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Employees of Public Service (i.e. Military, Police, Nurses, Emergency Management, and others- see below ) can have their student loan discharged after 10 years of full time employment and 120 payments on their loan. There is a caveat....only payments made on or after 10/1/07 qualify toward the 120 payment requirement. So it looks like if you continued to make payments on your loan and continued to work in Public Service you could receive a forgiveness in 2017. At that point the remaining interest and principal are forgiven. ...not a great deal for me as my loan will be paid off by then but may help the rookies entering the field with student loans.

Public service jobs include, among other positions, emergency management, government (excluding time served as a member of Congress), military service, public safety and law enforcement (police and fire), public health (including nurses, nurse practitioners, nurses in a clinical setting, and full-time professionals engaged in health care practitioner occupations and health care support occupations), public education, early childhood education (including licensed or regulated childcare, Head Start, and State-funded prekindergarten), social work in a public child or family service agency, public services for individuals with disabilities or the elderly, public interest legal services (including prosecutors, public defenders and legal advocacy on behalf of low-income communities at a nonprofit organization), public librarians, school librarians and other school-based services, and employees of tax exempt 501(c)(3) organizations. Full-time faculty at tribal colleges and universities, as well as faculty teaching in high-need subject areas and shortage areas (including nurse faculty, foreign language faculty, and part-time faculty at community colleges), also qualify.

Eligible Loans: Eligible loans include Federal Direct Stafford Loans (Subsidized and Unsubsidized), Federal Direct PLUS Loans, and Federal Direct Consolidation Loans. Borrowers in the Direct Loan program do not need to consolidate in order to qualify for loan forgiveness. Borrowers in the FFEL program will need to consolidate into Direct Loans.

More info available here: http://www.finaid.org/loans/publicservice.phtml


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