Get an Application to Forgive Student Loans
Total or Partial Repayment of Your Debt: What's Your Obligation?
Ever wish your student loans would be cancelled? Loan forgiveness may come in one of two forms: dire economic hardship or for grads in various fields of study.
The most popular and common loan forgiveness programs are aimed at a select group of college graduates—teachers, nurses, and law students—that may choose to work in high need areas, such as a low income school, a medically underserved healthcare facility, or as a public interest attorney working with disadvantaged individuals.
How loan forgiveness for professionals works:
Loan forgiveness programs for teachers, nurses and lawyers typically feature full or partial loan repayment or forgiveness of federal student loans in exchange for a certain number of years service in a facility or professional capacity like one of those mentioned above.
Teacher Loan Forgiveness
By far the most popular and widespread loan forgiveness programs are those that seek teachers. Student teachers, are you willing to work in one of these situations?
- Low income public school.
- Critical need study area, such as math or science.
- In early childhood programs.
- With disabled children.
Believe it or not a wide range of sources administer loan forgiveness programs or loan repayment programs for teachers. Here are a couple examples:
- The federally sponsored Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program aims to reward experienced teachers working in a K-12 school. You must have at least 5 years of teaching experience under your belt and have outstanding student loan debt from 1998.
- You might imagine how vigorously state governments work to retain talented teachers. State-based loan forgiveness programs seek to keep good teachers within the state and in many cases reward those able to teach a critical need subject like math or science.
Check out our resource page on Loans for Teachers and find out much more about teacher loan forgiveness and repayment.
Nurse Loan Forgiveness
The national nursing shortage fuels the drive for well-trained nurses. Again the federal government, as well as specific state governments, has developed appealing nursing loan forgiveness and repayment programs. RNs, LPNs, nurses with advanced degrees, and especially nurse faculty are all in high demand.
- If you’re a nursing student check out the Nursing Education Loan from the federal government—it’s one of the most popular. Here’s how it works: if you work in a high need healthcare facility and have outstanding federal student loans, you’d be foolish to neglect checking out this program. You could be eligible for repayment of up to 60% of your nursing loans.
Visit our resource page on Nursing Loans for more information on nursing specific loan forgiveness and repayment. Don’t leave money on the table.
Inspiring Law Students to Public Interest Practice
Public interest lawyers make little money to speak of. But this field of work is critical for assisting disadvantaged individuals. Loan forgiveness programs for young lawyers lag far behind the programs for nurses and teachers.
Law students, your best strategy: find out if your law school sponsors any loan forgiveness or loan repayment programs for new attorneys.
- A big step for law students was the passage of the College Cost Reduction Act of 2007 into law. This act included measures intended to alleviate student loan burden. Public interest attorneys, if you’ve paid on your student loans consistently for 10 years you may qualify for forgiveness on any outstanding balance.
Loan Forgiveness Based on Economic Hardship
In rare situations a bankruptcy court may rule that your financial situation is dire enough to expunge your outstanding student loans, including federal student loans and private loans. The fact is your student loans are an obligation regardless of bankruptcy, which makes this such an unusual occurrence.
