I had a 2 year Navy scholarship when I was a medical student. So I have less debt than I would have otherwise. But I still have more than $100K racked up.
I've been in repayment for the loans since 2004.
In the last few months I found out about a new repayment plan that really lowered my monthly payment. It's called the "Income Based Repayment Plan" and it cut my monthly payment in half.
Also, there's 2 new loan forgiveness scenarios that I wasn't aware of.
The basic skinny is: (1) if you make 25 years of payments, whatever is left gets forgiven and (2) if you make 10 years of payments and you're doing some sort of service, whatever is left gets forgiven.
It's hard not to pay even a big loan off in 25 years (think mortgage), but 10 years is a real bargain.
There is a lot of ambiguity about what would constitute a "public service job" even though they try to lay it out pretty specifically:
you qualify if you...
...are employed by any nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization;
...are employed by the federal government, a state government, local government, or tribal government (this includes the military and public schools and colleges); or
...serve in a full-time AmeriCorps or Peace Corps position.
--or--
A private organization that is not a for-profit business, a labor union, a partisan political organization, or an organization engaged in religious activities (unless the qualifying activities are unrelated to religious instruction, worship
services, or any form of proselytizing) and that provides the following public services –
Emergency management;
Military service;
Public safety;
Law enforcement;
Public interest law services;
Early childhood education (including licensed or regulated health care, Head Start, and state-funded pre-kindergarten);
Public service for individuals with disabilities and the elderly;
Public health (including nurses, nurse practioners, nurses in a clinical setting, and full-time professionals engaged in health care practioner occupations and health care support occupations);
Public education;
Public library services; and
School library or other school-based services.
here's the fact sheet from the government: http://studentaid.ed.gov/students/attachments/siteresources/LoanForgivenessv4.pdf
From what I can tell in looking over the IRS website (search section 78 for the word "clinic" here: http://www.irs.gov/app/pub-78/) it seems like there's a lot of places that would qualify as employers.
The Cleveland Clinic
Emory Clinic
Johns Hopkins
Kaiser Permanente
Massachusetts General & The Brigham and Women's Hospital
The Mayo Clinic
I may be missing something, but from what I can tell these are all 501(c)(3) organizations.
The implication is that there are a lot of places for a family physician to work which would qualify as a 501(c)(3) organization. And would this work qualify for the 10 year forgiveness?
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