As a high school guidance counselor, John McMichael has a lot of conversations with students about borrowing for college. That's in no small part because about two decades into his career, he's still paying off his own student loans. His experience with student loans is instructive: how not planning for college costs led to borrowing, graduate school's impact on his debt, the challenges of Public Service Loan Forgiveness, balancing his student loan obligations against saving for his own children's educations, and so much more. Fortunately for his students and for all of us, he's very generous in sharing his story.