Awesome. We see Sammy deciding between UCLA and USC, of choice. Good luck, Sam. Thank you for sharing.

Alright. Let's get this started.

So, thank you everyone for joining us today.

I'm I'm I'm Diego, from Juno.

Sebas is here with me.

The main goal of our webinar today is to understand how to budget for an MBA, kind of taking into account all the different expenses that you might face as a full time MBA student.

Before jumping to the action, a little bit of a disclaimer. We just wanna let you know that we're not financial advisers or tax advisers or any sort of advisers. So please take this, just as a tip or, you know, some of the insights that we've that we've gained throughout the the years we've been we've been in the industry and helping other MBA students, in the past few years.

So, we'll give you a little bit of an intro, and then we'll get right into budgeting. And at the end, we'll kind of give you some updates on where negotiations are or where where we stand today, with the group negotiation.

Before we jump into the introduction, please, we like to make this this sessions as interactive as possible. So anyone who has any question, please feel free to drop it in the in the q and a or in the chat. It should be enabled now. And, and and Sebas will be stopping me, to see if there are any unanswered questions as we as we go through the presentation. So, again, let's let's try to make this as interactive as as possible.

So as an introduction, I'm Diego here. I am originally from Mexico as you can see. Spent a few years doing investment banking before doing my MBA at Chicago Booth. I graduated class of twenty twenty two. I actually interned here at Juno, for my summer internship and actually stayed part time working for my second year. And then, obviously, after graduation, I I I transitioned into a full time role, and, I've been I've been here ever since. So if if if there's anyone in the audience kind of kind of depending whether or not to do some sort of part time roles, throughout their MBAs, I'm happy to to touch base on that on my personal experience.

Thomas, you wanna introduce yourself?

Yeah. Hi. How are you, everyone? Good afternoon. Pleasure to meet you all.

I'm fairly new to Juno. Very happy to be joining the team. I graduated from my MBA last year, from HBS, and most of my background was in finance, especially investment banking and private equity, and now transition to the startup world. So very, very excited to be here.

Thank you, Sebas. I'll just remind everyone, this session is being recorded and will be shared with you tomorrow, at some point during the day.

So if you need to go, I hope you don't go, but still, if you need to go, you'll you'll you'll get the recording tomorrow.

So alright. Let's just get it started. Right? So the first thing that you need to, to to build your budget is to understand the cost.

Right? So there are two key things here. One is a cost of attendance, which I'll I'll get into the detail in in in the next slide. And there and then there are your personal costs.

Right? Some of those, unfortunately, are are kind of not included in the cost of attendance. But those are too many things that you need to figure out before you start doing your budget.

Once you figure out kind of your costs, we have, some very, I guess, simple, Excel budget where you can build your own estimate based on your personal needs, whether or not you're going with a significant other, with a dependent, or you're not gonna be working part time doing doing your MBA or, you know, taking into account your summer internship depending on the on the industry you're you're you're heading to. So all that stuff, will need obviously, will be will need to be included in in as as you do your budget, and then, obviously, kind of understanding, how to pay for it. Right? How much cash do you have right now, if you want to use that cash or not or how much of your cash you wanna use for something like this, and then, obviously, you know, some other source of fundings like student loans, scholarships, and things like that. Right?

So what is the cost of attendance? The cost of attendance is a number that's gonna be given to you by your school. Right? This cost of attendance includes tuition and fees, right, that you owe the school and some an estimation of the living expenses. Okay?

Now your school will publish your school specific cost of attendance somewhere around April. Right? So if you're enrolling in fall twenty twenty five, probably in April, you'll get a the official number from your school.

The numbers from previous years are usually available online, so you can use last year's number to can to start working on your estimate because it's gonna be very similar.

But the official one is gonna be given to you around April. Okay?

A key thing to keep in mind here is that you'll have a cost of attendance for your first year, and then you'll have a separate cost of it of attendance for your second year. Okay? So it's kind of managed on an academic year basis.

One of the key questions we always we always get is, can your cost of attendance increase?

The answer is yes, but it's not as simple as it sounds. Right? You can increase it if, for example, you go with a significant other, with a dependent, then your financial office might be able to increase your cost of attendance. Or if you have some sort of special medical needs or things like that, then the financial office might consider those situations and increase your cost of attendance.

Now kind of saying, hey. I wanna travel a lot this year. That's just not gonna cut it for the financial office to increase your cost of attendance.

Okay?

Why is that important? Why is that number important? So if you decide to take a student loan, no lender, whether that's a federal government or a private lender, is gonna be able to give to lend you more than your cost of attendance minus any financial aid you're getting from the school directly. Right? So as an example, let's say your cost of attendance for your first year is a hundred and twenty k and you're getting twenty k worth of scholarships, then one hundred k is gonna be the maximum amount you will be allowed to borrow from any private lender or federal or the federal government as well. So keep that in mind as you build your budget, because that's a very key thing, you you know, when assessing how how much you wanna get on on pseudo notes.

So I wanna I wanna run everyone through an example here.

I took, as an example, Chicago Booth, my alma mater, I guess, from from the the the cost of attendance that they published last year, right, for academic year twenty four, twenty five.

And, you know, I highlight a couple of things here. One, take a look at the number they're estimating for housing and food. That's twenty six k. Okay?

They're estimating roughly a little bit over seven thousand dollars for personal expenses throughout the year.

And one thing that you need to notice here is that they only estimate this cost for nine months. Right? Not twelve months, just nine. Right? Because that's the time you're in school.

So that's an important thing to keep in mind. Okay?

Like I was saying at the beginning, schools tend to underestimate the median cost of attendance. Right?

I see there's a hand someone's raising their hand. Sebas, can you see that?

Sebas?

Sorry. I do see that. Can you guys hear me?

Yeah.

Okay. Anna Jones is asking if if the cost of attendance calculation change for executive MBA students. Yes. Executive MBA students usually have a different I mean, cost of attendance.

Right? Creation might be a little bit different. Right? So you have, like, a cost of attendance specifically for for the executive program.

Right? But then kind of the theory is the same. Right? It's it's how much the school estimates it'll cost you as a leader full time MBA student or executive MBA student to attend that that immediate academic year.

Right? So once you understand the cost of attendance and you kind of realize how much the school is estimating you'll you know, it'll cost you to to attend the school, you should start bill building your estimate. Right?

We can post this link on the chat, Sebastian, if if if you can help me out with that. But we build, like, a very simple spreadsheet for you to use. It's free. Just make a copy.

It's a Google Sheet, where you're probably gonna you're gonna be seeing, like, a different line items that, you know, you might have not taken into account yet. I think of myself a few years ago when I was building my own estimate. I was underestimating quite a lot of things because I didn't know a lot of the expenses that, you know, usually MBA students have. Right?

So go ahead and use that link.

Just make a copy of it and start playing around with the numbers. I'll go through an example in the next slide, but, Puntas will gonna is gonna post the the link here on the chat. So the steps to on on doing this is like I was saying at the beginning. Right? First of all, you need to estimate your expenses.

Estimate how much funds you have available at this point in time or, I guess, right right before you head into business school.

Then estimate the earnings that you earn during business school. I think that's one key item that people usually miss. Right? The internship salary or even if you're doing some PAs or, you know, part time roles, whatever it is. You know, usually people tend to forget about that.

And then after that, you kind of realize, hey. How much I'm gonna need to you know, what's the delta between what I have and what what's gonna cost me. Right?

One key thing that I like to, you know, remind people about is do not plan to go broke after graduation. Right?

I have a few friends for my MBA that kind of budgeted everything towards zero by month twenty one of our MBA.

And, you know, obviously, they kind of underestimated the actual expenses, so they were kind of looking for a student loan a few months before graduation. Right? So, that's one thing, I guess, you wanna avoid. And then, you know, obviously, it depends on the career. You you're going on you're you're going after after school, but, you know, you you you you'd be better off just having some sort of a cushion, you know, in the bank. In my case, specifically, I went with my wife to my MBA, so I just set aside thirty k for both of us, just just just as a precaution. Right?

So as I was saying, I wanted to guide you through a real example.

So a few things to to highlight here. Okay?

First off, I moved to Chicago September twenty twenty. Right? And moved out of Chicago in June twenty twenty two. Right?

So that's twenty one months. Not nine months. Right? Like, because was saying, it was twenty one months that I had to pay rent, that I had to pay the groceries, that I had to pay for, you know, different expenses, that are kind of, quote, unquote, not included in the cost of attendance.

Right? For example, as you can see, you know, both was estimating almost three k for housing and food. Realistically speaking, a one bed bedroom apartment in Chicago right now, it goes for three k, and I think I'm being conservative there. So you can see the delta on how, you know, I guess, underestimated the cost of attendance is.

Right?

And one one thing, unfortunately, that, I guess, schools do not take into account are, you know, the cost of, you know, traveling. As you probably heard already, there's gonna be a lot of travel, on your MBA. Obviously, it's, you know, based on your personal situation and how much you wanna travel. But, but the reality is that a lot of students do tend to travel, and that's a big line item in in your expenses. Right? So in this example for, that I just that I'm showing here, you're gonna be seeing, you know, roughly, highly over three hundred k on on tuition plus expenses. Right?

You know, I I guess a a decent income from before your summer internship will be roughly twenty five k. Right? You know, net, you're gonna be netting a little over seventeen k.

And then say that you get a twenty five k scholarship, then, you're looking at a delta.

I guess, you know, how much money you, I would be needing in this specific case is gonna be, like, north of two hundred k. Right?

How am I gonna finance that? Well, obviously, in my case, it was through student loans. Right? Now you cannot take the two hundred k upfront for the first year because like I was saying, the cost of attendance is issued on an academic year basis, and you're only allowed to take up to, your cost of attendance per academic year basis. Right? So, you know, just an an illustrative example of of how things can, you know, can vary from from, you know, what the school is saying to what your actual expenses are gonna be.

Sebastian, I see there were a few questions.

Yep. I just answered them live, and you I think you touched base on it.

I think one of the students was, asking about how much to budget particularly on travel.

Do you wanna touch base a little more on that, Diego?

Yeah. So, again, it it it varies a lot student by student. We do have in the next slide, a travel guide that, that Juno has. I don't think anyone else has, to be honest, where you can download it for free, and then you can take a look at roughly how many trips and and, you know, a typical MBA student makes every year or for for their MBA experience. Right? So, more on that in the next slide. Perform in my case, specifically, I I budgeted, like, a thousand bucks per month.

So, you know, between, you know, going back flying back home, you know, going on a road trip for a weekend with my friends or going, you know, overseas to a different, you know you know, auto trips or the the ski trip. You know? I guess everyone here knows, you know, all the trips that that probably, you know, you you might take as an MBA student. But but, roughly speaking, that was my number.

And and we'll we'll share with you more details as to how how other students, I guess, you know, spend on on travel. I guess, have anything you wanna share on your own experience about traveling?

Yeah. No. I think I think you hit the nail on the head, Diego.

I think that travel is the range is very ample. So, you know, it really depends on how much travel you do. I particularly traveled a lot more during my second year than my first year once I had a little more visibility of, cash flows after business school and of how much to budget exactly. So I would urge everyone to to to just think about that before before planning and to make sure that, you know, you can always give it a try before that.

And just to compliment on that, Diego, we have another another question from one of the students here, mentioning what you recommend, about starting the MBA with zero on their bank account and what that minimum cushion should be.

I mean, I don't think it's it's a financial suicide. Right? I I truly believe that that the MBA is an is is, I guess, ROI positive. Right? But if you don't have any cash on the bank, then you will have to be careful on on your on your expenses, right, on on your recreational expenses, if you will. Right? So probably, if we're gonna go way down or I recommend going down, try to manage, you know, how much, you know, I get recreational activities you wanna be involved in.

And and and and you might be looking at a situation where you have to max out your student loans, in order to for you to kind of, you know, obviously pay tuition and fees and then, you know, housing.

I would recommend, you know, rooming with someone if that's if you haven't considered that. So there's a few ways that you can minimize these these monthly expenses that you have, if you don't have anything on on your bank account.

I wanna jump to the next slide, on to the subject we're just touching base on. Right? How many trips, do you actually go on? Right? So as I was saying, it varies dramatically from from student to student.

You know, the range of international trips are between two and eight.

Domestic trips, it could go it it could be like as simple as a road trip or, you know you know, flying somewhere for recruiting wise or something like that. So it could be between six and twenty four. Again, this is based on a survey we run each year to hundreds of MBA students.

I haven't seen anyone else, doing this type of survey, so I highly encourage everyone here to just click on the link here, and go ahead and and download that that that travel guide where you'll you'll have a lot of insights into this type of of of trips. Sebastian, if you don't mind helping me out with, dropping that link on the chat.

Of course. I'll drop it down shortly.

Awesome.

I see a question here.

How would you budget for living expenses if you received a full tuition scholarship but doesn't include living expenses and no on campus housing?

Yeah. That's that's a great question. I guess if you have a full ride from the school that only covers tuition and fees, then that means that roughly you're, let's say, a hundred and twenty k is your cost of attendance and probably eighty k out of a hundred a hundred and twenty is gonna be tuition. Right? So that leaves you with roughly forty k, of room for your personal expenses. Right? So that's, again, that will be the maximum amount you will be allowed to borrow from any student loan lender.

And I would I would just try to you know, depends on how much cash you have in the in in the bank, you know, kind of maximizing the the the the student loan available to you, which is gonna be roughly forty k. And then, whatever the delta is between your your expenses and that forty k, you will have to pay for it using your own cash.

So, am I missing any questions?

No. You're good to go, Diego.

Awesome. Alright. So, I wanna jump you to kind of the sources of funding. Right? So as I was saying in the beginning, scholarships and fellowships, are the easiest ones, I guess, in the sense of, you know, a scholarship is gonna be given to you either by merit based or mid days. Right? That's totally up to the school.

As I guess, as a tip here, right, if you have there was person here kind of dependent between USC and UCLA. Right? So probably you've already heard this. But, if you have a scholarship from one school, you wanna know to you wanna go to that other school where you don't have a scholarship, then, you know, you can use that as leverage. Right?

One of the, I guess, tips that I I got when I was admitted was that if you're already admitted, the school's gonna do everything in their power to keep you on you know, for you to enroll. Right? So do not be do not be afraid of asking for a scholarship to that school that you wanna attend, because they there's always room for negotiation, will will be my my advice. So, try to max out that scholarship, asking your financial aid officer, and and and and, obviously, hoping for for the best. But once you're kind of all set with scholarships and you know you kind of maxing out your chances of having a scholarship from the school, then, the next question would be, alright. What are your options with with pseudonyms? Right?

As you already know probably you already know this. You have two options with pseudonyms. One is federal federal and one's private. I'll get into the detail of this in the next slide, but keep in mind that you have, you have options on student loans. And then, obviously, you have to ask a question like, if you're willing to use your own cash, to to pay for school or probably, you know, save your cash and then max out on a student loan, more on that on on a couple of slides, but but that's obviously another source of fun. And then in some cases, there's gonna be employer sponsorship.

So so, yeah, you know, in the case that your employer is paying, let's say, a hundred percent of your tuition, then similar to the question that I just answered in the sense that, again, if a hundred and twenty k is your cost attendance and your employer employer is paying for eighty k of that, right, tuition, then that's gonna be leave you room of forty k roughly to to get, through student loans. Right?

With that, let me just go to the next slide.

I wanna illustrate here the the student loan options, for US citizens. Right? So you have federal options and private options. On the federal side, as of today, there's two options.

One is the unsubsidized loan option, and then the other one is the grant plus option.

The unsubsidized loan option allows you to borrow up to twenty thousand five hundred, whereas the Rat Loss loan allows you to borrow up to the cost of attendance, right, minus your financial aid, but up to the cost of attendance.

As you can see on this chart, each one of those federal loans has their unique rate. Right? On the unsubsidized one, it's eight point zero eight percent. Plus, it's nine point zero eight percent.

These rates are the rates that are that were, I guess, valid for the academic year twenty two twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five.

The way that these rates are set, is they're set by congress each year roughly around the end of May based on the latest auction that the treasury, you know, takes, I guess, at the beginning of May.

Based on the ten year yield, that that auction is priced. So roughly, you're gonna be seeing, I guess sorry. If if if we if we assume that auction will be take take place based on the last year's I'm sorry, on the last auction from the from the treasury, you'll be seeing rates very similar to the ones you were seeing last year. Right? So, eight point zero eight eight, like, roughly eight percent on the unsubsidized loan option and nine point nine percent on the federal plus option. Right?

Keep in mind that each of these loan options have an origination fee. As you can see, the unsubsidized one is one percent, roughly, and the plus one is a little over four percent. Right? Now the benefits of going through the federal loan options are public service loan forgiveness and income driven repayment plans.

Those two options are not available on the private student loan market.

So if you're planning, say, to to to go to a public service type of role after graduation, then do consider, you know, federal federal options, I guess, regardless of of of of the interest rate that they're charging. But if that's not your case, then my opinion would be just, you know, take the loan option that's the cheaper I guess, the cheapest one for you. Right? In many cases, especially for grad students and MBA students, a private student option might be a better option. Again, if you're not considered public service after school than the federal loan options. Right?

A private student option also allows you to borrow up the cost of attendance.

And very importantly, there's non origination fees typically. Okay?

And I guess the the issue here is that okay. Not the issue, but the the the one thing to consider is that the rate you're gonna be seeing on the private side depends on your grade score. Right? Or if you're using a cosigner, your cosigner's grade grade score as well.

So should I stop for any questions?

I was just going to tell you that. So, yeah, Diego, we have two questions. Thank you for that.

One of these is from a student saying, are these loan options apply for US students doing their MBA outside of the US?

Yes. The answer is yes. So federal options are available for US students going to any title for a graded school. So I'm not sure what school you're going outside of the US, but, typically, the answer would be yes.

And on the private side as well. Right? So, get it. That person can tell us what what school they're going to, but, let's say someone going to LDS, right, which is a typical MBA school, outside of the US, then then the answer is yes. You should be eligible to get both federal options and private options.

Another question we have here, Diego. Once you pay for your initial deposit, are you locked into that scholarship amount, or could you potentially continue to negotiate that further?

You know, I I I'm not sure about the specifics on your school, but my my answer would be there's there's always room for negotiation. Right? There there's I guess it's quite common, I would say, or it's not uncommon for people to pay a deposit and then kind of go to another school if if they want. Right?

My recommendation would be if you already paid a deposit and you wanna kind of negotiate even more financial aid, then then for sure ask the question. The the the there's there's no downside into that.

Perfect. We have just two more questions before we go, Diego. One of them is, can you get the cost of attendance through both federal grad plus loans and private student loans?

So, I mean, the cost of attend I mean, you can finance, let's let's say, your cost of attendance with, you know, both of, you know, up up let's say, unsubsidized loan and a private loan. That that that's an option. Right? It's just the the sum of those two should not go above the cost of attendance, if that makes sense, minus your financial aid.

Right? So, again, going back to that example I was given earlier, let's say your cost of attendance is a hundred and twenty k and you got twenty k of scholarships, you can get the twenty twenty thousand five hundred from the on subsidized loan option, and then roughly the eighty k remaining, you can get it on the on on on a private student loan. Right? So the sum of those two cannot go above the cost of attendance given to you by the school.

Perfect. And then we have another question, that asks, is the Juno private loan rate typically similar to these interest rates higher or lower?

That's a great question. So, I was you know, there's a lot of little bit about that on the next few slides, but I'll I'll touch base on that right now. So as you know, we we're seeing, generally speaking, over a last, you know, negotiations throughout the years that we are bidding both, in some cases, both federal options.

But for the vast majority of cases, at least the federal plus option option. Right? And I guess a a key thing here is that with Juno, we also do not have any any origination fees. Right? So making, again, making the the the June option even better than than than than than than the federal options. Right? As I was saying, it all depends on on on the credit score that the borrower has, but, typically, we do see better better interest rates through the the, you know, negotiated loan.

And just lastly, before we move on, Diego, one last question from one of our students. Where can I find the range of the private loan rates for last year?

So I can give you some sort of rough numbers on the range. Right? So last year, we were seeing rates as low as roughly four percent, on, you know, on the Juno deal, you know, as high as closer to the flat load loans. Right?

So, on the private side, which is something, I guess, I haven't mentioned is that you can you can also tailor your your loan. Right? So to give an example, on the federal side, you only have the ability of selecting a ten year term and a fixed rate. Okay?

On the private side, you can go with different terms, like five, seven, ten, twelve, fifteen years. In some cases, all the way up to twenty years. You can select between fixed a fixed type of rate or a variable type of rate. And then you can even select to pay all of your loan, like starting I guess, you know, amortize both principal and interest the moment that you start school.

Right? It's not the most popular option amongst full time MBA students, but, but you can do that if you want. Right? So the private loan is very, I I would say, customizable, whereas the federal loan is is is only gonna kind of on a ten year basis fixed type of rate.

So to answer that question specifically, yes. I guess the lowest rate we're seeing, which were roughly four percent last year, those were for kind of the the five year, you know, fixed type of rate and people who are starting to pay as as as as fast as possible.

So so that will be, I guess, the lowest rate and all the way up to closer to the plus option.

These are great questions, Diego. I know, I just wanna do a check on time. I think, we have time for two more questions on this over here.

Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

Perfect.

Sure.

So, one of our students asked, if you are able to get a lower interest rate through private and you don't plan to go into public service, is it always better to go private? What do people mean when they say public is more flexible?

In my opinion, it's so it's you know? Yeah. Like, if if public service is not an option, then you should just optimize for the lowest interest rate available to you. Right? So if that's if the answer to that question is a private student loan, then, yeah, I would go a hundred percent with with a private student lender. Right?

I I think you you you already marked the question as as answered Teva, so I'm not sure if there was a second part to that question that I missed.

No. No. No. You you you I guess the the second part of the question is why do some people consider it flexible sometimes?

More flexible than private.

More flexible with the federal loan than the private loan?

Yes.

I guess it would be the other way around. Right? The private loan would be more flexible in the sense that you can customize it based on your needs. Right?

Like, as I was saying, you have different terms that you can select from. You have different type of rates that you can also select from different repayment plans. Right? So, it'll be more customizable, the private loan, than the federal loan.

Perfect. If private loans have lower interest rates and no origination fee, why would some people pick federal options?

Again, if if public service is not is not in in, you know, or in the plans, then I I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't say it's it's the smart choice to do. Right?

Again, you know, you can also think if you're going for probably nonprofits and your your your income is gonna be, you know, low, and then you can also wanna kind of take advantage of the income driven repayment plans, then the federal option might also be a good one, but that's not typically what MBA students are doing after school, neither, you know, nonprofit with a low kind of salary or public service, then, again, in those cases, it would I wouldn't recommend going federal if you have a lower interest rate on the on the private side.

Thank you, Diego. Lastly, are federal loans just for US citizens?

Yes.

Perfect. And on another student, lastly, says, should we be nervous about the current administration?

Sorry.

Should we be nervous about the current administration and Congress has declared loaded a bill regarding getting rid of the grad plus loan.

Look. If if you're in the air of what's gonna happen, with the with the grad plus loan, option and the parent plus for for that matter, Yes. There's a bill that that the current administration, I guess, wants to put forward in the sense of probably shutting down the plus loan, loan option.

So in the if that's the case, then students in need of any loans above the unsubsidized loan option will will be kind of forced to go to private market.

So, so that will be the answer. Right? We still do not know if that's gonna, one, gonna pass progress. I mean, if it does, when it's gonna be enforced?

It could be as early as this year or it could be even next year. But in any case, I think the you'd always be better kind of, you know, minimizing your cost, your your, I guess, the cost of your loan on the private side. Right? Which is why we we believe, like, Juno will be the best player in the market to kind of achieve that.

Right? You know, growing the group as much as possible, try to decrease that cost of of funding as much as possible when you know, if if the plus loan is is is not an option out there.

Let me let me just jump to the next slide because I think we're kind of on time, Sebas here.

Please just tell me if if there's any questions that I haven't answered.

This is a quick illustration of, you know, how to think about federal plus loans versus private loans. Right? So, you can go to that link on the on on the screen, Salat, if you don't mind putting that on the chat, and play around with the numbers. Right?

So in this example specifically, let's say you're you're thinking about getting a hundred k loan. Right? Let's say on the private side, you're getting a quote of seven point five percent. And if you have two years left of school, you're selecting a ten year, type of, you know, term on your loan, and you have six months worth of of waste period.

Right? So if you compare that to your federal option, right, what does it say these days? Right?

Basically, the federal option would be roughly twenty seven thousand more more expensive than the private loan option. Right? Again, it depends if you refinance Safeco or not. Those numbers might change a little.

But, essentially, when this is kind of to my point. Like, whenever you want to minimize your cost of funds, then try to compare your private options to your federal options. If policy service is not an option for you or you don't wanna kind of consider that, then it should be you should all be you should only be optimizing based on interest rate. Okay?

So, again, feel free to play around with this tool. It's available for free on our website, and and you can actually see for yourself how much you know, what's the difference between one versus the other.

Similarly, we we we also have, like, an illustration here on how to think about using your cash versus taking out a loan. Right? So, again, let's say you're depending between using a hundred k of your cash or can a hundred k on on a loan. Right? Let's say you get, again, a a seven and a half, seven and a half, interest rate on your on your private student loan. Let's say that you're investing that cash in a ten percent annual return.

Right, how how does that compare between one and another and another? Right? So, again, this this is another calculator that we have available on the site. So please feel free to use it, and, again, play around with those numbers.

Don't wanna spend too much time here because I do wanna leave the last few minutes for for, you know, open q and a.

Final thing I wanna mention here is one of the habits, for you to do as a full time student or an MBA student is, obviously, manage your debt wisely. Right? Do not overlever, but at the same time, do not plan to go broke after graduation, as I was saying a few slides ago.

Try to maximize your credit score. Right? So you have right now it's February. Right? Let's say you gotta take a loan somewhere in the in in in summertime, which is typically when students get their loans.

If you can boost your credit score from today to that moment in time, then please do it because the higher your credit score, the better the rates you're gonna be getting on your private student loans. So try to do that proactively.

And then, yeah, do cost saving strategies. Right? There was someone asking a question, you know, if you don't have any cash in your bank account and you wanna go to your MBA, what can you do? Right?

So take a look at it. All all the line items that we were going through a few slides ago on that budget or that Excel template, and and just make sure that you're not kind of overspending on things that are not really necessary to spend on. Right? So probably you wanna do not dine out as much or, you know, you don't wanna travel as much, but but just make sure you're also, you know, doing some sort of savings, based you know, obviously, depending on your situation.

Right? But, so are there any questions I need to address?

Yes. Just very quickly. How do you suggest managing interest? Did you pay it off during the year?

That's a great question. At least so in my personal case, I opted in for paying interest while I was, on my second year. As I was mentioned at the beginning, I was I was part time working at Juno, and I was you know, I had my my student loan, so I could, could afford paying interest while I was a student. Right?

So I personally selected paying interest while in school. What the typical selection for a full time MBA student is to at least get what we call the autopay discount. Right? So, basically, you don't pay anything but twenty five dollars per month while you're in school.

Right? That will give you, like, a twenty five basis point discount on your interest rate, and at least you're not accumulating as many interest as you would be accumulating if you were not paying anything. So my recommendation would be to at least pay the twenty five dollars per month so that you have some some discount on your interest rate, and you're acting, you know, the lower or the lowest amount possible on interest towards your principal. And, you know, if you have the option of paying a little bit more than that based on your personal situation, then please consider doing that, like like I did, I guess.

Other one, Diego, what can you do to boost your credit score?

Yeah. Great question. Probably, you know, if you have high, balances on your credit score or your credit cards, you know, make sure to decrease that.

There's you know, I recommend, you know, just download the Credit Karma app. There's a few tips here over there that that can help you out, put your credit score. Right? So the most I guess the most typical one would be to lower your credit card balance as much as possible.

In some cases, even taking an additional credit card, would also be helpful. Kind of one of the metrics that, I guess, credit bureaus take into account is how much credit available you have and how much of that available credit are you using. Right? So that ratio having that ratio as low as possible is gonna probably result in in in a boost to your to your credit score.

Perfect. Thank you, Diego. We have one more question, but I'm not sure if you wanna keep it, and we're tight on time.

Yeah. Go ahead.

Assuming I get a private loan through Juno, do you recommend taking the full loan amount upfront or splitting it year by year?

Great question. So, the way student loans work, is that, let's say, you apply for let's say you're gonna maximize your cost of attendance, right, on student loans. So let's say you're gonna apply for a hundred and twenty k on summertime.

That means that usually, if you're going to a school where you have two semesters throughout the academic year, then roughly half of your student loan, right, sixty k is gonna be dispersed to your school on your first semester right around where tuition is due. And and then the second half is gonna be dispersed until the second semester. Right? So why is that important?

Because you are only accurate interest on the money that has been dispersed to your school. Okay? So in this example, you will only be accurate interest on sixty k for six months and then for a hundred and twenty k, starting the the month seven. Okay?

So there's no need for you to kind of first, you know, apply for the first semester and then for the second semester because you can you can you know, by default, the the loan is gonna be, you know, split in two. Right?

So one half for each semester.

Perfect.

Let me just, you know, run through these final few slides, and then we can leave the floor for, some q and a, Sebas.

That That sounds good, Theo. I was just going to suggest that.

Awesome. Alright. So, so everyone here, I think the majority of you already, June, November, are part of the negotiation group. If you if you're not, I encourage you to kind of join our group.

This is the timeline that we have right now. So, as you probably already know, we're we're kind of growing our group as much as possible from today until the end of April. Right? So, on May is when we actually, you know, get the final bids from the lenders we have conversations with, and then we select the lender we're gonna be working with on in in May, and then we will make available the deal available to everyone in the group, at the start of June.

Right? So it's very important for us to grow that group from today till April as much as possible because it really is very important for us to kind of have all that negotiation leverage on our end so that we can kind of maximize the discounts, for the group. Right? So, if you haven't already, please, I encourage you to sign up.

It's free. There's no commitment of taking out a loan, and you're gonna you'll even get some very cool perks for signing up as early as today. Right? I'll I'll get more insights into that in a few slides, but, but please make sure to to sign up if you haven't already and tell your friends.

Right? So sounds like a lot of you are going to your business school or your MBA starting fall this year. We still have a long way to go on class twenty twenty seven. As you can see here, we kind of right now, we have roughly four hundred and fifty members.

But there's many more students out there probably that are gonna be taking out soon loans this summer. So take advantage of of of your networks and your peers, and please go ahead and and and share your referral links, and and help us grow this group as much as possible.

A few a few a few bullet points here on what are our goals for this for this year's negotiations.

You know, it's a discount for everyone in the group. Right?

A a discounted rate. Right? So what does that mean? That means that, if you go through Juneau to the lender would decide we when the when they end up selecting, you'll be seeing better rates versus going directly to that lender.

Right? So that's a group negotiation. Right? So, that's gonna the main goal we try to achieve on the negotiations is gonna decrease that that rate as much as possible to to a discount.

Our goal is to get rates materially below federal student loan options. Right?

Zero fees, as I was alluding to a few slides ago, in we know that in some cases, we cannot control a hundred percent of of the cases, I guess, that, you know, will always be the best private student private student option for everyone out there. So in those cases, what we've put together in previous years is what we call a rate match guarantee. So, basically, we encourage people to go and shop around with other lenders, once we release our deal.

If they happen to find a better rate with a different lender, then we will match that rate and then offer a cashback on top of that. Right? So making Juno the best option, for you guys. So, those are the key things that we're negotiating for, this year.

Honestly, it's something we've already achieved in the past. So there's precedent for this. Okay?

As I was saying a few slides ago, last year, we're being sort of, like, vast majority of our group, the the the plus option, and for many other students, even the unsubsidized loan option. Right?

We had no fees.

We've never had fees, you know, throughout, you know, the seven years that we've been doing this, and, and they're very much guaranteed. I was just explaining.

Yeah. Like I was saying, what can you do right now, help us grow the group. Right? So whenever you join our group, you'll get a Getty. If you want one, we can send over and get it to you, with a Juno tag on it.

If you tell your friends, right, and your friends sign to sign up to Juno using your referral link, you'll get perks for that. And if those friends take a loan with us in the summer, you can you can own locked rewards. Right? So here's a few examples of the rewards we've given in the past. So, please make sure to to to use your link whenever you're sharing Juno with with your friends.

And with that, I would like to open it up for for questions, Sebas. I I see here a few questions opened in the q and a, so I'll let you I'll let you raise them.

Sounds good. I would encourage everyone, thank you for your time, to, ask questions in the q and a, and we will address them as much as we can. We'll start with these open questions that we have now, Diego.

The first one is, does it make sense to take loans out and even semester by semester? Wouldn't that be less interest?

No. I I think we already kind of alluded to that. Right? So it wouldn't be less interest because you're not accurate interest on money that has not been dispersed.

Right? So, again, you're only accurate interest on the money on the money that has been sent to the schools. So if you wanna minimize your cost of of interest, then I wouldn't recommend kind of doing the first semester initially and then the second semester later on. Right?

Because it's kind of by default, you're you're not accurate interest on the on the money that has not been sent to the school. So, I wouldn't recommend doing that.

Thank you.

Second one, if you apply for a one hundred and sixty k private loan and are approved, how do the draws happen? If, for example, if after the NBA, it happened that you I only needed a hundred and thirty k of this hundred and sixty k, would the other thirty k be able to be returned?

So, I guess the way to answer this question is there are no prepayment penalties. Okay? So let's say you haven't seen a hundred and sixty k loans for one academic year. I don't think there's an MBA, at least on the full time side. But, anyways, like, let's say you go you take a hundred and sixty k, and then probably eighty k is gonna be dispersed to your school first semester, and then eighty k is gonna be dispersed on the second semester.

Let's say by month number eight, you realize that you don't need twenty k and you already received eighty k, right, or the full hundred and sixty k, you'll always take that money and pay it back to to the lender. Right? There's no fees or prepay.

So so the answer I guess is yes. You can just turn it back give it back somehow, without any penalty. Now in that case, you you would have accurate interest, on the money that was dispersed. Right? So so let's say, you know, again, on that example, if if if you if sixty k or eighty k were was dispersed on the first semester, you would have accurate interest on eighty k. And then, if the the second eighty k were was was dispersed in the second semester and you paid twenty k, you know, on month number eight, then those twenty k would have accurate interest for for two months.

Thank you, Diego. Another question from one of our students. What lenders will Juno work with?

Yeah. Well, we've we've worked with with a few lenders in the past. Like I was saying, we we we have a you know, we run a a bid with different lenders in May, and and and we usually collect, obviously, the one who's gonna be offering our group of students a low the the the biggest discount.

In the past, we've worked with with with lenders, very well known lenders nationally, some of the biggest ones in the country. So I I I I guess I I couldn't say more than that because I I just don't know yet who are we gonna be working with, but I could just say that we're we're quoting dozens of of of letters out there.

Perfect. Another one we have here, Diego, is do you often have executive MBA students participate in the negotiation group?

Absolutely.

The group is not close to to to any specific type of MBA. Like, executive MBAs for sure are more than welcome to join the group.

It's very helpful, for us to have executive MBAs as well. So so the answer is yes. We work with with any type of MBA students.

Perfect. Is there any boost is there any need to boost your credit score if it's already almost eight hundred?

I mean, eight hundred is already is, you know, very high.

There's I will I would say the highest, the better. Right? Now the delta between an eight hundred and eight and eight fifteen might not be the same between a six fifty and and and a six eighty. Right?

So eight hundred, I would be I would I would be kind of not in the rush of trying to boost it as much as possible because it's already very, very high. Right? So, yeah, I'll leave it I'll leave it like that.

Thank you. Do you recommend working while in school to have less loans?

That's a great question. I think look. It's I had a great experience working while while in school on my second year, but there's certainly a trade off. Right? The trade off is you're gonna be missing out on a lot of social stuff.

I guess it's up to you. Right? I've heard good good stories and not so good stories. Right? I guess it all depends on the type of, I guess, part time internship that you're that you're having. So, I I would always say that in my experience was a positive one, but there's certainly some trade offs.

Another student asks, Diego, when will we have to commit to Juno's group negotiation group by?

Look. As early as possible.

Kind of we're we're putting ourselves a deadline of April thirtieth, because that's when we actually, you know, started the ping process with lenders. So, you can always I'll put it this way. The the sooner, the better. It'll help us on the negotiations. But if someone decides to join after April, that doesn't mean that they will not be included in in in the deal. Right? So we basically open up the deal for everyone who wants to use it over the summertime.

But, but, yeah, obviously, it'll be better for everyone to join as early as possible.

Perfect. I have a few more questions here, Diego. Are Juno loans loans fixed or variable?

So you can choose. You have both options.

Usually, I guess, funny story or not so funny for me, but I when I was in school, I selected a variable interest rate, but it was twenty twenty one. So by the time I went I graduated, my my my interest rate was kind of doubled of what I initially had. Right? So I wish I'd I'd fixed it back back then.

Right now, I I guess, in the in the last couple of years, we've seen, I guess, ninety percent of the market. I I I have an actual data in front of me, but I would say nine out of ten are going fixed, just because of the risk of, you know, variable rates, you know, makeup be going up.

But I guess that's a long answer to a very long answer to the question. The short one would be yes. You have the option of doing fixed and variable.

We have a a few more questions here, Diego.

I some student wants to know, we know Juno will get rates in June, but is there also a way to on the website to get a quote now? Can you explain this?

Yeah. If you want a quote now, right now, we I guess, depends on for when you need the loan. Right? If you if you wanna get a quote right now, our previous our last year still is still available on the site.

So you can go in there and just check your rates to see how much at what rate you will be quoted today. Okay? It's it's quite simple. Just go to join g mail dot com.

You you know, if you have an already an account, you just log in to your account, go to your dashboard, and select a little loan now. And we have a what we call a soft rate check tool on our website. What does that mean? That means that you can check your rates today without having an impact on your credit score. Okay? So you wanna just go in there, play around with the numbers, and see what rate you'll be getting today. You can do so without without impacting your credit score.

Perfect. What is the average loan amount of Juno customers?

That's a great question. I I didn't include a slide on this presentation, but, the data that we see, is, like, roughly between sixty and eighty k per year is what what an MBA student is is taking out on loans. Right? So, Yeah. I would say seventy k is roughly the average, loan amount we're seeing for for full time MBA students.

Which was the lender that Juno worked with last year?

It was lender. It's Ernest. He's one of the biggest, student loan lenders in the market.

Very well known.

And, yep, earnest.

One of our students says, so are the payments going to Juno or directly to the lender? If we're paying the lender directly, how does Juno benefit, make money?

That's a great question. So, Juno like, the the relationship between lender and borrower is between the lender we decide to borrow with and yourself.

Like, we just think of all just as a as a middleman here. Right? So whenever you decide to work with a lender and you go to the lender's website and submit a full application, once you get approved, the loan is gonna be sent by the lender to your school, and then you're gonna owe the lender yourself that money. Like, you don't have to pay Juno anything.

Like, we've never we've never charged anything to any of our members, and the relationship between borrower and lenders stays between you and the lender. The way we make money is we we charge the lenders a fee for, every, you know, every loan that it's taken out through our deal. Right? So we do not charge our members anything to join the group or to take out a loan.

It's always been free, and it's always gonna be free.

So so that's that's how we operate things.

Thank you. Few more here. Can international students without US cosigner join Juno?

Yeah. Everyone's everyone's allowed, obviously, to join Juno. Internationals without a US cosigner would not be eligible for our main deal.

But if, I guess, one if you have that potential option of getting a US cosigner, I highly encourage you to do so because the reg you will be looking at are quite different versus not getting that cosigner. But if that's not an option for you, then we do have a couple of options that you can select from, as an international with no cosigner. So the answer is, yes, you can join Juno, and we can point you towards the right direction.

Toolender, we believe, might be your best option based on your specific school, nationality, so on and so forth. So, whoever asked that question, I'm happy to touch base with with you on one on one.

I'll drop my email on on the chat so they can shoot an email. But the answer is yes. Everyone's welcome to to join Juno.

I'll go ahead and drop your email for you here in the chat, Diego. In the meantime, student wants to know, how can you clarify how the product works exactly? Do you connect me with one lender or a series of lenders, and each lender gives me a different rate?

Great question. The answer is we connect you to one lender. Okay?

So we typically run this negotiation. We select one lender. Okay?

The lender who usually wants to offer the lowest rate possible to the to the group, the biggest discount.

So whenever the deal is live, you would come to Juno, right, through our platform.

We'll show you the the lowest rates, and then you will decide to whether or not you wanna work with that lender.

Perfect.

If your significant other is getting an MBA, does it make sense for you as a spouse to be a cosigner? Is there any advantage?

Sorry. I I got distracted. We have the other question. Can you can you repeat it, Sebas?

Of course. If your significant other is getting the MBA, does it make sense for you as a spouse to be the cosigner? Is there any advantage?

So, having a cosigner usually is beneficial.

Right? So, think of it this way.

If the primary borrower has a lower credit score than the cosigner, then chances are that adding a cosigner would benefit the rate. So the answer would be yes. Now, in some cases, a cosigner would not actually you know, if the cosigner has a lower credit score, then then it wouldn't make a lot of sense to add that cosigner. So, I would encourage whoever asked that question to use our software check tool, the one I was just mentioning a few minutes ago, where you can actually see the rates that you would be getting with and without a cosigner, without having an impact to your credit score. Right? So with that, you could get a sense of how beneficial it would be to add a cosigner or not.

Perfect. One of our students is asking, should I reapply for a private loan through Juno every year?

Yes. A hundred percent. So, if this year you decide to go to Juno, take our deal. Hopefully, you like it.

Hopefully, you'll take it. And then next year is gonna be a separate negotiation next year. It's a whole new group that we negotiate. It's a whole new process that we repeat.

Right?

So next year, it's gonna be a new deal, and whoever asked the question should come back to Juno or anyone should come back to Juno and just apply through our new deal. But in order for us to be sure that you're getting the discounted deal or the discounted rates, you should always come back to Juneau and apply through our links, right, through our website.

We have one that's, I think, important to answer here, Diego. If you sign up for the negotiation group and for whichever reason you decide you do not need or want to join a loan anymore, can you still walk away at any time without any penalty or fee?

Yeah. Absolutely. Like, there's there's no commitment for anyone that joins the group to take out a loan. Right?

So think of it as just as an optionality, of of of having, a a a low private student loan option. Okay? So if you decide to join, you're you're only helping us kind of negotiate better deals. That's about it.

There's nothing there's nothing else that you need to do. Right? There are no fees that you're gonna have to pay us, anything like that. So, you are helping like, if you don't if you don't if you decide to to not take a loan, then you you probably already helped different students.

Right? Because you helped us grow the group, helped us grow the negotiation power.

So that's really no. You don't have to pay anything. Like, we've never charged anything to any student, and we will not do so.

We have another question here.

Diego, do you have any visibility as to the rates being lower for this year than Juno's last year?

Yeah.

So, again, we're still yet to go into negotiations with lenders and select the one we will we'll be working with this year.

But the expectation is for for us to always beat our previous year's deal. So, I hope, that these years is gonna be even better than last year in terms of rates.

Now keep in mind that the market changes. Right? So, you know, all these lenders, they have their own cost of funds. Right? That cost of funds kind of fluctuates over time, depends on what happens in the market. That's obviously beyond our control.

But still in terms of the discount, we are we're expecting to have the best discount ever.

Perfect. A few more questions are popping up here, Diego.

Should I join the should I join the negotiation group if my first term begins prior to the fall, or does it make sense to just check the current rates?

I mean, yeah, depends. Like, it sounds like you will need the the the loan before the fall. Right? So if you need I don't know, that person can can can shoot me an email, and we can disclose their specific case on one zero one. But, yeah, the answer is you can join the group right now or even take our last year appeal, even need a loan before full. Okay? So so, yeah, happy to install that specific case offline, but, but you can always use our last year's deal if you need it right now.

Perfect.

Two more questions here. If you take a more aggressive loan option, for example, a five year term, and then as you get better visibility into your post graduation income, is it difficult to refinance at that point?

That's a great question. Something that I I think I didn't mention throughout the presentation is that usually MBA students refinance after school. Right? So, yeah, one of the strategies we usually see some students taking is kind of minimizing their accurate interest while the two years that are they're gonna be in school.

Right? So, basically, if that's, you know usually, that's a five year loan because that's the lowest grade. Right? So, let's say you got you got a five year loan for the couple of years during school.

You're minimizing your interest that you're accruing. And then right after school, let's say that monthly payment is gonna be a little bit higher than you probably wanna pay. Right? So you can refinance a loan into longer term.

Right? What's the benefit of that? That, that you accurate interest like, the lowest amount of interest possible throughout school. I guess the risk of that is that you might be able you might be refinancing to a higher rate.

Okay?

But that's definitely an option if you wanna if you wanna kind of pursue that.

Again, refinancing is is very common for, you know, I guess, for every MBA student.

If you think of it in in terms of risk, as you go into school, for full time full time MBA students, you you might be riskier from a lender's perspective because you're not making any money. Right? So after school, once you kind of have a job and and and you're kind of settling down, then you represent less risk. Right? So, usually, lenders are willing to offer you better rates. Okay? So, so, yeah, the answer will be you could always refinance, after school, these loans.

And, we have one last question, Diego. If you if I plan on on using, you know, on using Juno or applying to Juno for both years of my business school plan, should I plan to take out loans for one year cost or both years?

I mean, keep in mind that you have to you can all only apply up to your cost of attendance. Right? You cannot borrow more than that. So that's what would be if you wanna use Juno for both years, we'll be happy if you do so, but you cannot kinda borrow more than what you need for your first year.

Right? There there's a a key step in the in the in the application process that's called the certification process. So whatever amount you decide to apply is gonna be certified by your school. Right?

So let's say you wanna apply for the full two years since since your first year. Right? Two hundred twenty k worth of loans.

The lender's gonna send your application to the school saying, hey.

Let's say, Diego wants to, apply for two hundred and twenty k. The school's gonna say, no. That's that's way too much for busier cost of attendance. I'm only gonna certify a hundred and twenty k.

Right? So even if you wanted to apply for the full kind of funding gap that you have for both years, you will not be able to do so because the school is only gonna certify up your cost of attendance. Right? So, to answer that question, specifically, you can apply for a first year loan this year and then come back to Juneau next year and apply for for your second year loan, if you need that.

Perfect.

And I think that's it. One one more came up. See, I know you have a calculator to compare scenarios for keeping your money invested and taking out a loan versus minimizing debt.

Is there a general consensus on when to bypass loans altogether?

Example, if you have investment saving totaling eighty percent or or more of your cost of attendance, use your funds or don't take out any loans.

Look. I think that's that's kind of a personal decision. Right? In my personal view, what I what I did is just I set aside, like, a, you know, emergency fund, call it like that, thirty k.

Whatever I have left on cash, I used it to pay tuition, and then the delta just financed it with Sunruno. Now that calculator that I just showed you will kind of help you understand what's the opportunity cost of using that cash towards tuition versus towards keeping it on the portfolio that you had right now. Right? Assuming you have it invested in some, you know, portfolio.

Now I'm not a tax adviser, but just keep in mind that whenever you sell whatever assets you're holding, let's say you have you're you're holding equities or stocks somewhere, you might have a taxable event there. So there might be an additional cost of going selling that cash and then use it to pay your tuition versus just getting a loan on that. Right? So, I would just point out those those couple of things before making a decision and encourage you to use to use the calculator to kind of get a sense of how big, I guess, that opportunity cost is.

Thanks, Diego. We have another question that just came up. If the schools always underestimate costs like trips, how could we deal with it since we can only lend to our cost of attendance?

Yeah. That's a great question. Right? So it kind of alludes to my earlier point of schools tend to underestimate the cost of attendance. So, unfortunately, you have to finance that either to student loans, right, as much as possible if that's your case.

Or if you need even more than that, then you'll have to get, you know, use your old cash.

In some cases, you know, even personal loans, although I wouldn't recommend that because those rates are very, very high.

But the answer is, unfortunately, that you cannot borrow more than what the school is saying you you need to borrow. So you have to be very careful, I guess, on how you spend your money while in school. Right? So it's a the internal debate on on or, I guess, full time MBA soon. And I know, Sarah, this this happened to you of how much travel do you wanna make, how much of the social life you wanna be involved in, and how much of that, you know, fear of missing out you wanna you wanna get I guess you wanna be having right throughout the throughout the throughout the whole experience. So, yeah, I guess I'm I'm not really answering the question right very directly, but, but I would just point out that bottom line is we cannot borrow more that more than that cost of attendance, unfortunately.

Thanks for that, Diego.

Does anyone have any additional questions?

If not, I'd like to encourage them I encourage you guys to send us an email, either Diego or myself. I will also drop my email in