The White House has recently announced that an additional $4.5 billion in student loan debt relief is available that will affect about 60,000 workers across the country. They are accomplishing this massive feat by updating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program, bringing the total amount of debt foregiveness to over $175 billion for nearly five million people. But if we consider the PSLF then that number climes by an astounding $74 billion for a million of us.
Many of our members are eligible to student debt relief with the PSLF, which provides debt relief after a set period of time working for a non-profit organization. Since our hospitals largely fit within that designation, that means most of OFNHP's members could apply for relief with the PSLF if they work at these workplaces for a long enough period of time.
Quick refresher on PSLF: This program is set up to forgive the remaining federal student loan balance for public service workers after ten years of on time payments. The law defines "public service" as employment by a government or non-profit entity, meaning that any of our members who work at a non-profit hospital are eligible for this program. Borrowers also have to be enrolled in one of a few specific payment plans for this & finding the right payment plan is a big part of what our student debt clinics help people with.
Debt clinic info
We run two student debt clinics a month at 7 pm ET, and it rotates through the days of the week M-Th. They're free & open to the public as well, so we can also offer this as a resource to folks who aren't yet members and community allies. Here's the registration link!
https://go.aft.org/DebtClinicWebinar.
