a new generation of borrowers is emerging—and advisors need to be ready to serve them.
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by rory henry cfp®, bfa™
for 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间
student loan debt is not just a problem for young professionals anymore. it is a challenge that increasingly touches families, near-retirees, and even retirees. with more than $1.8 trillion in federal student loan debt across 42.5 million borrowers, the issue is too significant for cpas and financial advisors to overlook? because more and more of their clients are directly affected?.
on the latest episode of holistic guide to wealth management, alex bottom, ceo of finology, and ryan galiotto, cfp®, cslp®, founder of the student loan help network, discuss how new legislation, shifting demographics, and growing demand for guidance are reshaping this area of planning.
“student loan planning is essentially looking at a client’s full financial picture and helping them find the fastest and cheapest way to eliminate that debt,” galiotto explains. “[student loan] debt is a massive issue within our country right now, and it is only going to get bigger.”
bottom agrees, noting that the recent one big beautiful bill act (obbba) is reshaping student loan repayment structures. the obbba aims to simplify the income-driven repayment system by creating a single repayment assistance plan (rap). the plan is designed to base payments on a percentage of the borrower’s income (1% to 10%) and to extend repayment terms to 30 years, though final regulations are still being finalized.
the legislation also places new caps on borrowing. starting in 2026, students may see a reduction of around 50% in federally funded tuition costs, which will likely prompt more families to turn to private loans to fill the gap. the exact limits are set by loan type, but for many families, the effect will be a significant reduction from today’s borrowing levels.
for cpas, the tax implications are critical. filing status can affect repayment amounts, forgiveness rules can trigger taxable “loan forgiveness income” (sometimes called the “tax bomb”), and missteps in timing can leave families with unexpected bills. currently, forgiven student loan balances are excluded from federal income tax through 2025 under the american rescue plan act. unless extended, this exemption will expire, and forgiveness could once again be treated as taxable income.
“student loan debt is not joint debt,” bottom reminds us. “that is why married filing separately can sometimes reduce payments. but it is up to the tax professional to determine whether the tax implications outweigh the savings.”
galiotto warns that advisors should prepare for an unexpected client segment: retirees. with families delaying childbearing later in life, many parents now find themselves taking out parent plus loans in their late 50s and 60s, precisely when retirement planning should be their top priority. parent plus loans are federal education loans provided by the u.s. department of education to parents of dependent undergraduate students. plus loans help pay for college costs not covered by other financial aid. the loan is in the parent’s name, making the parent legally responsible for repayment. under the new legislation, borrowing limits for future parent plus loans will be reduced and eligibility rules will be more restrictive beginning in 2026.”
“we are going to be seeing older borrowers walking into your office with these types of questions,” he says. “instead of prioritizing retirement, they are prioritizing their child’s education, often through borrowing.”
both guests agree that the biggest hurdle is a lack of education among student borrowers, their families, and advisors. many advisors feel that student loan planning is too complex or outside their area of expertise, but having a transparent process makes it more manageable. bottom emphasizes that urgency is critical. previously, during covid, there was a pause in monthly payments for federal borrowers. “deadlines have been pushed back so many times since covid that people assume they will always get more time,” he says. “but that will not be the case forever.”
obbba changes take effect july 1, 2026. some repayment provisions are still under review by legal and administrative authorities, so details may evolve before the full rollout. advisors who start preparing clients now by modeling repayment options, evaluating tax impacts, and exploring alternative funding sources will be in the best position to guide families through the new financial realities of college borrowing and repayment.
5 advis-ror® takeaways
- student loan planning is no longer niche; it affects retirees, parents, and professionals at every stage.
- the one big beautiful bill act reshapes repayment plans, extends timelines, and imposes new borrowing caps.
- filing status and forgiveness rules create planning opportunities and pitfalls for cpas.
- more retirees are borrowing, making student loans a growing factor in retirement planning.
- education and tools can help practitioners integrate student loan planning without losing focus on core services.
more about alex bottom
alex bottom is the founder of finology software, a leading platform that helps financial advisors deliver personalized student loan repayment planning at scale. he earned a ba in economics from the university of southern california, providing a strong foundation in markets, business, and policy. with over 15 years of experience in technology development, product marketing, and customer onboarding across fintech, govtech, and hrtech, bottom has cultivated a deep understanding of how innovative technology can transform complex processes. drawing on lessons from diverse industries and his entrepreneurial journey, bottom launched finology software to provide advisors with transparent, compliant, and powerful tools to help clients navigate federal and private student loans. across two generations of software, the platforms have supported more than $1 billion in student loan planning and continue to evolve with intuitive, cutting-edge functionality, including the federal loan simulator, idr comparison, and liability planner. bottom leads a world-class remote-first team of engineers, designers, and executives, focusing on markets where creativity and innovation deliver long-term value for both advisors and their clients. his mission is to empower organizations with technology that makes financial wellness planning scalable, transparent, and effective.
more about ryan galiotto, cfp®, cslp®
the student loan help network was founded in 2025 by ryan galiotto, cfp®, cslp®, a nationally recognized expert in student loan planning. since 2017, galiotto has helped thousands of borrowers manage millions in student loan debt. he serves on the forbes advisor loan advisory board and has been quoted in leading publications, including forbes, credible.com, bloomberg, journal of financial planning, and others. each advisor in our directory has completed galiotto’s student loan help course and stays current through monthly training webinars. with trusted, up-to-date guidance, we make it easier for borrowers to find the expert help they need
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transcript
(transcripts are made available as soon as possible. they are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.)
[00:00:44] rory henry: all right. hello, everyone. i’m excited to be joined by my next two guests here who are helping transform how financial professionals and families approach one of the most pressing financial issues in america today, that’s student loan debt. let me first introduce my friend, alex bottom. he is the founder of finology software, which is a platform that helps advisors deliver student loan repayment planning at scale. alex, welcome to the show.
[00:01:08] alex bottom: oh, thanks for having me, rory.
[00:01:10] rory henry: yes. and we’re also joined by ryan galeotto. he is the founder of the student loan help network and edge financial, an organization that is building a national advisor community dedicated to student loan planning and education. ryan, thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:01:28] ryan galiotto: thank you so much for having me, rory. i’m very excited.
[00:01:30] rory henry: yeah. why don’t we start off, and i’ll throw the question to you here, ryan. can you, for our audience, talk about what exactly student loan repayment planning is and why it’s important for advisors and cpas right now?
[00:01:43] narration: sure.
[00:01:43] ryan galiotto: absolutely. so student loan planning is essentially the process of looking at a client’s entire financial picture and helping them find the fastest and cheapest way to eliminate that debt so that they can get on with their life and get on with their financial goals. so why people should be so concerned about this is because this is a massive issue within our country. right now, the total amount of just federal student loan debt in our country is over $1.7 trillion and climbing. we have 47 million borrowers right now in the federal student loan system. we haven’t even touched the private loan system, which due to some recent legislation changes is probably going to see a pretty nice increase over the next couple of years. so this is a huge problem in our country. it’s just a problem that’s going to continue growing. so it’s very important that people understand this.
[00:02:27] rory henry: yeah. speaking of recent legislative changes, let’s get into that with the one big, beautiful bill. i’m going to send this over to alex. let’s talk about some of the key points that borrowers and advisors should really know about. and i know that they now have the repayment assistance program, the rap program, which is tied to agi instead of a flat monthly pay. can you kind of talk about the recent legislative changes and what folks should be knowing out there?
[00:02:55] alex bottom: yeah. so the obv is really reducing the complexity of student loan repayment planning and the idr plans.
[00:03:02] rory henry: in particular- no, for our audience, the idr acronym stands for?
[00:03:06] alex bottom: oh, income driven repayment. that’s basically a way for the government to help people who can’t make their full payment reduce it.
[00:03:13] rory henry: yeah. okay. great.
[00:03:15] alex bottom: so the rap plan, it’s a sliding scale from 1% to 10%. and so the time horizon has been expanded to 30 years, but ryan alluded to it earlier, the borrowing beyond july 1st, 2026 will be reduced to about 50% of the tuition costs.
[00:03:33] narration: yeah.
[00:03:33] rory henry: i know there’s some setting the plans here. there’s a couple more. there was the pay as you earn as well in the income-based repayment or the income contingent repayment plan. is that correct, ryan?
[00:03:45] narration: yeah.
[00:03:46] ryan galiotto: right now, there’s a number of, i guess, pretty soon we’re going to refer to them as legacy plans, but on the income-driven system right now, there’s the pay as you earn plan, there’s the income-based repayment plan, and there’s the income contingent repayment plan. there’s also the save plan, which i’m sure many people have heard about, but that one’s currently facing a number of legislative issues and is in the process of essentially going away due to those legal challenges around it. so it’s currently in a frozen state. but as of right now, as it sits, the only three income-driven options that are available to borrowers are the pay as you earn plan, the income-based repayment plan, and the income contingent repayment plan, with the pay as you earn plan and the income contingent repayment plan being sunset starting next year.
[00:04:28] rory henry: yeah. and i know that education is a key part of what you all do there, is educating advisors and borrowers on these different programs. can you kind of talk about what folks should know? i know implementing another service line into a practice can seem daunting and people want to stick mainly to their core competencies, and they don’t want to necessarily step outside their lane. how are you all advising folks out there to integrate this into a practice in a holistic and authentic way?
[00:05:04] ryan galiotto: so what i like to tell advisors, cpas, anybody along those lines, is right now the fastest growing segment of student loan borrowers in america are retirees. these are typically people that they’re meeting with on an everyday basis. the amount of borrowing that’s happening right now, and i don’t have any statistics to back this up, but it is growing substantially. so what they’re going to be seeing over the next couple of years is that we’re going to be seeing more older borrowers coming into your offices with these types of questions. and the reason for that is because what we’ve seen happen in america is there’s a shift in the age in which families started to begin. that started about 30 years ago. my mom, i think, was 21, 22 years old whenever she had me. well, i had my first child at 36. so we’re seeing this huge dramatic shift in the age of when people are starting to have children, but we’re not seeing people preparing for college education via like a 529 savings or college savings plan at the same time. so what this is growing is this massive problem where by the time the child is getting ready to enter college, the parent is 55 to 60 years old and kind of in those prime retirement planning years. but instead of having to prioritize their retirement at this point, what they’re doing instead is prioritizing the child’s education in the form of borrowing because there’s no additional liquid assets to cover that cost. so this is what’s kind of growing this massive need where we’re going to be seeing a lot of these questions coming across advisor and cpa desk over the next couple of years.
[00:06:35] rory henry: yeah, i know some of those questions obviously be tax related. students loans in taxes are connected because obviously filing status dictates, you know, what can be done as far as monthly payments go. there’s loan forgiveness. i know they call that the tax bomb. so can you touch on the tax implications here that folks should be considering when working with student loans?
[00:06:59] alex bottom: yeah, i’ll take that one. there’s a couple of things that we do at finaldi software and finaldi software, we’re incredibly proud to have. edge financial is one of our biggest power users and everyone on the student loan help network to be leveraging our platform. what we’ve done is try to make these types of calculations simple on both the front and back end. the impact to the monthly payment based on the filing status, student loan debt is not joint debt. that’s why one of the reasons why they couldn’t force everyone to file jointly with the income driven repayment plans. and so that really helps identify what the finaldi software helps identify what the exposure is based on that filing status, but cpas are the ones that are actually going to be performing that. we can kind of deliver that information based on the filing status, but that’s really up to the tax professionals to understand if that filing status change is a benefit based on their goals and objectives. and then similarly, the tax bomb at the end of the plans, there’s, you know, talking about people that aren’t prepping for either 529s, no one’s even prepping for that potential tax bomb. and so this kind of can gets kind of kicked down the road, especially with the new 30 year time horizon.
[00:08:12] rory henry: yeah, can you talk about what that tax bomb actually is for folks out there?
[00:08:16] alex bottom: yes. so, and i was going to qualify that with some people that are in public service loan forgiveness, which has been a huge benefit for those at qualifying organizations and nonprofits where it’s a 10 year program where we’re seeing a lot of people getting discharged. i don’t have the data. maybe ryan, you have it off the top of your head in terms of people have been discharged tax free. so the tax bomb at the end of the time horizon is taxed at whatever their income is at the end of their tax bomb. so it’s a very much a pro forma figure that we can kind of help establish based on the likely amount of payments, which we call some of future payments in finology software, and then that leftover balance and then reverse engineering a savings amount for it.
[00:09:05] rory henry: yeah, i know you guys touched on education, ryan, i know you’re big on education as part of what the student loan help network is. can you talk about how you’re helping advisors there with a peer to peer community and the training to start implementing this into a service offering?
[00:09:20] narration: sure.
[00:09:20] ryan galiotto: so that was one of the biggest hurdles that me and alex identified whenever we were talking to advisors, him on the technology side and me just simply just being an advocate for, you know, hey, these clients are already in your office and a couple of years they’re going to be coming to you and saying, hey, i have student loan debt questions and you need to be able to answer them. so i’ve really been a big advocate of just implementing this into your practice. the biggest hurdle that we were running into was the education side. it was, i just don’t simply know how to do this. this seems like a lot of stuff to learn. it seems like it’s going to be a lot of time to learn all this. what do we do? you know, how, you know, i just don’t simply have the capacity to add this into my practice. and i identified that because i’m an advisor and i totally understand that. i totally get it. so what i did was created a course for advisors. so this is a training course called the student loan help course that we’ve kind of buttoned up with the student loan help network as a course built by an advisor for an advisor. so no fluff. it is everything you need to know from start to finish, how to everything you need to know about student loans, how to build a student loan plan and how to integrate it into your practice and market yourself in a profitable manner. everything from start to finish on how to do this correctly. and we are offering that now to advisors to, you know, help them kind of clear that hurdle. it’s a lot of videos. it’s about 90 videos, but you can get through it in about eight hours. so this is certainly an easy way to get you up and running in the student loan, get you up and running and educated on student loan planning so that you can quickly integrate this into your practice. no fluff. no fluff.
[00:10:50] rory henry: all right. yeah. well, speaking of education here, i know we touched on the federal borrowing limits have now been revamped and that’s going to leave folks going towards private loans to make up for that difference. can you talk about maybe walk us through the impact that’s going to have on borrowers and how folks can advise them when it comes to the private loan side of things?
[00:11:16] ryan galiotto: sure. i’ll take this one, alex. so what we’re going to see happen as part of the one big beautiful bill, what they’re going to be essentially be doing is implementing borrowing limits in the federal student loan system. what that’s going to do is it’s going to create gaps in how people borrow to finance their education because the cost of education is not coming down with the amount of money the government’s going to give you to pay for it is going to go down. so it’s going to create a gap there where parents and students around have to get creative on how they fill it. now there is a private student loan system that they can go to, but we’re probably going to see a lot of private student loans coming into the system. but on top of that, we’re also probably going to see a lot of people wanting to rate their retirement accounts in order to fill that gap. we’re going to see home equity in america shrink as a result of this because people are going to be looking at home equity loans and things like that to help cover that gap that’s going to be caused by this one big beautiful bill limitation that it’s putting on the education system. so the goal of it is to kind of force colleges to reduce the cost of attendance in theory, and hopefully that does work out in time. but in the short time, i should say, it’s going to create this gap that’s either going to need to be filled by the private sector or the bank in some capacity. and i told alex this, you know, it’s kind of funny. take a look at sofi stock from the time the one big beautiful bill was signed, sofi being one of the largest private student loan lenders. it’s a market…
[00:12:47] rory henry: this is investment advice, folks out there.
[00:12:49] ryan galiotto: this is not investment advice, i’m just observation out there, but the market’s also thinking.
[00:12:55] rory henry: yeah, makes sense.
[00:12:56] ryan galiotto: makes sense.
[00:12:56] rory henry: all right. is there anything else that you all want to touch on that we didn’t cover that folks in our audience should know about?
[00:13:02] alex bottom: yeah, i’d like to kind of plug ryan’s course. you know, one of the things i think what we’ve seen with student loan repayment planning is that it’s by its designs remained very niche. and what we’re talking about with ryan’s course is how to make this kind of a little bit more mainstream for people to understand the how to’s, how to set up your firm, the soft skills associated with it. with technology, we can only do so many things. we’re about streamlining, kind of migrating off of spreadsheets and really delivering something that’s cost effective and affordable as an add on to the number of different technologies that a firm will rely on. and what ryan’s really kind of hit, i think, really well with his videos and student loan help network is to make that consumable, to make that easy. there’s still student loan repayment planning credentials that i think are terrific. and especially if you’re doing the pre-college planning, which i think there’s going to be a little bit more of an alignment coming with pre-college planning and repayment planning very much so in the future. and so with the student loan help network, i think it’s going to be extremely helpful because that in itself is affordable as well for people to kind of get that information, download it, and especially for cpas that are in their off busy season. this is something they can essentially be adding quite easily. it’s going to have a pretty big impact on their clients.
[00:14:26] rory henry: yeah. i’ll throw it over to you, ryan. anything else you want to touch on for our audience?
[00:14:33] narration: yeah.
[00:14:34] ryan galiotto: probably the big thing that i want to drive home is that we’re looking at probably the next 12 months are going to be one of the most crucial 12 months in student loan planning. this is when people are going to need a trusted advisor when it comes to student loan, to navigating not only their student loan repayment, but also how they borrow within the student loan system. so i want to kind of drive home an example of this. let’s say we have a parent who has a child who is three years in the school and going into their final year after july 1st, 2026, or the way the rules sit right now, that parent can borrow parent plus loans, consolidate those parent plus loans and get access to an income driven plan. however, if that parent borrows $1 after july 1st, 2026, they will forfeit their ability to get onto an income driven repayment plan at that point, because they’ll be considered a new, they will have a loan originated post july 1st, 2026. so one minor mistake like that by just, you know, taking out a loan past that deadline could have severe financial consequences on that family. so now is when the trusted advisors of the next 12 months, the trusted advisor is going to be.
[00:15:45] rory henry: oh, really? the next nine months, right? the next nine months to 2026, right?
[00:15:50] alex bottom: yeah. and i think speaking to that urgency is probably been the biggest problem because the dates have always been pushed back.
[00:15:58] rory henry: yeah.
[00:15:58] alex bottom: and so, and i think not always, but with it since covid. and so these, you know, we always were seeing dates like just getting burned right through with interest, the interest resuming and they kick the can down the road, kicking the can down the road. at some point, that’s definitely going to stop. and i don’t know if people are necessarily ready for that. but i think ryan’s given tremendous advice there. it’s the things that are kind of outside of that realm that need to be known. and one of the reasons why this is so important for the spectrum of financial advisors to really implement this at scale to elevate the quality of advice, because where are the gaps?
[00:16:41] rory henry: right.
[00:16:42] alex bottom: schools are not providing the exit counseling. they’re not able to advocate. the servicers, people want people to refinance the situation, even if you’re in public service law forgiveness. okay. and then the servicers now, they can’t advocate. so who’s going to step up?
[00:16:58] rory henry: yeah. the clients need the advisor to be the advocate.
[00:17:01] alex bottom: there’s this gap. and the b2c component, i think, and the department of education, they’ve been doing better with their tools. they truly have. but it’s still not there where it’s going to be completely self-service. financial advisors must have this type of expertise for the millions of people that have this, 44 million people in the united states. so this is not like, it’s a niche of people that have been doing it, but it’s very much a mainstream need.
[00:17:30] rory henry: yeah. and it’s such a value add for practitioners out there who are helping families and their kids through this process of the student loan debt, which obviously is a big issue here in america. well, this has been awesome, guys. thank you so much for coming on. very informative, by the way. i learned a lot here. if anybody wants to get in touch with you, what’s the best way to do so?
[00:17:53] alex bottom: oh, yeah. so for us, it’s phenologysoftware.com. that’s where our technology is housed and feel free to reach out on our website. and yeah, looking forward to hopefully engaging with some people.
[00:18:07] ryan galiotto: awesome. and ryan?
[00:18:09] narration: sure.
[00:18:10] ryan galiotto: you can find the student loan help network right now at studentloanhelpnetwork.com. anybody is interested, we are looking for more advisors. we need to spread the word. so please take a look. oh, yeah.
[00:18:21] alex bottom: tell them about the coverage. we’re looking for one in every state. we nearly have it covered.
[00:18:25] narration: yeah.
[00:18:25] ryan galiotto: we’re looking to cover the entire united states right now. so we’re looking to get at least one advisor in every state. if you go on to studentloanhelpnetwork.com, you can actually search by state and see what all advisors are in your state. so if you are looking to partner with an advisor who might be able to kind of give you a little bit more of guidance for your clients, you can find one there. or if you’re looking to join the network, we are looking for coverage all across the united states. we still have some states that are available.
[00:18:50] alex bottom: yeah. and i’d like to kind of parrot that too, because even if someone’s listening and this is not for them, they’re going to have clients that might need to find that knowledgeable advisor. and we would recommend them sending it to student loan help network.
[00:19:03] rory henry: yeah. it’s going to be a plug and play. i like it. all right. awesome, jim. thank you so much for coming to the show. i’ll put all that information on the show notes. excellent job. i was very informative, like i said, and i appreciate you coming on. oh, thank you so much, rory. thanks. thanks so much for having me. you got it. thank you. bye.
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