Student Loan Forgiveness for Healthcare Workers: How to Qualify

Student loan forgiveness for healthcare workers is accessible after 10 years if they work at a government or nonprofit medical facility or after making 20+ years’ worth of payments under an income-driven repayment plan.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, frontline healthcare workers have continuously put their lives on the line. As an acknowledgment of their bravery, lawmakers have tried to pass legislation that would wipe out the private and federal student loan debt tax-free for any healthcare professional or other essential worker battling the coronavirus. But those proposals have yet to become law.

Even if that doesn’t change, healthcare workers qualify for three main student loan forgiveness programs:

• Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

• PSLF Limited Waiver Opportunity.

• Income-Driven Repayment Plan Forgiveness.

There are also three additional student loan repayment assistance programs available:

• National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Programs (NHSC)

• Nurse Corps Loan Repayment Program (NCLR)

• National Institutes of Health Loan Repayment Programs (NIH)

Keep reading to learn how frontline healthcare workers can get their student debt eliminated.

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Works best for: Medical personnel and essential workers employed by a nonprofit or government institution with eligible federal student loans.

Nurses, doctors, interns, and other frontline healthcare personnel who work full-time for a nonprofit or the government can qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. The PSLF program is a tax-free forgiveness program available to public service workers with eligible federal student loans regardless of whether they treat coronavirus patients. You’ll need to clear four hurdles to qualify:

• Work full-time at a qualified employer.

• Have Direct Loans, including Direct Consolidation Loans and Direct Parent PLUS Loans — private loans aren’t eligible.

• Enroll in an income-driven repayment plan or the 10-Year Standard Repayment program.

• Make 120 on-time qualifying payments.

How to apply: Use the PSLF Help Tool to check if your employer qualifies for the public service program. If it does, complete the PSLF Employment Certification & Application form. Submit the completed form to FedLoan Servicing for processing.

Related: PSLF Medical School

Works best for: Essential workers and frontline health care workers in private practice.

Another forgiveness option for healthcare workers is IDR forgiveness, which wipes out a borrower’s remaining balance after making at least 20 years’ worth of payments under an income-driven repayment plan.

To qualify, you have to switch from the Extended or Graduated Repayment plan to one of the income-driven repayment plans. The payments you made before switching don’t count for forgiveness. You’ll need to make payments for the next 20 or 25 years before your debt is erased, depending on the repayment plan you choose and whether you borrowed debt to pay for graduate school.

How to Apply: Contact your student loan servicer when you’re close to making your final monthly payment to qualify for cancellation. Your servicer will tally your payments to confirm you’re about to cross the finish line. Keep in mind the earliest you can apply is 2028, which is 25 years after the income-contingent repayment plan started.

Learn More: 20 Year Student Loan Forgiveness

There isn’t a separate application essentials workers use to apply for federal student loan forgiveness. Instead, they’ll use the same applications other borrowers use to apply for the existing forgiveness programs, like the PSLF Employment Certification Form.

Learn More: Do I Qualify for the Navient Lawsuit?

While forgiveness is the ultimate goal, if you are willing to participate in the National Health Service Corps or are a Nurse or currently undertaking medical research, there are a variety of programs that are designed to support you in your student loan repayment in health care.

National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Loan Repayment Programs

The National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Loan Repayment Programs are initiatives designed to assist healthcare professionals in repaying their student loans. In return, these professionals are required to offer their medical services in underserved or health professional shortage areas (HPSAs) across the United States.

Benefits of the Program

• Offers student loan repayment assistance to eligible health care providers.

• Encourages the provision of health services in areas lacking adequate medical attention.

Eligibility Requirements

1. Must be a licensed health care provider.

2. Must be working at an NHSC-approved site.

3. Must provide service in an HPSA.

Program Varieties

There are two main types of NHSC Loan Repayment Programs, but added incentives are getting released each year

• NHSC Loan Repayment Program: Provides a newly increased benefit of up to $75,000 to health professionals towards student loan repayment for a two-year service commitment or $37,500 for a part-time commitment. Plus, they are throwing in a one-time award of $5,000.

• NHSC Substance Use Disorder Workforce Loan Repayment Program: Offers up to $80,000 for full-time participants and $42,500 for half-time. They are specifically seeking professionals offering substance use disorder treatment services to combat the Opioid Crisis among other things.

Nurse Corps Loan Repayment Program (NCLR)

The Nurse Corps Loan Repayment Program (NCLR) is a significant federal initiative that provides financial aid to registered nurses, nurse practitioners, and nurse faculty members committed to serving in eligible critical shortage facilities or at eligible schools of nursing. These eligible healthcare workers can receive substantial student loan repayment assistance in exchange for working in communities with limited access to care or teaching in eligible nursing schools.

The NCLR aims to improve the availability of nursing care to underserved populations and stimulate the increase and retention of faculty in eligible institutions by relieving financial burdens associated with their nursing education. The program helps mitigate the escalating debt incurred by nursing students and in turn strengthens the overall healthcare system by addressing the nursing shortage issue.

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Loan Repayment Programs

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Loan Repayment Programs are pivotal programs designed to recruit and retain highly qualified health care workers into biomedical or biobehavioral research careers. The escalating costs of advanced medical and graduate training and the burden of student loan debt can serve as obstacles to prospective researchers.

These programs counter these financial pressures by repaying up to $50,000 annually of a researcher’s qualifying educational debt in return for a commitment to engage in NIH mission-relevant research.

There are several programs tailored to different areas of research, including clinical research, pediatric research, health disparities research, contraception and infertility research, and research in clinical settings. These programs serve a critical role in fostering and maintaining a health research workforce dedicated to improving health outcomes across various medical fields.

Early in the pandemic, congressional Democrats and Republicans introduced two bills designed to eliminate eligible federal student loan debt, as well as private, specifically for first responders, essential workers, and frontline healthcare workers.

• The Student Loan Forgiveness for Frontline Health Workers Act. Representative Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York, proposed to offer a tax-free private and federal student loan forgiveness program for frontline healthcare workers — nurses, doctors, emergency medical service personnel, lab workers, etc. — who are treating patients with coronavirus. The bill died in a previous Congress despite having 20 cosponsors.

• The Opportunities for Heroes Act of 2020. Introduced by Representatives Anne Kuster, a Democrat from New Hampshire, and Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican from Pennsylvania, this bill sought to eliminate up to $25,000 in student loan debt for essential workers. Thirty-nine other lawmakers joined in support. But it died in the Senate before it could reach President Biden’s desk for his signature.

If you want to go over your options, schedule a phone call with me. I am a student loan lawyer with years of experience helping people find ways to deal with their loans so they can achieve their personal goals: start a family, buy a house, retire, etc.

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