Hello,

I am a teacher who’s worked at a low-income school as a highly qualified special education teacher for the past six years. For two of those years, I received an Americorps benefit. Foolishly, I accepted the benefit because I did not realize it would affect my chances to receive loan forgiveness on certain federal student loans.

The federal guidelines on teacher loan forgiveness state that you are eligible for forgiveness after five years of service if: “You have not received benefits through the AmeriCorps Program under Subtitle D of Title I of the National and Community Service Act of 1990 for the same teaching service for which you are seeking forgiveness on your FFEL and/or Direct Loan program loan(s).”

At the end of this year I will complete my seventh year. Since teachers are eligible after five years of service, will I qualify for the loan forgiveness after my seventh year (fifth year not receiving Americorps benefits)?

Sallie Mae (which holds my federal student loans) states that I am not qualified to EVER receive teacher loan forgiveness because of my Americorps benefits. However, a woman I spoke to at the Federal Student Aid phone number told me that it’s up to Sallie Mae to decide that, while Sallie Mae tells me that they just follow federal guidelines. It seems that Sallie Mae is choosing not to forgive my loans when I should be eligible at the end of this year. Do you have any idea if I am correct or if Sallie Mae is?

Thank you!
Sandra

HI,

Like many others, I was denied for my special education teacher loan forgiveness.  The forgiveness incentive helped me to decide to take classes to get certified.  I know the program originated to help entice more students to choose a career path where there was a high need and I was one of those targets.  I just recently completed my five years of teaching in a low income school as a highly-qualified special education teacher and excitedly applied for forgiveness.  A few weeks later, I received my ineligible for forgiveness letter in the mail.  I was devastated and literally cried.  I called several times to try and figure out what happened.  On my student loan history, I had one small loan for $1000 dated January 1998, but it was paid in full.  It was paid by a consolidation loan I took out in 2005, which was still BEFORE I took out any teacher loans.  I borrowed my teacher loans in 2007.  My question is how can they deny me when it doesn’t state anywhere that I can’t use consolidation to pay off a loan?  Do I have a case for appeal?  Should I contact a lawyer?  I feel like combined with my graduate and undergraduate loans (all post 1998), I will be in debt forever.  As of right now, I can’t seem to manage the payments and the teacher loans are about to go into repayment.  The eligibility was based on an invisible technicality that will have a devastating effect for me financially.  What can I do?