Benefits for Teachers

Your Student Loans

If you have federal student loans (Direct Loans, subsidized or unsubsidized), you likely qualify for federal¹Any teacher with a Federal Perkins Loan (increasingly rare, as these phased out in 2017) can also pursue Perkins Loan Cancellation. For this, you need to teach in a low-income school (same as with TLF) for 5 years. The federal government says you need to outreach your Perkins loan servicer to figure out next steps for this process. or New York City loan-forgiveness plans.

Federal Loan Forgiveness 

Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) will wipe out the balance of your remaining Direct Loans after 120 on-time monthly payments²Payments do not need to be consecutive. For instance, if you leave a qualified employer for a few years and return thereafter to another one, you can restart your PSLF payments without losing what you’ve built up. (i.e., 10 years). You need to be on an Income Driven Repayment Plan³Currently, these plans are: Income-Based Repayment (IBR) Plan; Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR) Plan; Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Repayment Plan; Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plant; and Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP). (The federal government also notes that you can technically pursue PSLF under the 10-year Standard Repayment Plan, but this is pointless, since in that plan your loans are completely paid off in 10 years and there will be nothing left to forgive.). This program is notoriously tricky; after its first decade, reports showed that 99% of applications had been rejected. So, it’s important to follow the procedure below.

• To figure out if your employer qualifies you, go to the PSLF employer search tool and enter your school’s federal Employer Identification Number (EIN), which you can generally find on your W2 or paycheck. (Or, ask your HR department.) 

• If you are qualified, use the PSLF help tool⁴This tool helps you: fill out your PSLF form; send your form to your employer, who needs to sign off on your employment; sign and submit your completed form to the federal government for review. This guide is a good step-by-step walkthrough of the PSLF help tool. to submit documentation to the federal government. 

• Once you’ve submitted your PSLF documentation, you can track it in the “My Activity” section of your StudentAid.gov account, to see if it’s open (in progress), closed, or completed. Crucially, you need to resubmit the form every year and whenever you change jobs, to make sure your payments continue to be tracked.

Teacher Loan Forgiveness (TLF) will forgive either $5,000 for most teachers⁵The technical language says you must teach “in an area relevant to your academic major.”

Also, if you look into this program on your own, you might see language that you need to be a “highly qualified teacher” to receive TLF. This just means that you have at least a bachelor’s degree; are NY state certified as a teacher; and have not had certification requirements waived on an emergency, temporary, or provisional basis. As an NYC public schoolteacher, you’re already covered on these fronts. or $17,500 for special ed, math, or science teachers, after 5 complete years of consecutive teaching in a low-income area. You do not need to be on any specific type of loan repayment plan, but your loan(s) cannot be in default. 

• To figure out if your employer (school) qualifies you as a teacher in a 30%+ low-income area, search using the Teacher Cancellation Low Income (TCLI) Directory⁶Note that the search function on this directory is chronological (for instance, searching “Park East” will bring up Park East, but not Central Park East), so we have also made a full (and more easily searchable) list of qualifying NY schools. Unlike with PSLF, there are no forms to fill out in advance and the government doesn’t track your payments.

• Once you have taught for five years, submit the “Teacher Loan Forgiveness Application” to your loan servicer⁷To complete this form, you will need your school’s Chief Administrator Officer (check with your HR department) to fill out one section which confirms your employment at your school during those five years.. You can expect a delay of three to six months before receiving forgiveness (during which time you’re encouraged to continue checking in with your loan servicer).

Notably, you cannot pursue PSLF and TLF for the same period of time. For instance, if you get TLF after five years of teaching, those five years—even if you made qualifying payments the entire time—cannot be counted toward PSLF.

So which one should you choose? If you plan to teach for 10 years, sign up for PSLF.  And here’s why. Average student debt loads are far greater than even the most generous TLF forgiveness ($17,500). You may need more forgiveness than TLF allows. Also, PSLF wipes out all your debt, not just some. If you end up leaving teaching sooner, you can still qualify—and file—for TLF after five years.

City Loan Forgiveness

Certain NYC schoolteachers in specific high-need areas⁸Check below for specific eligibility, but know that this forgiveness is restricted to these teachers:
Bilingual Special Education Teacher
Bilingual School Psychologist
Teacher of the Blind and Visually Impaired
Teacher of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Speech-Language Pathologist (monolingual and bilingual)

www.teachnycprograms.net have access to the Jose P. Loan Forgiveness Program (application here), which offers tax-free student loan repayment grants of up to $24,000⁹How it works: If you’re in this program, you get $4,000 in loan forgiveness per year, for up to six years. So, $24,000 total across six years. for newly hired teachers in select roles and approved districts. You can take advantage of this forgiveness program in tandem with PSLF.

Footnotes

• 1
  Any teacher with a Federal Perkins Loan (increasingly rare, as these phased out in 2017) can also pursue Perkins Loan Cancellation. For this, you need to teach in a low-income school (same as with TLF) for 5 years. The federal government says you need to outreach your Perkins loan servicer to figure out next steps for this process.
• 2
  Payments do not need to be consecutive. For instance, if you leave a qualified employer for a few years and return thereafter to another one, you can restart your PSLF payments without losing what you’ve built up.
• 3
  Currently, these plans are: Income-Based Repayment (IBR) Plan; Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR) Plan; Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Repayment Plan; Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plant; and Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP). (The federal government also notes that you can technically pursue PSLF under the 10-year Standard Repayment Plan, but this is pointless, since in that plan your loans are completely paid off in 10 years and there will be nothing left to forgive.)
• 4
  This tool helps you: fill out your PSLF form; send your form to your employer, who needs to sign off on your employment; sign and submit your completed form to the federal government for review. This guide is a good step-by-step walkthrough of the PSLF help tool.
• 5
  The technical language says you must teach “in an area relevant to your academic major.”
  
  

  Also, if you look into this program on your own, you might see language that you need to be a “highly qualified teacher” to receive TLF. This just means that you have at least a bachelor’s degree; are NY state certified as a teacher; and have not had certification requirements waived on an emergency, temporary, or provisional basis. As an NYC public schoolteacher, you’re already covered on these fronts.

• 6
  Note that the search function on this directory is chronological (for instance, searching “Park East” will bring up Park East, but not Central Park East), so we have also made a full (and more easily searchable) list of qualifying NY schools
• 7
  To complete this form, you will need your school’s Chief Administrator Officer (check with your HR department) to fill out one section which confirms your employment at your school during those five years.
• 8
  Check below for specific eligibility, but know that this forgiveness is restricted to these teachers:
  Bilingual Special Education Teacher
  Bilingual School Psychologist
  Teacher of the Blind and Visually Impaired
  Teacher of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
  Speech-Language Pathologist (monolingual and bilingual)
  
  

  www.teachnycprograms.net

• 9
  How it works: If you’re in this program, you get $4,000 in loan forgiveness per year, for up to six years. So, $24,000 total across six years.