NY Daily News: “Out from under student loans’ crushing weight”

By Rich Leimsider.

Originally published on NY Daily News.

I didn’t win the lottery, but what happened came pretty close. The federal government wiped my remaining student debt to zero, eliminating hundreds of future payments — changing the way my family can make financial decisions.

Tens of thousands of New Yorkers in public service — people who work at nonprofits like hospitals or local government, who collectively hold hundreds of millions in student debt — are now eligible for the exact same gift. But not many are talking about this — and people need to act quickly to take advantage of this program before it expires at the end of October.

Even though I was fortunate enough to earn a decent salary running a legal-services nonprofit, I hadn’t been able to make much of a dent in my remaining debt. Many others are in more precarious positions than I was: They are teachers, social workers, bus drivers, public defenders, sanitation workers, nurses, police officers — the list is long. They keep our city running and yet do so on relatively low wages compared to the private sector.

Those who dedicate their careers to serving others — whether that’s working in government or the nonprofit sector — deserve a break when it comes to their student debt. This is especially true given the greater share of the student debt burden held by people of color: Black borrowers, on average, owe more than $10,000 more than their white counterparts for their undergraduate loans; for graduate school loans, the disparity is even starker, with Black borrowers owing twice as much as white borrowers, or $27,000 more, on average.

In 2007, the federal government created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (or PSLF), with the promise that anyone could get their debt erased if they worked for a nonprofit or government agency for 10 years. To be eligible, a person with a federal student loan must simply work full-time for a qualified employer and make enough qualifying loan payments. The magic number is 120.

But the original program was deeply flawed, and because of byzantine and bureaucratic rules — the feds wanted the “right” type of loans and the “right” type of payment plans — millions who should have been eligible never got relief. Many often had to restart their 10-year clock after years of making payments the “wrong” way — even though nobody ever told them otherwise.

Thankfully, the Biden administration finally fixed this by creating the “PSLF Waiver” — a little-known temporary window that allows up to 5 million Americans to have their past federal student loan payments reassessed. In other words, ones that previously didn’t count toward the 10-year period now might. And this makes them eligible for as much as $200 billion in collective loan relief.

For New Yorkers, this translates into hundreds of thousands of dollars in monthly payments that would no longer need to be made — and could instead go to groceries, fuel, childcare, travel and more. It can give families tangible help in coping with record inflation.

Sounds too good to be true, right? Some people I talk to ask if I’m also going to try to sell them an extended warranty for the car they don’t have.

I get it. We are more skeptical of government than at any point in history, and especially of promises on top of badly broken ones.

But this help is different — and very real. Don’t take my word for it. There are others who are sharing their stories of waking up one day to zero student debt: Diana Caba, who works for the Hispanic Federation, had more than $150,000 forgiven. Rod Jones, the executive director of the Goddard Riverside Community Center, benefited from having more than $200,000 in remaining debt reduced to nothing.

Even those who haven’t completed 10 years of public service work can still get corrected credit for the payments they have made, meaning their path to loan forgiveness will get shorter.

Of course, there’s one big catch: The deadline of the waiver period is Oct. 31 — that’s barely more than 60 days from now.

To help spread the word, I created a nonprofit campaign, PSLF.nyc and raised a few dollars from foundations and other partners. We provide free webinars to help people find out how to take advantage of this benefit. I urge Mayor Adams, Gov. Hochul and other elected and government officials to use their bullhorns to ensure eligible New Yorkers know about this incredible opportunity — all at no cost to them.

But the one thing every single student loan borrower should do now is check their status by logging on to StudentAid.gov and use the “PSLF Help Tool” to see if they qualify. While it may seem complicated, it should take less than 30 minutes. It’s much easier than doing your taxes. It’s also far more valuable — and could just change your life.