Last year, Congress expanded a program to forgive the student loans of more public servants, such as teachers. But a new government watchdog report found that 99 percent of people who applied were rejected by the U.S. Department of Education.
According to , the Education Department processed about 54,000 requests for loan forgiveness under the Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, and accepted just 661. It awarded about $27 million in loan forgiveness鈥攂ut Congress appropriated $700 million.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which was established in 2007 and began reviewing applications in 2017, has been criticized for its overly complicated and poorly communicated requirements. It is meant to erase the student debt for certain classes of public-service workers, including teachers, after borrowers make 120 monthly payments toward their loan over the course of a decade or longer.
But the department has approved so few applications that federal lawmakers stepped in to create the temporary expanded program, in hopes of breaking down barriers for borrowers who were on repayment plans that were ineligble for PSLF.
Yet it hasn鈥檛 worked: Melissa Emrey-Arras, who led the GAO鈥檚 review, told NPR that the findings were discouraging. (NPR .)
鈥淚 mean, the hope is that you have this temporary expanded process, and you want it to help a lot of people,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd you don鈥檛 want borrowers to be confused about the eligibility criteria and to face a high denial rate. And yet, that鈥檚 what we found.鈥�
The Education Department required borrowers who were applying for loan forgiveness under the temporary expanded program to submit a separate PSLF application鈥攅ven though they were ineligible for PSLF. This was confusing for borrowers, the GAO report says, and 鈥渁s a result, some eligible borrowers may miss the opportunity to have their loans forgiven.鈥�
Indeed, 71 percent of the denied requests were rejected because the borrower hadn鈥檛 submitted a PSLF application.
The GAO report also notes that some of the department鈥檚 online resources for borrowers don鈥檛 include information on the temporary expanded program.
The report recommends that the department include a checkbox to apply for the temporary expanded program on the PSLF application, so borrowers have a seamless way to request loan forgiveness. It also suggests that loan servicers and the department include more information about the temporary expanded program online and in denial letters. The department has agreed with these recommendations, the report notes.
A spokeswoman for the Education Department told NPR that a number of these efforts are already underway. 鈥淭he Department has taken steps to help borrowers better understand the complex eligibility requirements, application process, benefits, and other information related to the PSLF and TEPSLF programs,鈥� she said.
Teachers, nurses, and other public servants are meant to be eligible for federal loan forgiveness. This summer, , arguing that she has 鈥渄one nothing to remedy the gross mismanagement鈥� of PSLF. The federal lawsuit represents eight AFT members who say they were unable to receive loan forgiveness due to administrative errors and inaccurate information provided by loan forgiveness.
鈥淚 was being held accountable, but there was no accountability elsewhere,鈥� said plaintiff Gloria Nolan, who works in an education-related nonprofit in Missouri.
She said she was a first-generation college student and thought she could achieve the American dream if she pulled herself up by her bootstraps: 鈥淭his process,鈥� she said, 鈥渋s setting those boots in cement.鈥�
The department has also come under hot water for its handling of the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education, or TEACH grant, which is meant to give teachers in high-needs fields a $4,000 annual grant if they teach in a high-needs school for at least four years. due to paperwork errors, thousands of teachers had been unfairly forced to repay the grant money as loans.
The department has since said it would cancel the debt for eligible teachers, and as of May, . (At least 6,000 teachers have applied for relief.)
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