Get Help Navigating Student Loan Forgiveness From AFT

You may have heard the exciting news: earlier today the US Department of Education announced a dramatic overhaul of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. The announced changes will lead to 550,000 public servant borrowers--teachers, nurses, firefighters, paraprofessionals--getting credit toward loan forgiveness.

As you'll recall, Public Service Loan Forgiveness is a federal program that promised student loan borrowers that if they went into public service and made 120 monthly payments for 10 years, their remaining loans would be forgiven. But because of extremely confusing rules, misleading information from servicers, forced loan consolidation into ineligible loan programs, and inane disqualifications, fewer than 2 percent of eligible borrowers have received loan forgiveness. For years now, we have been asking the Education Department to fix these administrative errors and keep the promise of Public Service Loan Forgiveness, and finally the Biden administration listened.

The Education Department's announcement is due in very large part to AFT's advocacy on behalf of our members. We even sued Betsy DeVos for her gross mismanagement of the program. We have elevated heartbreaking members stories in the media, in the halls of Congress, and to the White House. We've enlisted civil rights, labor and higher education allies. As a member benefit, we have hosted hundreds of student debt clinics for thousands of members and their families. And we've enlisted Summer--a resource specifically created to help borrowers untangle their student loan messes--to help AFT members enroll in the best loan repayment plan.

Today’s announcement is only the first step in fixing this broken promise and helping AFT members get their debt discharged. Please stay tuned in the coming weeks because I hope to announce a resolution to the lawsuit that I brought against Betsy DeVos for her mismanagement of the PSLF program. Coupled with today's announcement, hundreds of thousands of AFT members' lives will be changed for forever, giving them financial security that they thought was impossible. 

I am sharing the Education Department’s announcement, our statement, and AFT’s fact sheet, attached.