I am a 3L about to graduate from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and I recently accepted employment with an organization that has 501(c)(4) status, but is affiliated with a 501(c)(3) organization, and it is the 501(c)(3) that supplies their funding and will be issuing my paycheck. Does this employment qualify for public service loan forgiveness?

Congratulations on your employment!

The Department of Education will need to make a determination of whether the specific 501(c)(4) qualifies as a “Public service organization”.  Public service organization is defined as:

(5) A private organization that—
(i) Provides ... [specific listed services including “legal services funded in whole or in part by a local, State, Federal, or Tribal governments”]; and
(ii) Is not a business organized for profit, 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.

There isn’t currently a process in place for the Dept of Ed to review whether or not the organization is a qualified public service organization, but there is progress towards such a process.  You can check out the DRAFT employment certification forms and instructions under important forms on my tools page here: http://askheatherjarvis.com/tools  You could run those drafts by folks at your job to see if they think they’d be able to certify as required.

I suggest you look at the full list in the regs of the specific services that qualifying public service organizations provide.  The PSLF regs are under Student Loan Laws at http://askheatherjarvis.com/tools  If you are looking to fit into the legal services category, you’d need to confirm that the org gets some government funding, which they may or may not.

Let me know how it goes.  I’ve had a hard time finding many real world organizations that fit neatly into this definition.

Thanks so much for your response! So the fact that they are affiliated with a 501(c)(3) and thats where their funding comes from wouldn’t qualify it? Or its based on the actual activity I will be doing at my job.

Well.  That’d be simpler, huh?  I mean, do you work for the 501(c)(3)?  Can you be employed by the (c)(3)?  That would make it way more straightforward.