In August of 2022, Biden announced his administration’s plan on tackling student loan forgiveness. Photo courtesy of The Association of Community College Trustees.
Bryn Healy ’24
Staff Writer
College graduates previously employed in public service are getting a break this month. The Biden administration and Federal Student Aid office announced that the ongoing Public Service Loan Forgiveness program will extend its services to previously-ineligible borrowers. The deadline for this small expansion is Oct. 31.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program was introduced in 2007 by California representative George Miller’s College Cost Reduction and Access Act according to the Congress website. The American Bar Association explained that they and other organizations lobbied for this program due to the public service sector experiencing a lack of workers. The worker shortage was partially due to massive student loans that many workers didn’t feel they could pay off by working in the field, the American Bar Association explained. According to Glassdoor, the2022 average annual salary for a public service worker is $47,040. The average college debt owed by former-student borrowers is $28,950 as per Forbes. For many in the public service field, graduate school is often necessary to attain professional licensure for certain jobs like in law, American Bar reported. As a result, the PSLF was created to incentivize college graduates to seek governmental and nonprofit jobs.
In 2018, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that 99 percent of PSLF applicants were denied loan forgiveness. In theory, according to Federal Student Aid, college graduates who have worked in public service full time for a total of 10 or more years for a qualifying employer are eligible for PSLF. This employment includes all levels of government — state, tribal, local, federal and nonprofit work. Applicants must have completed 120 separate monthly payments However, these guidelines fail to answer all potential applicants’ questions surrounding qualifying jobs, employers and payments, and have led to numerous people incorrectly believing that they were covered by this program as per an article from The Washington Post.
This recent waiver will allow those who have older types of loans, payments under other plans, those previously employed in public service programs and more to get loan forgiveness, as per the Federal Student Aid website. As highlighted by The Washington Post, this would include the large number of people who were incorrectly told by their employers that they qualified under PSLF. According to the Department of Education, as of Oct. 31, it is predicted that over 550,000 graduates “who had previously consolidated their loans [will] see their progress toward PSLF grow automatically” and 22,000 “will be immediately eligible to have their federal student loans discharged without further action.”
In reaction to the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s report, the Office of Federal Student Aid under the Biden administration has clarified the requirements for loan forgiveness as well as to create a database for eligible employers. The Biden administration has also announced federal student loan debt relief for non-public service workers. The seemingly quick and easy process, as expressed by The Philadelphia Inquirer, will grant qualified individuals or families up to $10,000 in loan forgiveness for non-Pell Grant workers and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients as per the Federal Student Loan Debt Relief. Qualified individuals count as those who have earned less than $125,000 in 2021or 2020. Qualified families count as those who have earned less than $250,000 in 2021 or 2020. However, according to an article in The New York Times, Federal Family Education Loan borrowers are excluded from both PSLF and the new Biden debt forgiveness plan. According to NPR, some progressive politicians, like Sen. Bernie Sanders, say that this is not enough and are calling for no student debt through making college free to all.
Mount Holyoke students can find out if they are eligible for PSLF through studentaid.gov/pslf/. The program will continue, but restrictions will tighten again after Oct. 31, unless the government continues to expand the application process. Students can also reach out to Student Financial Services or the Career Development Center to find employment at an approved PSLF employer.