Lee Dossett, a doctor in Lexington, Kentucky, was taken completely by surprise when he received a warning from the federal government. “Congratulations!” read the first line.
For two years, he had been denied by a student loan forgiveness program intended for public servants.
Still, Dossett, who has worked for 10 years in the nonprofit sector, was informed last week that not only had his application been re-evaluated, but that the Department of Education had determined that he should have all of his outstanding medical school loans erased — a sum totaling approximately $75,000 in debt.
“I was taken aback because I had honestly given up hope of ever obtaining it,” Dossett said of his surprise.
However, a record number of student borrowers benefit from Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which was established in 2007 to assist teachers, health care workers, military members, and other public servants in obtaining debt relief on their federal student loans. The Biden administration began relaxing the program’s stringent rules in October, and the number of students who are benefiting has increased significantly.
According to the Department of Education, greater than 70,000 borrowers were authorized for debt forgiveness last week, resulting in about $5 billion in debt reduction.
Federal statistics obtained before the revamp indicated that the program had successfully eliminated the residual sums on the loans of just 16,000 borrowers out of around 1.3 million applicants who had applied.
Several applicants, including Cody Hounanian, executive director of the Student Debt Crisis Center, a nonprofit association that champions student borrowers, have said that the premature news of terminated debts is a gift in disguise.
Many applicants have diligently made the required 120 monthly payments or were on track to do so but have been disowned because they were inadvertently registered in the incorrect payment method or had the bad kind of loan, among other technicalities.
“It’s quite emotional,” Hounanian expressed his feelings over the influx of financial support. “It’s making a positive difference in their lives.” Student borrowers who have lately benefitted from the program post their surprise on social media.
Tonight at 9:36pm, I received an email saying my loans had been forgiven through the PSLF Waiver program. Years after applying & being denied, I never thought this day would come. I feel that my 15+ years of working in hospitals has finally paid off.#CancelStudentDebt #PSLFWaiver
— Julie Lenkiewicz (@JulieBreez) January 19, 2022
However, according to Hounanian, the most recent reversal is also a “double-edged sword” for many debtors.
Those seeking to be considered for a limited-time waiver will have until October 31 to complete an application form. According to the federal government, 550,000 debtors might profit from the program.
Students who had previously been ineligible because they had taken out a loan under the Federal Family Education Loans program, which was phased down in 2010, are again able to apply.
The snag will ensure that such loans are combined into a new government direct loan.
The fact that two major student loan servicers — Navient and the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, often known as FedLoan — announced last year that they were terminating their contracts to service federal student loans has further complicated the situation.
Sixteen million student borrowers were being moved to new servicers, a huge endeavor that student advocates fear would cause an array of bureaucratic headaches and make an application for the already-difficult Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that much harder to get much more difficult.
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Although debt relief is possible, “unfortunately, there are some people who may find the procedure complicated,” Hounanian remarked.
In response, the federal government has said that it is attempting to streamline the process, with around 22,000 borrowers first having their obligations instantly discharged.
In December, the president also declared that the federal government would open its suspension on all national student loan payments until May, citing the pandemic and growing consumer prices as reasons for the extension.
Pressure on the White House to cancel student debt and assist a larger group of borrowers continues to mount. More than 44 million Americans owe around $1.7 trillion in student loans.
Several student debt advocacy organizations, including the Student Debt Crisis Center, and Democratic legislators, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, will hold a town hall meeting on Thursday to call for the abolition of student loan debt.
At the absolute least, many who support the program believe that relaxing constraints surrounding a program such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness must be endless.
During the previous secretary’s tenure, Betsy DeVos’ Education Department rejected a whopping 99 percent of applications submitted as part of a temporary expansion of the program in 2018. According to a Government Accountability Office study published in 2019, this was the case.
Before a friend advised that she combine her student debts in 2011, Jane Saunders, who obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 2008 and taught English for a decade, was unaware of federal student loan forgiveness.
However, it took her many years before she recognized that she had made a mistake: her loans were being managed by a provider that did not qualify her for the program.
She subsequently changed servicers, but after years of paying payments, she was informed that some of them were not being counted, and the ever-tightening regulations of the program were a source of frustration for her.
It seemed like they were constructing the aircraft while we were on board, Saunders said. However, she claims that her fortunes turned around in December when she reapplied for assistance after the Biden administration changed some of the program’s rules, which she did.
She discovered that her outstanding debt – $106,000 — had been erased, and she was also granted credit for a period during which she paid more than she should have been.
After seeing the zero balance, Saunders recalled, “I couldn’t take another breath.” “You know how it’s supposed to feel like your life is flashing before your eyes as you die? It was similar to that, except that I could now see a possibly different existence in front of me as well.
One in which I could purchase a vehicle or, at the very least, take a summer vacation.”
When she was trying to save money for retirement, the stress of her student loan obligation combined with working as a teacher, pursuing her doctorate, paying housing payments, and fulfilling other financial obligations seemed overwhelming. She said that she was still on the defensive.
“Even if I attempt to put more money in now that the loans are paid off, I’ll probably be working until I’m 70,” said Saunders, 56. At that age, “it’s not going to be a luxury retirement, even if it is.”
Despite all of the upheaval, Saunders says she has no regrets about obtaining her degree in accounting. Dossett, who recounted his surprise after learning that his medical school debts had been forgiven in a tweet that went viral, doesn’t believe it either.
Amid the epidemic, Dossett has been assisting in treating Covid-infected hospitalized patients, resulting in exhaustion and anxiety over his school debt.
His optimism now extends not just to himself but also to others who may be interested in pursuing a career in medicine, especially those wary of attending medical school because of the significant debt they may acquire in the process.
“If physicians had greater understanding, they would be more inclined to enter lower-paying areas, such as general care and pediatrics,” he stated in the statement.
“The more the number of these physicians there are, the better it is for society and the health of the country,” says the author.
