Kate M: My Loan Forgiveness Letter — a Christmas Day Miracle

Kate McCartney is an athletic trainer from Pittsburgh, PA. She completed her undergraduate degree at Miami University in Ohio where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Athletic Training. Afterwards, she attended the University of Akron, receiving a Masters in Exercise Psychology. In total she amassed around $50,000 in student loan debt. The athletic training profession does not provide a high paying salary and it nearly took her 13 years to get down to $40,000.

“The interest they charge is absurd.”

Once Kate graduated from University of Akron in 2007 and started working, she initially enrolled in an income based payment plan as she couldn’t begin making larger payments just yet. Kate remarked about the frustration of her plans constantly being switched around. “My student loans would get tossed around from company to company which required a lot of time and effort to complete the application and employment verification with each different loan servicer.”

Kate was consistently stressed about not being in the right plan, and would always receive letters notifying her that she was no longer enrolled in a certain plan. “There are so many different types of plans. I hate that. You have to have pretty good knowledge of what’s going on or else it is practically impossible to figure it out on your own.”

When she received an email through the University of Pittsburgh about Savi’s loan forgiveness tool, she decided to join right away.

“Paperwork always took forever but Savi took over and did it all for me which was a huge help. They made that step easier and I had less stress of me doing it myself which was a big relief.”

Kate is a PSLF Waiver recipient and was granted full forgiveness.

“My forgiveness came through for me on Christmas day!”

“Since beginning the process with Savi, my loan servicer only changed twice. Savi was on top of everything. I probably wouldn’t have been able to get my loans forgiven as quickly if I didn’t work with Savi.” Kate was so pleased with our services, she immediately referred tons of her coworkers to use the tool as well.

Loan free for now 6 months, Kate had some advice to dish out to other borrowers.

“I recommend others take advantage of the PSLF Limited Waiver and do it in a timely fashion so it decreases having to worry about it later on. Working with Savi made the process so much easier and less stressful. The enigma of ‘you’ll get them forgiven in 10 years only if you’re lucky’ disappeared when I was with Savi because I actually knew how far I had left to go versus just getting rejected. I was getting solid updates of where I was in the whole process.”

Now that her loans are forgiven she uses that extra money to save and invest, preparing for her future. She continues to be open about her loan forgiveness experience to help others also succeed.

University of Pittsburgh employees can also take advantage of the resources available at Savi as an employee benefit available at pitt.bysavi.com.