The newly updated Higher Education Act included two words that will please families dealing with hefty education debt: loan forgiveness.
A recent column on the government's move to wipe out federal loans for those who work in lower-paying public service jobs generated more e-mail than usual.
Most of it came from parents wanting to find out how their children could qualify. That includes the father of a city prosecutor in Arizona, who wrote: "I am helping my son pay his law school loans. (Helping? I'm paying!!!)"
And then there is Jill Hoffman, who graduated from McDaniel College last year. She works at the Arc of Carroll County as an employment coordinator. She has about $50,000 in student loan debt, most of it in federal loans. She earns just under $30,000, which is not unusual for a nonprofit. She would like to go to graduate school and someday be a high school or community counselor.
"That's where I'm happiest," she says of public service. "I go to work every day, and I know that I'm making a difference. I can't imagine doing anything different."
Still, Hoffman says that making $340 monthly loan payments on her current salary is a stretch, and a long one.
So where can Hoffman and others find forgiveness?
You can't apply yet for the new loan forgiveness programs. Congress still must appropriate the money for them. That likely will happen in the next budget, says Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid, an online provider of loan information.
To keep tabs on the status of the forgiveness programs, call 800-4FEDAID (800-433-3243).
But once the programs are up and running, you may be able to rid yourself of thousands of dollars in federal loans.
You could have up to $2,000 a year in federal debt forgiven - up to $10,000 total - if you work full time in a field where there's a "national need." The list of "national need" jobs is long. It includes librarians, nurses, public defenders, firefighters, police officers, child welfare workers and those employed in applied sciences, technology, engineering or mathematics.Lawyers will have two other chances to erase debt. If you work at least three years as a civil legal assistance attorney, you can have up to $6,000 a year in student debt forgiven, for a total of $40,000. Or work at least three years as a prosecutor or public defender and get up to $10,000 a year forgiven, up to a total of $60,000.
