Similar to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, the Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program provides student loan relief to eligible teachers.
Under the Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program, if you teach full-time for five complete and consecutive academic years in a low-income school or educational service agency, and meet other certain qualifications, you could be eligible for forgiveness of up to $17,500 on your Direct and Stafford federal student loans.
1. Eligibility Requirements
In order to be eligible for Teacher Loan Forgiveness, you must not have had an outstanding balance on Direct federal loans or Federal Family Education Loan Program loans as of October 1, 1998.
In addition, you must have been employed as a full-time, highly qualified teacher for five full and consecutive academic years, with at least one year being after the 1997-1998 academic year.
To be considered “highly qualified,” you must have attained at least a bachelor’s degree, received full state certification as a teacher, and not had certification or licensure requirements waived on an emergency, temporary or provisional basis.
Further, if you are a new elementary school teacher, you must also demonstrate subject knowledge and teaching skills in reading, writing, math and other areas of the basic elementary school curriculum by passing a rather rigorous state test.
If you are a new middle or secondary level teacher, you must demonstrate a high level of competency in each subject you teach.
To do this, you may either pass a state academic test in each of the subjects you teach, or successfully complete an academic major, graduate degree or coursework equivalent to an undergraduate academic major in each of the subjects that you teach.
You must also employed by a school or educational service agency that serves low-income students to be eligible for Teacher Loan Forgiveness.
Finally, the loans for which you are seeking forgiveness must have been made before the end of your five consecutive years of qualifying academic teaching.
2. How Do I Know if I’m Working at a Low-Income School or Educational Service Agency?
To be eligible for Teacher Loan Forgiveness, the institution at which you teach must be listed in the Annual Directory of Designated Low-Income Schools for Teacher Cancellation Benefits (Low-Income School Directory), which is published annually by the U.S. Department of Education each year.
If you have questions about a certain school or educational service agency not being listed in the Directory, you must direct your inquiry to the state education contact in the state where the school or agency is located, rather than to the U.S. Department of Education.
If the school or educational service agency at which you are employed in listed in the Directory for at least one year of your teaching service, but it not included in subsequent years, your subsequent years of teaching will still be counted towards the required five years of teaching.
3. How Much Loan Forgiveness Can I Receive?
The maximum amount of your loans that may be forgiven is either $17,500 or $5,000, depending on the subject area taught during the Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program.
You may receive $17,500 in loan forgiveness if you were a highly qualified full-time math or science teacher who taught at an eligible secondary school, or a highly qualified special education teacher at any level.
If you did not teach science, math or special education, you may receive up to $5,000 in loan forgiveness.