PROGRAMS

The programs offered by the Department of Education were designed to assist many different types of financial situations. What this means is with their being several programs available, it's important to ensure you understand how each program works and if your loans are actually eligible for the programs. Below is a breakdown of each available program. Be sure to contact us to confirm your eligibility.

Student Loan Forgiveness

Every consolidation and/or income driven application we prepare will fall under the William D. Ford Federal Direct Program. This program may have loan forgiveness built in to the end of your payment terms. When you have made your payments for the allotted time, any unpaid balance may be forgiven by the Department of Education.

Teacher Loan Forgiveness

The Teacher Loan Forgiveness program is the most beneficial to teachers, as it allows for early forgiveness as well as the principle reduction. Teachers might be eligible for $5,000 to $17,500 in principle reduction under certain circumstances. The main reason for the principle reduction, is to get people to go into the field of teaching, as well as to stay in the teaching field. Teachers may qualify for complete loan forgiveness after 10 years of payments and service as a teacher. For more information please Contact Us.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness

If you make 120 qualifying payments while working full-time in certain public service positions, the remaining balance on your Direct Loans may be forgiven. FFEL Loans or Perkins Loans will not qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

If you consolidate your FFEL or Perkins loans into a Direct Consolidation Loan, those loans could then become eligible for forgiveness. Just remember, any payments you made on your loans before they were consolidated will not count towards loan forgiveness. And anytime you consolidate a loan you could lose any benefits attached to that original loan, so be sure to evaluate your loan terms before deciding to consolidate.

In order to receive loan forgiveness, you must be enrolled in a qualifying repayment plan:

Standard Repayment Plan
Income-Based Repayment Plan
Income-Contingent Repayment Plan
Pay As You Earn Repayment Plan
Any repayment plan where your monthly payment is equal to or greater than what your payment would be under the Standard Repayment Plan

While Standard Repayment is an eligible repayment plan for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, if you make all of your monthly payments for 10 years under Standard Repayment, there will be no balance remaining to forgive. If you are enrolled on a plan that lowers your payments based on your income, you will likely still have a balance to be potentially forgiven after 10 years.

Examples of public service employment include working for:

A government organization
A non-profit 501 (c)(3) organization
A private, non-profit organization that provides a public service, including: law enforcement, public safety, military service, emergency management, public education, early childhood education, public or school library services, public interest legal services, public health, public service for the elderly or those with disabilities.
AmeriCorps or PeaceCorps

Because the program was introduced in 2007, only payments made towards your loans after October 1, 2007 will count towards loan forgiveness. The first borrowers will not be able to apply for loan forgiveness until October 2017.

You may also Contact Us and speak to one of our Student Loan Specialists if you would like to get one-on-one, personalized advice on how to qualify and apply for any of these assistance programs.