Faculty, staff student loan assistance program guides employees toward reduced monthly payments, loan forgiveness

When Adam Winner received the letter telling him his remaining student loans were forgiven, he described the feeling as “a huge weight lifted off [his] shoulders.”

“It’s just a great feeling not to have to worry about making that payment every month, and, you know, it’s honestly like getting a raise,” Winner, creative director in the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid, said. “The way I had my loans consolidated, everything was forgiven at once.”

In 2020, the University partnered with TIAA, a financial services company, and Savi, a tech startup, to create a program that guides Pitt faculty and staff in paying back student loans. According to the Office of Human Relations, the program was created after the University “recognized the need for assistance with helping faculty and staff navigate the application process for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.”

PSLF is a federal program that forgives a person’s remaining direct loan balance if they have made 120 eligible monthly payments and have been employed by the government or a not-for-profit organization, like Pitt, while making those payments.

The Office of Human Relations said the student loan assistance program “helps participants with navigating and applying for federal loan repayment and forgiveness programs, such as the PSLF program, as well as assistance with lowering interest rates, consolidating loans and/or reducing payments through income-driven repayment plans.”

Full-time and part-time regular staff, faculty, research associates, postdoctoral associates and postdoctoral scholars are all eligible to benefit from the student loan assistance program, according to the Office of Human Relations. Of the 963 people currently enrolled, they said the average projected forgiveness per participant is $53,000.

Winner said the faculty and staff student loan assistance program helped in getting his remaining student loans forgiven in January 2021. He said he “celebrated” upon learning he would no longer have to make monthly student loan payments.

“I just went out to dinner with family,” Winner said. “It’s something that’s the kind of thing we couldn’t do as often having that payment every month.”

Winner credited Savi for guiding him through the process and paperwork to get his loans forgiven and said he appreciates Pitt’s effort to help its workers.

“I think [Pitt] saved me a lot of fighting with the [PSLF] program itself by partnering with another company to help assist the employees,” Winner said.

Shannon Reed, a teaching associate professor in the English writing department, said she graduated with over $50,000 in student loan debt after completing her third degree. After taking advice from Savi and consolidating her loans, she said she was able to get her remaining $15,000 in loans forgiven last year.

“Savi helped me figure out what to do to apply and talked me through the rather stressful process of the application,” Reed said.

When describing the feeling of no longer having to make student loan payments, Reed called it “completely unbelievable” and “freeing.”

“I expected to pay for my loans for the rest of my life,” Reed said. “I’m a freelance writer as well as a professor and it’s been nice to not have to take every single job that came my way, even if I didn’t like the assignment, just to get the money, and all nice not to have to put all of my extra income towards my student loan payments.”

Reed said she likes the student loan assistance program because of the help it provided her and others.

“All of the processes of dealing with student loan repayment are incredibly complex and individualized, so I’m in favor of any program that helps people with that,” Reed said. “Is it necessary? No, a dedicated person can figure it all out on their own. But it’s complicated and thus the help … helps!”