mind. We just might feature it on the podcast. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, visit our therapist directory at Therapy
for Blackgirls dot com slash directory. Don't forget to follow us over on Instagram at Therapy for Black Girls and join us in our Patreon channel for exclusive updates, behind the scenes content, and much more. You can join us at community dot Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. This episode was produced by Elise Ellis, Indechubu and Tyree Rush. Editing was done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank y'all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to
continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take good care.