Public Servants Get New Guide to Loan Forgiveness

If you have student loans and work in a federal, state, or local government job or for a qualified nonprofit group, a new website can help you apply for debt forgiveness.

The new site, forgivemystudentdebt.org, is intended to help workers in those jobs take advantage of temporary changes made in October to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program that made it much easier to qualify for the program. The free site includes videos and step-by-step instructions to help borrowers meet an Oct. 31 deadline to consolidate their loans and get forgiveness under the temporary rules.

The PSLF program is meant to cancel the remaining balance of student loan debt for people who work in public service jobs for 10 years or more. However, complex rules and strict requirements—temporarily relaxed by the Biden administration—have meant that less than 2% of those who qualify to participate in the program have actually had their debts canceled, according to the Student Borrower Protection Center, the nonprofit advocacy group that launched the website last week. It says fewer than 15% of the 9 million public servants with student debt have filed paperwork to enroll in the PSLF.

Among the administration’s relaxed rules is a provision making late payments or partial payments count towards forgiveness, for example.

“The Biden Administration is delivering a debt free future for public service workers across the country, but we’ve only scratched the surface,” Mike Pierce, the borrower protection center’s executive director, said in a statement.

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