Student Loan Forgiveness Program

While this program may not help those of us who graduated 10 years ago, if you graduated from college within the last few years (or especially in 2007), this program may be of tremendous help to you. In October of 2007, The College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 was passed, which forgives any remaining balance of your student loans after 10 years of full-time employment in public service or in a non-profit agency. The catch? Only payments made on or after October 1, 2007 count toward the required 120 monthly payments. Some of the jobs that make people eligible for this program include:
Government employees, police officers, firefighters, military personnel, public school teachers, employees of tax-exempt nonprofit organizations (i.e. churches?!), public child-care workers, public healthcare workers, public social workers, and librarians.

So, if you are like me, and have TONS of student loan debt, this program may help you. Especially if you re-consolidate your loans through the federal government, which often times stretches out your new loan balance over a new 15 or 20 year term. Unfortunately, our loans will be paid off before 10 more years is over. Bummer.

Anyway, to read more about this to see if it might work for you, visit www.finaid.org or read this very informative article from the LA Times.