I’m a law school graduate and was unable to find employment until 6 months ago (3 years after graduation).  I have not started repaying my loans (about $200k). My husband of 1 year works for a non-profit and has been repaying his grad school loans for the last 3 years and has about $25k remaining. We file our taxes jointly. Since my repayment will be based on what we make jointly, is there anyway that I can benefit from his public service loan forgiveness?

I’m not an expert but I am 99.99% sure the answer is no. The purpose of PSLF is to encourage people to go into public service / make them feel like they can take a public service job without going broke paying off student loans. So why would they offer that benefit to someone who didn’t actually go into public service?

My husband and I are in a similar situation (I’m PSLF and he’s not) and we file separately because we’re worried that his non-PSLF status would taint mine and it would make it so none of the loans can be forgiven. This costs us a lot of money because we can’t claim a lot of deductions that we could if we filed jointly, but to us it’s worth it. PSLF is so new, I’m not willing to take any chances with screwing it up. I know this wasn’t your question but it’s something you might consider looking into if you file jointly and only one of you gets PSLF.

Good luck!