Less than 300 have been accepted….
Why is the Education Department welshing on a promise ?
$700 Million has been in the budget for the promise….
The Trump admin has made of STRICT rules it seems to de-qualify people….
(Trump wants to get rid of the program)
The US Senator is finally looking into this…..
Tens of thousands of public servants have applied to have their federal student loans forgiven through a temporary relief program run by the U.S. Education Department. Fewer than 300 have had success.
Now, one of the lawmakers who championed the initiative wants to know what happened.
[How a provision in the spending bill could help public servants with student debt]
“We authorized $700 million dollars to help ensure public servants — including firefighters, teachers, and nurses — receive the loan forgiveness they have earned, and it’s maddening that the Trump Administration is letting it go to waste,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said in an email.
Kaine and other Senate Democrats have said the Education Department created eligibility criteria that are far more rigid than anything Congress envisioned. The measure in the fiscal 2018 budget that set up the one-time expansion, based on legislation introduced by Kaine and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), directed the agency to develop a simple way for borrowers to apply for forgiveness. Instead, lawmakers say the Education Department has restricted access with a litany of rules.
It has been about a year since the Education Department launched the temporary expansion of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, with $700 million from Congress to spend over two years. The goal was to give public servants enrolled in the wrong repayment plan another shot at having the balance of their debt erased after 10 years of on-time payments.
In response to an inquiry from Kaine, the Education Department disclosed last week that 38,460 people had submitted requests for forgiveness as of Dec. 28 under the new program. Most, 28,640 people, were immediately rejected because they had not previously filled out a formal loan forgiveness application — one of the many criteria of the relief program.
[What you need to know about the temporary expansion of loan forgiveness for public servants]
Of the 9,820 applicants who cleared the first hurdle, 1,184 are still under consideration. The rest were rejected for myriad reasons. Forty percent of the applicants who cleared the initial hurdle still had years to go before hitting the required 10-year mark. Nearly a quarter were ineligible because they were paying less money in the wrong payment plan than they would have in the correct one…..
Note…
There is also an another forgiveness program from the Bush era….
The same situation is going on with that program also…