Adi Klevit, an Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) member in Portland, Oregon, is the co-founder of Business Success Consulting Group, which helps leaders create and document custom processes and tailor-made management systems that ensure consistency. We asked Klevit how clear procedures and expectations in the workplace can drive productivity, confidence, and team morale.
When roles aren’t clear, employees end up duplicating efforts, stepping on each other’s toes, or delivering work that misses the mark. The result? Frustration, resentment, and eventually, talented people walking out the door, not because they lack ability, but because they lack clarity.
Why clarity matters
I’ve seen this play out countless times, and the research backs it up. According to Effectory’s HR Analytics, employees who have clarity about their role are 53 percent more efficient and 27 percent more effective than those without it. That’s a 25 percent performance boost. Other studies show the same pattern. Role ambiguity is strongly linked to higher turnover intentions and lower job satisfaction.
Here’s the kicker: Many fast-growing companies avoid putting structure in place because they’re afraid it will slow them down. However, clarity isn’t red tape. It’s what allows you to grow at speed without chaos.
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A real-world example
At a financial services firm we worked with, one client services team member stood out. She was diligent, smart, and genuinely wanted to excel. She completed a task for a client, sent it off, and thought she nailed it. However, when her adviser reviewed it, he was disappointed. The problem wasn’t her effort. It was that expectations weren’t defined or documented anywhere. She felt like she had failed, even though she had done her best with the information she had.
Her motivation took a hit, and eventually she began looking for another job. The firm lost a great employee not because of performance, but because she was never given clarity on what “good” looked like. The truth is she didn’t fail—the system did.
On the flip side, I’ve also seen clarity turn things around. One client in professional services decided to start small by documenting their client onboarding process. Within weeks, they cut mistakes in half, sped up turnaround times, and gave their employees more confidence. That single process win energized the team and created momentum to tackle other areas.
What actually works
The solution isn’t complicated, and it doesn’t have to bog your company down. Start small, keep it lean, and build as you grow. Here are five practices I’ve seen transform both productivity and morale:
Map one process flow. Don’t boil the ocean. Start with a high-impact workflow, such as onboarding or invoicing. Even a whiteboard sketch can show everyone where they fit and prevent gaps.
Define ownership at each step. Be crystal clear about who owns what, who contributes, and who needs to be informed. This avoids duplication and finger-pointing.
Set success metrics. Don’t just say “do the report.” Spell out what a successful report looks like so employees know when they’ve nailed it.
Connect the dots. Help employees see not just their tasks but how their work impacts others. That perspective builds collaboration and trust.
Keep it current. Businesses evolve. Review and adjust your processes so clarity today doesn’t turn into confusion tomorrow.
These steps can be rolled out quickly by your managers and department heads, but only if leadership champions them.
The leadership mindset shift
Clarity is the foundation of productivity and scale, and it starts at the top. As CEO, your role isn’t to write out every process. Instead, it’s to set the tone. You model respect for clarity by following the systems yourself, and you make sure your leadership team sees procedures as empowerment tools, not bureaucracy.
Think of it this way: While your managers own the details of process mapping, you own creating a culture where clarity is valued and followed. Your company reaps the benefits of faster scaling, smoother onboarding, and a team that doesn’t need to be micromanaged. I’ve seen leaders lose top performers simply because they didn’t live by their own systems. If you want your team to respect the process, then you have to lead by example.
Clarity brings freedom
Clarity isn’t bureaucracy. It’s the structure that frees people to do their best work. When employees know what’s expected, they don’t just perform better; they feel valued, motivated, and engaged. For fast-growing companies, clarity is what makes scale possible. Without it, growth creates chaos. With it, growth creates freedom.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
Just over a year ago, I wrote about the bureaucratic machinations in the U.S. attempting to import an anti-alcohol agenda into the government’s 2025 Dietary Guidelines. Now, it appears that alcohol has officially escaped the government’s wrath—at least for another half-decade.
The U.S. dietary guidelines are revised every five years, with the latest revision expected this year. The lead-up to the revision unfolds over several years, and recommendations for safe drinking levels are traditionally included alongside food in the final guidance. For decades, the guidelines have held that men can safely consume up to two alcoholic drinks a day and women one. But myriad sources from inside the federal government were reporting that the new guidelines were planning to include a declaration that “no amount of alcohol is acceptable for a healthy lifestyle.” (This was a standard imported from the World Health Organization, which declared in 2023 that “no amount of alcohol is safe”).
This news supercharged a long-simmering debate over whether alcohol is good or bad (or simply medium) for you. Researchers have become increasingly split over this issue, with some sharing evidence that moderate alcohol consumption reduces overall mortality rates, while others point to studies finding a link between alcohol and cancer. Regardless of the science, however, the process through which the government was attempting to arrive at a “no safe level” declaration for alcohol was deeply alarming.
The dietary guidelines revisions are spearheaded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Biden-era HHS delegated the alcohol issue to the little-known Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD).
ICCPUD’s marching orders were to issue a report on the health impacts of drinking, but it turned out ICCPUD had stacked its deck. Reports started coming out that at least half of the six-person research panel not only had well-publicized anti-alcohol stances but also didn’t even reside in the United States. The decision over whether alcohol would be deemed safe or not was being put in the hands of a group of biased international academics who were essentially accountable to no one. (Several commentators have also pointed out that ICCPUD, whose putative focus is supposed to be underage drinking, was being put in charge of determining adult drinking recommendations.)
A potential “no safe level” declaration was particularly worrisome for the alcohol industry, since perceptions about the health impact of alcohol have already been trending negatively among younger demographics, a trend that would likely accelerate if the U.S. government were to state that no amount of alcohol is safe to drink. Attorney Sean O’Leary noted that such a declaration would also be likely to trigger a wave of Tobacco-style class action lawsuits against the drinks industry.
Congress—surprisingly—reacted to this backdoor attempt to smuggle a neo-prohibitionist agenda into the American dietary guidelines by playing a decently effective watchdog role. It first tasked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to prepare a separate report on the health effects of drinking, which concluded that while moderate drinking raises the risk of certain types of cancer, it reduces all-cause mortality by decreasing the risk of heart disease.
The remaining elephant in the room, however, was how President Donald Trump’s administration would handle the ICCPUD draft report that it inherited from the Biden administration. All eyes were on the new HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., famously a teetotaler, but he was silent about how the 2025 Dietary Guidelines would address alcohol.
At long last, in early September, the House Appropriations Committee announced it was planning to defund ICCPUD, followed by news that ICCPUD’s draft report would no longer play a role in the 2025 guidelines revisions. It now appears that the alternative NASEM report will inform the new guidelines, although it’s not even certain that the guidelines will mention alcohol at all anymore (RFK Jr. has previously suggested that the 2025 Guidelines would be a mere 4 pages long, down from 160 pages in 2020).
In the end, this counts as a narrow escape for the alcohol industry and U.S. drinkers. The science of drinking will likely be debated for years to come, but at the very least, the process should be allowed to play out in public view.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to face questions after recent CDC shakeups
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to answer tough questions from Senators following his controversial decisions regarding CDC leadership and vaccine policy changes.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will face serious concerns from senators on Thursday regarding his handling of public health matters, following his decision to force out the recently sworn-in CDC Director Susan Monarez and replace her with Jim O’Neill, who has a background in business.On Wednesday, more than 1,000 current and former Health and Human Services employees who worked with Kennedy called for his resignation in a letter, accusing him of prioritizing politics over science. Kennedy has been reshaping the nation’s vaccine policies and has voiced skepticism about the safety and effectiveness of long-established shots. He’ll be answering questions on Thursday before the Senate Finance Committee. “The CDC was once the world’s most trusted guardian of public health,” Kennedy said in a video message posted ahead of the hearing. “Its mission was simple and noble, protect Americans from infectious disease, but over the years, the agency drifted. Bureaucracy politicized science and mission creed corroded that mission and squandered the public trust.”Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana expressed his concerns, saying, “What I’m most interested in is restoring the confidence of the American people in public health in America, and so far that hasn’t been done.”Last week, under Kennedy’s leadership, the FDA changed COVID-19 vaccine guidelines, limiting their use for younger adults and children. Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:
“The CDC was once the world’s most trusted guardian of public health,” Kennedy said in a video message posted ahead of the hearing. “Its mission was simple and noble, protect Americans from infectious disease, but over the years, the agency drifted. Bureaucracy politicized science and mission creed corroded that mission and squandered the public trust.”
Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana expressed his concerns, saying, “What I’m most interested in is restoring the confidence of the American people in public health in America, and so far that hasn’t been done.”
In the opening scene of Fantasmas’ first episode, “Cookies and Spaghetti,” Julio (Julio Torres) is having a nightmare about filling out an online application that asks, among other things, what his occupation is. In response, he simply fills in his name: Julio. (It’s a whole thing later on in the episode that his job is, quite simply, “being Julio.”) The screen automatically reacts to that in red capital letters that chide, “INVALID OCCUPATION.” When Julio then tries to fill out his address as “my water tower,” the screen also spits back, “ADDRESS NOT FOUND.” When he tries to submit the form, it immediately tells him, “REJECTED.” All the while, he’s been dressed in a Pierrot-meets-jester sort of ensemble topped with what amounts to a dunce hat. Every time he fills one of the questions out, he then tries to open a window that ends up not existing behind one of the curtains he pulls back. The symbolism is instantly obvious: Julio (and those like him) is being literally boxed out of society because they can’t quite fit into any specific, “prepopulated” box.
That symbolism continues in Julio’s waking life, when he goes to Crayola to offer his consulting services. Accordingly, he tells the three suits in front of them they need to make a crayon that is clear. One of the suits responds, “But clear isn’t a color.” Julio counters, “If it isn’t a color, then what do you call this?… The space between us.” The same suit replies, “If a crayon is a clear wax and it leaves no discernible color behind, what’s the use?” Another suit chimes in, “It cannot be done! Why are you doing this? Why do you need this?” “It’s already done.” Julio then looks to his glass of water for backup to say, “Look at this glass of water over here. It’s defiantly clear. Some things aren’t one of the normal colors or play by the rules of the rainbow.” When the meeting is over and one of the suits walks him out, he tells Julio, “If we were to move forward with clear Crayola, what would we call it?” Julio responds, “Call it Fantasmas. It means ‘ghosts.’” Even that renders the executive confused as he then asks why it would be plural instead of singular. Julio has no answer that would satisfy such a “logical” mind. Thus, he pretends to go along with “Fantasma” as the title card for the show comes up and an “S” is then added to the end of the word after a momentary pause.
And it is a pointed title, for a large core of the show speaks to how many people in this world are forced to become “ghosts” when they either can’t or simply refuse to bend to what society demands of them. This includes, at the top of the list, having a sizable paper trail that proves both your existence and your longstanding ability to pay for things. In the U.S., the one certainly can’t exist without the other. Something that Torres has grappled with not just when he was dealing with visa-oriented paperwork after graduating from college, but also as a result of his newfound success. For, even now, Torres resents the idea that you have to have a credit card in order to build the credit that helps prove your existence. As he told Indiewire, “I do not have a credit card, and have always had trouble [renting an apartment] because of it. That’s the impetus for the whole [storyline]. Although I made the money to have the kind of apartment that I was applying for, I was rejected, even though I was willing to basically pay a year’s rent upfront. They were like, ‘No, we went with an applicant who had,’ and I quote, ‘overqualified guarantors.’ Wink, they have really rich parents.” The automatic assumption, especially in New York, that those without a credit history or a lot of money can “just” get help from their parents is also addressed in Fantasmas.
This moment arises when, Edwin (Bernardo Velasco), a food deliverer who can’t bring Julio’s order to him in a timely fashion because every form of transportation requires proof of existence (obvious shade at the updated version of the MTA’s MetroCard, OMNY, a “tap-and-go” system that requires a debit or credit card), ends up talking to Gina (Greta Titelman), another recurring character in the series. Having recently been dumped by her sugar daddy, Gina sits on a bench sobbing. Edwin, almost as desperate as she is, decides to ask her, of all people, to explain to him what proof of existence is, and how to get it.
She shrugs, “You just go to the app, and you put in your social and your credit score—” Edwin tells her, “I don’t have that.” “Don’t have what?” “Any of that.” Gina then brightens, “Well, can you use your parents? You know, I had to use my parents’ address after Charles dumped me.” Edwin is confused about the suggestion, wondering, “What do my parents have to do with it?” After all, unlike many white folks, it doesn’t come as an automatic given that one can turn to their parents for financial support. Thus, Gina proves herself to be the very sort of cliché that gives white women a bad name. Even so, she explains the same thing to Edwin that Julio’s been told by his manager, of sorts, Vanesja (Martine)—who is technically just supposed be a performance artist performing as his manager. Which is: sometimes, “exceptions” are made if someone is, like, “a thing” a.k.a. famous enough. Here, too, Torres makes a commentary on how fame has become the sole pursuit of many people growing up (and even after they’re theoretically “grown”), without having an actual focus in mind. In other words, they don’t care what they’re famous for, they just want to be famous (even if it’s “famous for being famous”). After all, it makes you an “exception” to every rule.
In real life, though, Torres hasn’t found that to be entirely true, also telling Indiewire of his post-fame apartment-renting experience, “It’s not about getting the money that you’re asking for, it’s about the kind of person that you’re renting to. You’re measuring people by not only how much money they have, but how long they’ve had that money for and how equipped they are to win this race. The idea that everyone’s born with a clean slate is false. And so, I was very interested in exploring that [in Fantasmas].”
The show version of Julio’s ongoing struggles with finding an apartment (the one he’s currently in is slated to become a “General Mills Café and Residencies”) harken back to Lily Allen singing, “It’s just the bureaucrats who won’t give me a mortgage/It’s very funny ’cause I got your fuckin’ money/And I’m never gonna get it just ’cause of my bad credit/Oh well, I guess I mustn’t grumble/I suppose it’s just the way the cookie crumbles.” This said on 2006’s “Everything’s Just Wonderful.” A phrase Julio has a harder and harder time telling himself as the walls start to more than just figuratively close in. Still, he remains defiant about not capitulating to getting his proof of existence card. No matter how “easy” it’s supposed to be. As he tells his usual cab driver, Chester (Tomas Matos), who also doesn’t have one, “I don’t have it because I don’t want it.” It’s become a matter of principle now, a way to say “fuck you” to a system that has never made it easy for him—or anyone like him—to get by.
Even when he tries to eradicate himself as an actual body (in one of many acts of desperation related to not being able to find an apartment without proof of existence), Vicky (Sydnee Washington), the employee at New Solutions Incorporated, inquires with genuine shock, “How do you have an apartment? I mean, how do you take out a loan? They’re gonna be asking for it as soon as you’re on the subway.” Julio automatically tunes out these questions—so accustomed to dissociating in scenarios where he’s bombarded with stressful queries related to “getting real” and living a normie lifestyle—and focuses in on a commercial that’s playing on the TV in the background (it’s here that Denise the Toilet Dresser [Aidy Bryant] gets her moment to shine).
The pressure that even casual strangers put on Julio to “get with it” and surrender to proof of existence (and everything that such a surrender actually entails) goes back to the aforementioned recurring dream. In it, Julio would have to leave the room (you know, the one with no windows in it) in order to get fresh air. The problem is, outside, it’s freezing cold, which is why everyone passing by is wearing an “unremarkable black puffer coat.” Julio can see that if he, too, wants to join the others in freshness, he would have to wear one of the same puffer coats. And there just so happens to be one within his grasp that literally has his name on it. All he has to do is walk out, take the jacket and put it on.
But to put it on would mean becoming one of them. One of those “proof of existence” people. He sums up the dream by saying, “The only way I would be able to leave [the room] is by compromising somehow.” And this is the dilemma that every artistic person (or, also in Torres’ case, every U.S. immigrant) is faced with sooner or later. Often cropping up repeatedly if they never succeed in finding a way to dodge it. To become an “exception.”
More than 43 million Americans — one in five adults — collectively owe more than $1.7 trillion in federal and private student loans. In recent years, the idea of the government forgiving federal student debt went from fringe to mainstream with both Donald Trump and Joe Biden using emergency powers during the pandemic and after to ease the financial burden on college graduates, whether in their 20s or 70s. But sorting through the tangle of options, acronyms, requirements, and deadlines for lowering a crippling balance or potentially wiping it clean has become increasingly painful. Successfully navigating through yet another round of new steps in the loan-forgiveness labyrinth, starting this month, means the difference between two starkly different outcomes.
Do it right and you can wind up with manageable, if not zeroed out, monthly payments that free up cash and make your daily financial life far more pleasant. Mess it up and you face the financial equivalent of an ineradicable pantry moth that gnaws away at your long-term savings and a longer-term credit-score blemish that will, among other things, raise the costs of home-buying. Forgiveness generally applies only to loans funded by the federal government, not to private ones made by banks, state agencies, and schools. Still, nearly 93 percent of all student debt, or $1.6 trillion, is federal, so even if you’re exhausted by the options, locking down on the government’s once-in-a-lifetime opportunity now unfolding, if you can, is essential.
For the fourth consecutive year, borrowers ranging from recent college graduates in the workforce to late-career professionals to even retirees have endured whiplash over whether their often crippling debt will be a lifelong ball and chain. In March 2020, President Trump paused loan repayments and interest as the pandemic shuttered the economy. After several extensions under the Biden administration, interest restarted last September and payments resumed for all but the most recent graduates one month later. Borrowers who haven’t been making payments since last October are protected through a September 30 “on-ramp” from having their delinquency reported to credit agencies.
Still, the resumption hasn’t gone well. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said in January that borrowers faced long hold times when calling their loan servicer, “significant delays” in processing their applications for income-driven repayment plans, and “inaccurate billing statements.” A survey of 17,000 borrowers by the nonprofit Student Debt Crisis Center released on March 5 found that three in four borrowers were not confident that the information provided by their servicer was complete and accurate.
The setback from the nation’s highest court prompted Biden to shift to what’s called his plan B.
On April 8, Biden announced a sweeping new student-loan-forgiveness plan that aims to help roughly 30 million Americans. This time around, the plan relies on a different law — the Higher Education Act — than the plan that was struck down by the Supreme Court.
The plan, if successful, would offer various forms of relief to five groups of Americans:
Borrowers whose loan balance, because of interest, has exceeded the amount that they were initially loaned The new plan would cancel up to $20,000 in interest for 25 million borrowers who have consistently made their student-loan payments but now owe more than what they originally borrowed because of interest. This would affect individual borrowers who make up to $120,000 or families earning $240,000 or less.
Borrowers who have been in repayment for more than 20 years Biden’s new plan aims to automatically cancel the undergraduate debt of anyone who has been repaying their loans for 20 years (since July 1, 2005) and forgive the graduate-school debt of anyone who has been in repayment for 25 years (since July 1, 2000).
Borrowers experiencing hardship The plan would wipe out the student-loan debt of people experiencing hardship that is affecting their ability to pay off their loans.
Borrowers who attended “low-financial-value programs” like those offered by shady for-profit universities The new plan would also automatically cancel the debt of Americans who took out student loans to attend colleges that have since been stripped of their certification or barred from taking part in the Federal Student Aid program — making degrees earned at those institutions unmarketable.
Borrowers who already qualify for forgiveness but haven’t yet applied The plan would automatically cancel the student-loan debt of 2 million low- and middle-income Americans who are already due forgiveness but have yet to apply for it.
Per the Associated Press, most of the loan cancellation should happen automatically without requiring borrowers to apply for it. However, those seeking a hardship exemption will likely have to apply individually.
The administration’s plan will not go into effect immediately. The New York Times reports that the new regulations will be subject to a public-comment period for several months and could potentially face legal challenges. This newly proposed loan-forgiveness plan stands alone from the SAVE plan, the new repayment program recently introduced by the administration.
In the summer of 2023, Biden launched his Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, an income-driven repayment (IDR) program that can halve or zero out monthly payments. The plan calculates payments based on a borrower’s income and family size — not on their loan balance — and forgives remaining balances after a certain number of years. Borrowers have to sign up for SAVE unless they were already in the government’s Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE) program, in which case they’re automatically enrolled.
Under SAVE, single people earning no more than $32,800 and with no discretionary income see their monthly payment plunge to $0 and get credit for a payment they otherwise would have made — forgiveness in disguise. The same is true for a family of four with an annual income of $67,500. SAVE also forgives any unpaid interest that accrued since your last timely payment. For borrowers earning discretionary income above 225 percent of the federal poverty level (this year, $33,885 for a single person and $70,200 for a family of four), monthly payments are lowered based on that discretionary income, meaning higher earners can also qualify, though the more you make, the less relief you get.
The White House says the typical borrower will see about $12,000 of interest payments waived and upwards of 95 percent of their principal forgiven under the program — a boost that it says creates “sizable potential lifetime wealth benefits.” The typical graduate of a four-year public university will save nearly $2,000 a year.
Last February, SAVE made it possible for people who borrowed no more than $12,000 to see total loan forgiveness in as few as ten years rather than 20 to 25 years. Borrowers with debt above that level see one additional year to forgiveness for each $1,000 borrowed with the maximum time 20 years for undergraduate loans plus another five years for graduate loans. Come July, undergraduate-loan payments under the program drop to 5 percent of discretionary income from 10 percent with payoff within 20 years. Graduate loans fall to 10 percent with payoff in 25 years. Borrowers with both types of loan will pay between 5 to 10 percent of their free income.
It’s also worth noting that, once again, Republicans are attempting to stymie Biden in court. Two groups of Republican attorneys general have filed lawsuits to block the SAVE plan, arguing that the plan is illegal and will harm their states in a variety of ways.
People who work full time for a nonprofit (excluding labor unions and political organizations) or a federal, state, local, or tribal government have additional options under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, which erases a borrower’s federal student debt after 120 monthly payments over ten years. The program also covers some teachers, doctors, nurses, firefighters, social workers, U.S. Armed Forces members, and lawyers working for the government, among other low-paying not-for-profit jobs.
The PSLF program has been around since 2007, but was in an administrative quagmire until the Biden administration implemented reforms. Borrowers rejected in earlier years, generally due to the type of repayment plan they are enrolled in, are getting a second look under an Education Department review expected to be completed in July.
As of March 21, 871,000 borrowers have been granted $62.5 billion in relief under PSLF since October 2021. Prior to that, only 7,000 borrowers had ever received forgiveness.
To enroll in PSLF, tell your current loan servicers — either through a phone call or through the government’s PSLF Help Tool — that you plan to apply for PSLF. When using the tool to complete your application, you either choose an IDR or let MOHELA — a Missouri-based company that is the government’s official servicer for PSLF applicants — choose one for you. Loan servicers will transfer your loans to MOHELA.
Even with the Biden administration’s improvements, however, that hasn’t always gone smoothly. The Student Debt Crisis Center has first-person horror stories but also a wealth of helpful links to the various federal programs, along with free web-based workshops, definitions of terms, and helpful Q&A sections. The Education Department, which sanctioned MOHELA last October for sending borrowers delayed or faulty statements, is continuing to monitor the situation.
Under a separate Education Department program, borrowers with federal loans, including privately held FFEL (Federal Family Education), Parent PLUS, Perkins, and HEAL (Health Education Assistance) loans, have until April 30 to apply for a onetime payment adjustment, which could allow them to have their entire debt canceled or receive credits that lower their balances. The process for that involves consolidating your student loans (borrowers typically have multiple loans) into one bunch, then enrolling in a government-run income-driven repayment plan, such as SAVE.
If you are already in an income-driven repayment program but haven’t yet consolidated, or are seeking PSLF, you have until April 30 to consolidate your loans and have any IDR or PSLF payments you previously made count toward forgiveness. That’s known as a “payment count adjustment” — and it will allow more than 3.6 million people who borrowed through the popular William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program to receive at least three years of credit toward loan forgiveness. Many borrowers will see their loans forgiven automatically. But if you miss the April 30 deadline, your payment count towards forgiveness resets to zero once you get a new consolidated loan, meaning you’ll be paying off a higher amount, likely over a longer period of time.
The first step, if you haven’t already, is to gather your loan details — type, servicer, loan amount, and interest amount — and set up a Federal Student Aid account. You’ll need that account to complete your application. And if you don’t know who your loan servicer is, logging into the account will tell you those details.
Here’s what will happen if you consolidate your student loans: Your monthly payment may decrease, but you may have to pay over a longer period of time, which could mean an increase in the total loan-lifetime interest you pay overall. If you have unpaid interest, your consolidated principal balance will include that interest and go up. And the new consolidation loan will typically carry a new interest rate. Studentaid.gov has put together a helpful guide to the various implications. By the way, the consolidation itself is free — there are no annoying fees to worry about.
To get started, go over to the government’s student loan consolidation website and click “Log in to Apply” on the upper right of the screen. The government says, mercifully, that the entire application process for a consolidation loan typically takes less than 30 minutes and doesn’t have to be done in one go — you can save your draft application and come back to it later.
During the process, a prompt on the website will ask you to choose an income-driven repayment plan for your Direct Consolidation loan. Here’s where things get a bit more complicated. Which plan to choose depends on a host of factors, including projected income, family size, and whether you’re including a spouse’s student loans in the consolidation. A helpful and easy-to-use loan simulator lets you plug in your broader financial data, including employment status, health insurance premiums, and tax-deferred retirement savings — if you have a 401(k) or traditional individual retirement account — and compare the options. The government recognizes that life takes twists and turns and thus lets you change repayment plans at any time at no cost.
Sorting all this out can feel overwhelming, but there’s really only one downside. Borrowers who come out free and clear of student debt can find their creditworthiness dented: Somewhat perversely, a closed installment loan, like a student loan, is no longer a line of credit by which on-time payments can boost your score. But at least you’d be free and clear of student debt.
Twitter’s new X sign has been taken down after complaints from residents about intense light shining into homes and the sign lacking safety permits from the city. What do you think?
“We can’t let bureaucracy stifle the most annoying innovators of our time.”
Shelly Prechtel, Systems Analyst
Congress Placed On Lockdown After Deranged Man Enters Senate With Gun Control Measures
“When has Musk’s technology ever put the public at risk?”
Ross Yanczer, Pecan Gatherer
“These people are just jealous of the creativity and genius that it takes to imagine a bright X.”
