Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Ian Hoffman.
Hi Dr. Hoffman, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Hi, I’m Dr. Ian Hoffman, a Chiropractor, and student loan forgiveness expert. How I got into this is kind of a crazy story…
I co-founded a Chiropractic practice in Encinitas, straight after school in 2010. In 2013 a pregnant mom came in as a new patient and brought her daughter to the appointment. One of the first things this mom said to me when we sat down for the consultation was that her 4-year-old daughter had stage 4 cancer.
My son was about 2 weeks old at the time so this hit me especially hard. No child or parent should ever have to go through that. I wound up taking care of several members of this family and this brave and beautiful little girl ultimately inspired me to start a nonprofit with a mission to expand access to care for people regardless of their financial situation.
Around the same time, I was trying to buy my first home, which was a condo in La Costa. I went into the bank excited but quickly felt like a failure when the broker told me that my student loans were completely messing up my debt-to-income ratio. The real, hidden cost of my college debt hit me big time!
While I was online doing research about my student loans in order to qualify for this mortgage, I read about a federal program called Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF).
At the time, I was enrolled in an Income-Driven Repayment plan that would have me make 25 years of monthly payments at which point any remaining debt would be forgiven income (so at first it sounds like a pretty good deal). I found out later that any forgiven debt is taxed as income. So, consider a borrower with $150,000 of student loan debt who is on an income-driven plan and their monthly payment is less than the accruing interest. This happens a lot! A survey in XXX year found that 65% of student loan balances had increased between X and Y years, even if they had been making their monthly payments on time.”
By contrast, the PSLF program would erase my student debt in less than half the time 100% tax-free, and there are only 3 requirements to qualify. The major requirement is that only government and nonprofit employees are eligible but I had actually reverse-engineered that by starting a nonprofit.
I was able to qualify for PSLF and that’s when the lightbulb really went off for me… I went to school with a bunch of people who have an amazing heart, many of them already taking care of people regardless of their patient’s financial situation, just not doing it through a formalized nonprofit. So, what if I taught them how to start their own nonprofit to make the world a better place and get their student loans erased?
Well fast-forward to today and I’ve helped start about 425 nonprofits for doctors and other healthcare professionals all over the country and they are expected to save over $113,000,000 and counting!
And another great part of this story is that the brave and beautiful little girl who inspired my nonprofit is now almost 8 years cancer-free, off all her medications, and her hair is back.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh man, there have been a lot of struggles along the way but I think most of them are part of the learning experience for many new businesses.
I had only run a local Chiropractic office, never an online business, so I had to figure all of that out and basically took myself to school reading, watching webinars, doing everything I could. My favorite resource on that topic is the book Dotcom Secrets by Russel Brunson for anyone who is looking to start a business online.
But not only that, I had to write all the slideshows and record all the video content and then test the process to make sure it worked for everyone every time. I ran my process by a tax attorney here in San Diego and got a legal opinion letter. I found an awesome firm that has started thousands of nonprofits and guarantees 501C3 status so I could outsource and streamline that part of the business. Slowly, over about 2 years’ time, I built up the infrastructure piece by piece and was ready to launch!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
The Student Loan Eraser helps doctors and others with 6 figures of student loan debt to start a nonprofit to expand access to their services for people in need and meet the other requirements to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
It’s a huge win-win to be able to make the world a better place and get their student loans erased.
I actually just had a client, Dr. Louis who is a Chiropractor and also a Police Officer in Chicago just sent me his official student loan forgiveness letter from the Department of Education. On May 10th of this year, he got $113,261.51 of student loans erased tax-free, he was so excited he sent me this email (shared with permission)…
“THAT IS AWSOME!!!
Ian, I am sooo grateful for everything that you have done. This debt like a dark cloud has been over my head since 1995, along within the last terrible few years, my mother’s passing, then my brother. I believe this has been a gift from them that everything will be all right. You have helped me through the process and made it happen.
You are truly a blessing for me and my family 🙏”
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
The whole student loan industry is undergoing a major overhaul right now.
Unfortunately, several of the major student loan servicing companies have been sued for misleading borrowers to maximize profits and for years the PSLF program had less than a 2% acceptance rate as a result.
But President Biden has already forgiven almost $18 Billion worth of student loan debt!
$6.8 billion of debt has been erased for 113,000 borrowers through Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) and that number is growing exponentially.
Another $11 billion has been forgiven for borrowers who have a total and permanent disability or were defrauded by their school.
I’m hopeful that over the next few years the Department of Education and servicing companies will do a better job informing borrowers of their rights, their options, and simplify the student loan system so it’s not so confusing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.erasemystudentloans.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EraseMyStudentLoans
