Today I have a guest post from Stride Funding. Stride Funding provides an alternative to students loans called Income Share Agreements. Read below to learn more about this alternative loan option for PA students.

Introducing Income Share Agreements

There is a $1.6 trillion student debt crisis in the United States. As soon as they enter the workforce, millions of students are held down by crippling amounts of student debt. Their lives are often dictated by the cost of their education. Spending 4 years in an undergraduate program and 2-3 years in graduate school, physician assistant students definitely carry this burden.  In choosing a career path in which they help others, they incur the cost of two to three extra years of schooling. Thankfully, Income Share Agreements offer a better solution for education funding.

What is an Income Share Agreement?

An Income Share Agreement, or ISA, is an agreement where a student receives an upfront payment for tuition and agrees to pay a percentage of their future income for a defined number of months. It allows students to fund their education in a more flexible and affordable way.

With Income Share Agreements, education funding is revolutionized. Repayment amounts are not calculated on continually accruing interest on top of the borrowed amount. Instead, they are calculated as a percentage of future income, ensuring that they are always affordable. There is never a fixed amount; it is always a proportion of what you earn. With ISAs, graduates’ lives cease to be dictated by the loans they took out to pay for their education.

Flexibility Matters

For many students, going to PA school is a dream come true. Graduating, then, is the culmination of the dream, leading into a life where they are able to help patients for a living. The ability to help, however, stemming from years of schooling, should not be bound to apparently insurmountable amounts of student loan debt.

PA students typically enter the workforce as full-time employees after completing 4 years of undergraduate education and another 2-3 of PA school. Life should not have to be put on hold because of educational expenses. People should not have to hold off on buying a house, buying a car, or going on vacation because they chose to become a Physician Assistant; and did the work to make it come true. Income Share Agreements ensure that students are not held down by the cost of their education.

Shifting the Focus

The burden of student loan debt extends further than impacting Physician Assistants’ financial future. ISAs liberate students to live outside the confines of debt repayment. Income share agreements allow students in nursing and physician assistant programs to engage in intellectual exploration, for example. Large amounts of student loan debt often serve as an impediment in a student’s desire to take time off from school (i.e. to research a newfound scientific passion). With student loans, any delay in payment results in an increasing future amount to be paid. With income share agreements, students do not have to repress their intellectual curiosity in order to protect their future finances. They can trust that they will always be able to pay what they are supposed to, while taking intellectual risks that may contribute to their professional development.

Income Share Agreements allow PA and nursing students to invest in their future while focusing on their patients, not student loan debt.

Learn More and Apply for a Stride Funding ISA Today

If you are interested in using a Stride Income Share Agreement to fund your education, apply today.