Research State Loan Assistance Programs
Depending on your state and profession, you may be eligible for a state loan assistance program. Several states will give you money to repay a portion of your student loan debt in an effort to recruit and retain talented professionals.
For example, lawyers in Florida may qualify for the Florida Bar Associations Loan Repayment Program. Staff attorneys who work for government agencies, nonprofits and other public service organizations can receive up to $5,000 per year to repay their loans. Both federal and private student loans are eligible.
In Washington, healthcare professionals can receive up to $75,000 if they work for at least three years in designated health professional shortage areas within the state through its State Health program.
Check with your state department of education to see if similar programs are available where you live.
Leaves And Change In Employment
Loan forgiveness is not pro-rated. If you leave government in the middle of the year, you’re not entitled to any portion of the loan forgiveness for that year and you must start making payments on the B.C. portion of your Canada-B.C. integrated student loan.
If you return to full-time studies, you’re not eligible as your loans will be in non-payment status during that time. You can re-apply when you return to work.
- For less than 3 months during the 12 month service period being reviewed, you’re eligible for loan forgiveness
- For 3 months or more during the 12 month service period being reviewed, you’re ineligible to receive loan forgiveness and will be removed from the program
Employees on general leave can’t apply while on leave, but are invited to apply or reapply to the program once they return to work.
Borrower Defense To Repayment
If you believe that the school you attended misled you or engaged in misconduct in violation of certain laws, the federal student loans you obtained to attend that school may be eligible for forgiveness, called Borrower Defense to Repayment. Learn more about the process, eligibility requirements and how you can apply.
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The Best Option For Student Loan Repayment Program
An extended repayment program is an excellent option for those who have financial problems. This repayment program is the best convenient way for students who could not meet monthly expenses or have huge student loans. Choosing this program gives you a chance to pay off student loans during 25 years. In this program, monthly payments can be either fixed or graduated. There are some cons about this plan: to be qualified for this option you have to have at least $30,000 in debt in Direct or FEEL loans. Even if you have the half amount of this debt in Direct, then you cannot benefit from this student loan repayment program.
Expansion To The Payment Pause And Interest Waiver
Borrowers with a federally-held federal education loan are eligible for administrative forbearance and an interest waiver through January 31, 2022. Unfortunately, borrowers with defaulted loans in the Federal Family Education Loan Program were not eligible because those loans were held by guarantee agencies on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education. The U.S. Department of Education has decided to make these borrowers eligible for the federal student loan payment pause and interest waiver, affecting more than one million FFELP borrowers. FFELP borrowers who defaulted during the pandemic will also have their loans returned to good standing and the defaults removed from their credit histories.
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What To Do If You Dont Qualify For Student Loan Forgiveness
If you dont qualify for student loan forgiveness, some other options include:
- Income-driven repayment: If you dont qualify for other student loan forgiveness programs, an IDR plan could lower your monthly payments on your federal student loans. Plus, any remaining balance will be forgiven after 20 to 25 years, depending on the plan.
- Extended or graduated repayment plan: Either of these plans will extend your repayment terms to 25 years, which will lower your monthly payment. Just keep in mind that while an extended plan comes with a fixed payment, your payments will go up every two years on a graduated repayment plan. Youll also pay more interest with these longer terms.
- Loan consolidation: If you consolidate to a Direct Consolidation Loan, you can extend your repayment up to 30 years. Just remember that if you stretch your payments out over a longer period of time, you might end up paying more interest charges.
- Student loan refinancing: If you refinance, your student loans will be combined into one new loan with a new term. You might also get a lower interest rate or reduced monthly payment. If you decide to refinance, be sure to shop around and compare your rates from multiple lenders. With Credible, you can compare your rates from multiple lenders in two minutes.
Find out if refinancing is right for you
Total And Permanent Disability Discharge
Federal education loans may be discharged if the borrower has a Total and Permanent Disability .
Note that Federal Parent PLUS loans can be discharged if the parent borrower becomes disabled, but not if the student becomes disabled.
There are three ways of demonstrating a total and permanent disability:
- The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs determines that the borrower is unemployable because of service-connected disabilities that are 100% disabling.
- The borrower qualifies for Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income from the Social Security Administration and the next disability review will be 5 or more years after the date of the most recent disability status determination.
- A U.S. doctor certifies that the borrower is unable to engage in substantial gainful activity due to a physical or mental impairment that has lasted or is expected to last for at least 5 years or that can be expected to result in death.
The U.S. Department of Education performs a data match with the VA and SSA to identify borrowers who are eligible for a TPD discharge and will discharge their federal education loans automatically.
To apply for a TPD discharge based on a doctors certification, the doctor must sign the TPD Discharge Application.
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These Borrowers Are Left Out Of Bidens New Expanded Student Loan Forgiveness
WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 08: U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks in the South Court Auditorium … in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on October 08, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Last week, the Department of Education announced huge changes to Public Service Loan Forgiveness , a troubled federal student loan forgiveness program.
Through systematic reforms, the Biden administration will temporarily ease requirements that had limited PSLF eligibility to only certain types of federal student loans and certain repayment programs. Once the changes are implemented, the PSLF program will effectively be temporarily expanded by including more types of federal student loans and most types of payments made under any available repayment plan. The result will be a major expansion of the program that could ultimately benefit nearly 600,000 student loan borrowers, according to the Department of Education.
But despite the significance of the Biden administrations actions, a number of borrowers and student loans will still be excluded from the PSLF changes. Heres an overview.
Troubled Student Loan Forgiveness Program Gets An Overhaul
The Biden administration is temporarily relaxing the rules for a student loan forgiveness program that has been criticized for its notoriously complex requirements
On Location: October 25, 2021
The Biden administration is temporarily relaxing the rules for a student loan forgiveness program that has been criticized for its notoriously complex requirements a change that could offer debt relief to thousands of teachers, social workers, military members and other public servants.
The Education Department said Wednesday it will drop some of the toughest requirements around Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a program that was launched in 2007 to steer more college graduates into public service but, since then, has helped just 5,500 borrowers get their loans erased.
Congress created the program as a reward for college students who go into public service. As long as they made 10 years of payments on their federal student loans, the program promised to erase the remainder.
But more than 90% of applicants have been rejected. After making a decade of payments, many borrowers have found that they have the wrong type of federal loan or repayment plan to be eligible for the program. Thousands have ended up stuck with debt they thought would be cleared.
Under the temporary changes, those borrowers will now be eligible to get their loans erased.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said the change is welcome.
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Restoration Of Total And Permanent Disability Discharges
Some disabled borrowers who qualified for a Total and Permanent Disability Discharge had their repayment obligation reinstated because they failed to submit the annual earnings paperwork during the pandemic. The U.S. Department of Education will reverse the reinstatements and provide other student loan debt relief for 230,000 borrowers with Total and Permanent Disability Discharges.
Bc Loan Forgiveness Program
Students with specific essential occupations can get their British Columbia student loans forgiven if they agree to work for a publicly-funded facility in one of the provinces under-served areas or with children in an occupation that has a shortage of workers.
Are you struggling to make ends meet? Consider applying for BCs social assistance program.
If eligible, the BC Government will forgive the provincial portion of your Canada-B.C. integrated student loan at a maximum rate of 20% yearly for 5 years. Once you finish 5 years of qualified work, a percentage of your student loan will be forgiven, along with the interest generated during each year youre registered in the program.
Eligibility For The B.C. Loan Forgiveness Program
You can qualify for student loan forgiveness in BC if you:
- Are currently paying off a B.C. student loan
- Have graduated from an accredited post-secondary educational facility
- Are not enrolled in any full-time post-secondary studies
- Work an acceptable amount of in-person hours
- Are or will be employed in an eligible full-time, part-time, on-call and/or casual occupation at a publicly-funded facility and working with children or an under-served community
Eligible Occupations In Under-Served Communities In BC
- Audiologist
- Teacher Educator
- Teach of the Visually Impaired or Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing
Do you live with a disability? Get extra financial aid through BCs disability assistance program.
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What Has Not Changed
Public service is still non-negotiable, as are the 120 required payments though what now qualifies as a payment has expanded dramatically.
The department says it also plans to use the rulemaking process to improve PSLF moving forward, so more changes may be on the way.
To benefit from the temporary changes the department is making, borrowers who have not yet applied for PSLF must do so before Oct. 31, 2022. For borrowers with FFEL or Perkins loans, the department says they must consolidate those loans and submit a PSLF form. The Department of Education says it will post more information about its PSLF waiver at StudentAid.gov/PSLFWaiver.
Student Loan Forgiveness For Doctors
Like other health care professionals, doctors can often qualify for loan forgiveness if theyre working for the government or a qualified nonprofit.
Student loan repayment assistance might also be provided to doctors who agree to work in areas where there are shortages of doctors or treat underserved patients.
Here are some of the best student loan forgiveness programs for doctors:
- PSLF: Doctors who work for the government or qualifying nonprofits may be eligible for 100% forgiveness after making 120 monthly payments in an income-driven repayment plan.
- The National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Program : Up to $50,000 in loan repayment in exchange for two years of service at approved sites that provide free or discounted services to Medicare beneficiaries and others.
- NIH Loan Repayment Programs: The National Institutes of Health offers eight Loan Repayment Programs that provide up to $50,000 a year in student loan repayment assistance to doctors and scientists with medical degrees who perform biomedical or biobehavioral research.
- State-based physician loan forgiveness: To attract and retain doctors, many states provide assistance repaying medical school debt.
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You Dont Know What Kind Of Federal Loans You Have
Its very common for borrowers to not know what kind of federal loans they have. You can see what loans you have by logging into your account on StudentAid.gov, going to the My Aid page , and scrolling down to the Loan Breakdown section.
There, youll see a list of each loan you have borrowed, even if you have paid the loan off or consolidated it into a new loan. Direct Loans begin with the word Direct. Federal Family Education Loans start with FFEL, and Perkins Loans include the word Perkins in the name.
Why Public Service Loan Forgiveness Is So Unforgiving
“And then we would have to go into forbearance while they figured it out,” Chamberlin remembers, “because we were both active duty and couldn’t afford .”
This constant back-and-forth getting the payments corrected, then restarted was exhausting, Chamberlin says, especially having to do it from military bases in Germany and South Korea.
“I’d have to go to the base and use the secure phone that you can call the States with but that you’re not supposed to use for personal reasons,” Chamberlin remembers. “It’s just been awful.”
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Student Loan Forgiveness Programs By State
Forty-seven states and the District of Columbia all have special student loan forgiveness programs for residents of their states.
These plans are different than the federal programs you’ve probably heard of – like Public Service Loan Forigiveness.
Many of the programs are in public service fields, such as health care, teaching, dentistry, legal, and more. They all require some type of commitment and are run through various state programs and offices.
If you arent employed in a public service field and are looking for ways to save on your student loans, check out Credible to compare rates from different lenders in 2 minutes. Plus, College Investor readers get up to a $750 gift card bonus when they refinance with Credible!
If you’re not quite sure where to start or what to do, consider using a tool like Chipper to navigate your student loan debt. Chipper will analyze your loans, and show you the best repayment plan and loan forgiveness options you may be eligible for. Check out Chipper here > >
If you’re looking for alternative ways to pay off your student loans, look at HomeTap. HomeTap allows you to tap into your home equity without a loan or monthly payments. Learn more here > >
Remember, there are still Federal Student Loan Forgiveness programs and Secret Student Loan Forgiveness programs as part of many repayment plans. Learn more about those here:
What Is The Income
This loan repayment program is also an alternative to the other student loan repayment programs. The Income-Contingent Repayment Plan is also a suitable option for students. This repayment program is also based on income and calculated each year depending on income, financial situation. Another important side of this program is that the payment is flexible, however, as we mentioned above the payment is annually fixed. Students could pay off the debts for 25 years. Another advantage of this program is that after 25 years your debts will be forgiven.
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Pacific Leaders Bc Loan Forgiveness
If you’re a regular full- or part-time employee of the BC Public Service, have completed your probation, and have B.C. student loans in good standing, you may apply for this program.
If you plan on applying for the Pacific Leaders Loan Forgiveness program, any payments you make prior to your approval won’t be used in the calculation for eligibility.
In other words, you won’t be eligible for Pacific Leaders Loan Forgiveness on payments made prior to your loan forgiveness application being reviewed and approved.
If you direct a payment towards your Integrated student loan, the amount is applied against the federal and British Columbia portions.
Military Student Loan Forgiveness And Assistance
Not only does the military offer loan forgiveness for Army and Navy doctors, but it also helps armed forces members and veterans. The Army, Navy, Air Force and National Guard all offer loan repayment assistance programs.
- The Armys College Loan Repayment Program pays one-third of your loans every year for three years. In total, you could get up to $65,000 in aid.
- The Navy program also awards up to $65,000.
- The National Guard LRAP contributes up to $50,000.
There are plenty of other programs for military student loan forgiveness, so make sure you know what you qualify for.
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Start Putting Together A Plan Now
Due to the pandemic, payments on most federal student loans are suspended through September 30, 2021. But the experts say you should start putting a plan together now for when student loan payments resume.
Make a plan now, because loan servicers will be overwhelmed in October, says Taylor, referring to 40 million student loan borrowers who will begin repayments at the same time.
Private student loans arent eligible for the COVID-19 suspension of payments, but there are ways to make private student loans more manageable. If youre a private student loan borrower, be sure to get ahead of any financial challenges by calling and requesting to refinance or modify your loan. With rates at historic lows, now is a great time for private student loan borrowers to refinance before rates go up again.
Here are five steps you should take when developing an action plan for your student loans:
