Options for Reducing Student Loan Debt for Those Choosing Public Service Careers

When she graduates from Columbia University next year with a master's degree in public health, Erin Wheeler is hoping to get a job in international reproductive health.

The 26-year-old District native has always wanted to work in public service. She spent two years in the Peace Corps in Senegal and plans to spend next summer working on an early childhood development project in South Africa.

But public service doesn't pay much, and her two-year program at Columbia costs about $50,000 a year with living expenses. She has a scholarship from Columbia that covers just $4,000 year and has taken out subsidized and unsubsidized federal Stafford Loans and a graduate PLUS loan to pay for the rest. All three loans are federally insured.

"$100,000 is not realistic for someone coming out making $40,000 or $50,000 a year," she said while waiting for a latte at Caribou Coffee in Logan Circle.

She worries that she will spend years paying back her student loans and not have money left over to put away in an IRA or 401(k).

"You spend your whole life paying back thousands of dollars," she said.

Wheeler is wondering what she can do to ease the pain of being in debt postgraduation. Would she qualify for a public service loan forgiveness program? Is there anything else she can do to handle the debt?

The good news is that in 2007, Congress recognized that there were so many students in Wheeler's position that it passed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. There were two programs established by this act that Wheeler should look into, two advisers I contacted said.

The first is the income-based repayment plan, which allows lower-income graduates with a lot of debt to reduce their monthly payments. Depending on a graduate's income and level of debt, the program, which goes into effect July 1, could limit his or her annual educational loan debt repayment to 15 percent of discretionary income, said Peter Mazareas, vice chairman of the College Savings Foundation, a Washington-based advocacy association.

The second is the public service loan forgiveness plan, in which the federal government will forgive the remaining debt of borrowers who make 120 loan payments while working full time in public-service jobs. The graduate must have a Federal Direct Stafford, PLUS, graduate PLUS or Federal Direct Consolidation loan.

Depending on the level of debt Wheeler ends up with and how much she repays over 10 years, Mazareas said she could end up with about $75,000 of her debt forgiven.

"Typically, it is projected that a borrower who performs public service under this program will repay only about one-fourth to one-half as much money as a borrower who does not," he said.