<p class="p2"><span class="s1">In 2007, Congress created a program that offered student debt forgiveness to public workers like teachers, librarians, soldiers, and nurses. </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">To qualify for debt forgiveness, applicants had to work for a government entity or nonprofit and make on-time monthly payments for 10 years. And they had to secure loans directly from the federal government (not from federally-guaranteed third parties). </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">In many cases, people planned their careers based on the assumption they would receive debt forgiveness in 10 years. </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">The first participants to sign up for the program </span><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;">became eligible for debt forgiveness this year, and nearly all of them have been turned away. </span></p>
<p>So far, less <span class="s1">than 900 of the more than 75,000 applications for debt forgiveness have been approved. Roughly 25% were denied based on missing information in applications and 16%</span><span class="s1"> were turned away because they had the wrong type of repayment plan. </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1"><b>Some people were rejected because their monthly payments were short by less than $1. </b></span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">“It’s deeply frustrating, because you know you’re done, and you’ve jumped through all these hoops,” says Bonnie Svitavsky, who incurred $97,000 in student debt to obtain master’s degrees in library sciences and creative writing. Despite making her payments on time and working as a librarian for 10 years, her application for debt forgiveness was rejected. </span></p>
<p><span class="s1">“Through rampant mismanagement at the Department of Education and rampant illegal practices at the student loan companies, it’s become a broken promise for millions of Americans,” says Seth Frotman, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center.</span></p>
<p><strong>Key issues with the</strong><span class="s1"><b> Public Service Loan Forgiveness program include:</b></span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="s2">The company that was hired to implement the program received no guidelines on how to do so</span></li>
<li><span class="s2">Loan services failed to tell applicants which financial-aid packages qualified </span></li>
<li><span class="s2">The Department of Education failed to define </span><span class="s2">which employers qualified as public service organizations </span></li>
</ul>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">In 2013, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that student loan services delayed or denied applicants access to the program by failing to provide them with necessary information about the program&#8217;s requirements.</span></p>
<p>In an effort to solve the problem, Congress in 2018 <span class="s1">allocated $700 million to help reimburse borrowers who were misled by loan providers. </span></p>
<p><strong><span class="s1">So far, the program has helped a mere 442 people decrease their student debt. </span></strong></p>
<p>In its 2020 budget, the Trump Administration has proposed replacing the<span class="s1"> Public Service Loan Forgiveness program with an income-driven repayment plan that would increase monthly payments and extend the time borrowers would need to wait before applying for debt forgiveness. </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">In response, a group of Democratic Senators including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders introduced a bill that would make all federal loans and repayment plans eligible for debt forgiveness and decrease the time borrowers would need to wait to get relief on their loans. </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">Advocates say the program would encourage more people to go into public service work, but opponents worry the bill could add more than $10 million to the program’s budget over the next 10 years. </span></p>