Guest post: When student loans are no longer subject to repayment

US-PDGov

By: Jung Stone

We've seen in the news that student loan debt in United States has exceeded over a trillion dollars. To make the matters worse, the total debt amount has been continuously growing due to student borrowers who are not able to make their payments.

The good news is that the government provides various student loan forgiveness programs for federal student loan borrowers under certain conditions.Unfortunately, individuals who have taken out private student loans are not eligible for this government sponsored program.

Following is a list of the available loan forgiveness programs:

Teacher loan forgiveness program

This program was designed to encourage individuals to teach in areas where there are shortage of teachers or a large population of low income families. Types of federal loans that are qualified for the teacher loan forgiveness program include Stafford, Direct Subsidized, and Direct Unsubsidized loans with the maximum amount capped at $17,500.

In order to be eligible, an individual is required to teach for five consecutive academic years at designated schools by the US department of education and should not have any history of default in their student loan payments.

Public service loan forgiveness program

The public service loan forgiveness program was created in 2007 to promote more individuals to work in the public sector. Direct loans including Stafford, PLUS and Consolidation are qualified for this program. Types of public jobs include government and non-profit organizations such as public safety and various service sectors.

Under the public service loan forgiveness program, an individual needs to make all scheduled payments of his or her federal student loans for 10 years (120 payments) while working in the public sector. Once this requirement is met, the remaining debt will be forgiven.

Military student loan repayment program

The military student loan repayment program is divided into Army, Navy and Air Force and each has different programs. The total amount of repayment for each military division varies and has different eligibility requirements. For instance, the Army pays up to maximum of $65,000 of student loans while the Air Force's max amount is $10,000 per recruit.

Medical/law loan forgiveness program

The loan forgiveness programs for medical students are created to serve areas where there are shortages of health-related resources. Students who have graduated from medical schools with federal student loans can qualify if they work for non-profit public health care organizations for a certain number of years. As each state and school offers various types of loan forgiveness programs, it is strongly advised to talk to your particular school admissions department.

Similar to the medical loan forgiveness program, many states also offer loan repayment assistance programs to law graduates who work full-time in public interest sectors for a certain number of years (usually up to five consecutive years).