Student Loan Forgiveness Progams
Student loan forgiveness programs can bring great relief to borrowers who qualify, and now many people may qualify for them and not even realize it!
If you DO qualify, they are a magic bullet. But to qualify you muyst work hard for them, serving your community for 10 years or more, and making regular payments for 10 years, after which your entire remaining balance on the loans is erased!
The program was launched in 2007, and the right kind of qualifying loans didn't become common until 2009, so it's only recently, as of 2019 and 2020 that people just now are eligible to qualify for getting their remaining payment wiped out.
Folks who benefit from forgiveness programs usually work for low pay in jobs that help others -- for example, teachers, public defenders, or health care professionals working with populations in need.
If you have worked in a government or non-profit job for 10 years and have been making IDR payments on your direct student loan for 120 payments, you may qualify to have the remaining payments eliminated.
Federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program. IT WORKS! It is NOT DEAD!
The best known and most widely used student loan forgiveness program is the federal government's public service program. The goal of the program is to encourage graduates to work full-time in public service jobs.
Under the program, the government will forgive a borrower's
- Direct Federal Loans,
- after they have made 120 regular IDR payments -- that's ten years' worth --
- while working full time for a federal, state, or local government agency or for a nonprofit organization.
Despite what you may have heard, Pubic Service Loan Forgiveness is NOT Dead!
You may have heard, a while ago that 99% of PSLF applications were denied. True! BUT, according to the The Student Loan Lawyer, Joshua Cohen, those applications were rightly denied, because they lacked one of the three essential elements required for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
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