If you’re working in the nonprofit or public arts, or plan to be, and you’re carrying Federal student loans, it’s a good time to be sure your record-keeping is in order. As a tag-along to the recent health care reform legislation, the Federal government also enhanced its approach to student loans. As a result, there may be loan forgiveness in your (distant) future.<\/p>\n
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness<\/a> program is intended to provide financial incentive and reward to those who choose and remain in a career in public service. “Public service” is broadly defined in the legislation to include any federal, state, or local government organization or agency and most charitable non-profit organizations (primarily 501c3, but not exclusively). You become eligible for principal and interest forgiveness after 120 on-time monthly payments while working for a qualified organization (the payments don’t have to be sequential).<\/p>\n That means at least 10 years of on-time payments, along with evidence that you worked for a qualified organization at the time (hence the record-keeping recommendation). Plus, the clock starts retroactively on October 1, 2007, so at least a few years of past payments could qualify. According to Asset Finance<\/a>, there are also specific rules about what types of loans qualify, so you should be sure your ducks are in a row now<\/i> to be sure you’ll be eligible. <\/p>\n The year 2017, when the first requests can be filed, may seem like a distant future. But if you’re carrying a reasonable amount of Federal student loans and paying only the minimum, it could mean a rather nice gift for those who follow the rules and keep the files. If you’re interested, there’s a handy Q&A document available for download<\/a> (PDF).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you’re working in the nonprofit or public arts, or plan to be, and you’re carrying Federal student loans, it’s a good time to be sure your record-keeping is in order. As a tag-along to the recent health care reform legislation, the Federal government also enhanced its approach to student loans. As a result, there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1409"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3527,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409\/revisions\/3527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}