Apply for forgiveness before temporary waiver expires Oct. 31
Posted: September 8, 2022
As the deadline approaches for expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), Hawaii State Teachers Association members have seen upwards of $114,000 of student debt forgiven.
David Negaard, an English teacher at Baldwin High School on Maui, recently had the last chunk of his $114,000 student loan debt wiped clean, thanks to the temporary PSLF waiver, which expires Oct. 31.
“After the waiver was announced, I followed up, I checked in, and things started happening,” Negaard said. “I had about $20,000 forgiven in October. I had another large chunk forgiven in February, leaving only $9,000 left. And just a couple of months ago, the last $9,000 was forgiven, so now as far as student debt goes, I am free, and that means that I can retire someday.”
Negaard is now putting roughly $500 a month toward paying down his mortgage instead of his student loan debt.
Tens of thousands of people nationwide are taking advantage of changes made to PSLF. Historically wrought with problems, PSLF was overhauled last fall thanks to the Biden administration to help more public service workers, including teachers, qualify for forgiveness.
The U.S. Department of Education enacted a temporary waiver where borrowers can get credit for past payments even if payments weren’t made on time, in full, or were part of a non-qualifying payment plan.
Certain criteria for forgiveness still have to be met, however. Of the requirements, 120 payments (do not need to be consecutive) have to be made, and one must work for a qualifying employer, like the Hawaii State Department of Education. Loans have to be direct or consolidated into a Direct Consolidation Loan.
Borrowers have until Oct. 31 to take advantage of the waiver and start their journey toward student loan forgiveness.
Of his loan forgiveness, Negaard said, “While I love my job, I’m not chained to it. Forgiveness means that I have choices. It means that I have freedom that I didn’t have. I was a slave to my student loan debt, and now I’m free.”
Teacher details process, improvements to state employment verification
Sara Murphy is an alternative learning teacher at Lahainaluna High School on Maui and has about $80,000 in student loan debt.
She initially looked into PSLF, but “it just seemed really difficult. I kind of thought it was out of reach until the changes got made.”
Once the temporary waiver was enacted, Murphy and her husband, who is an elementary teacher and owes $30,000, decided to apply. With the changes, “filling out the paperwork is really easy,” Murphy said.
Here are the steps she took:
- Utilize the PSLF Help Tool on the Federal Student Aid website.
- Fill out the form provided by the Help Tool. (Murphy indicated that the form auto-populated based on the information Federal Student Aid already had on file for her.)
- Print out the completed form and sign it.
- Scan and email the form to the state of Hawaii’s dedicated employment verification email address: employment.records@k12.hi.us.
- The state will complete the employer section and return the form to you.
- Mail the completed form to MOHELA, the company administering the PSLF program on the government’s behalf.
Murphy said because the state now offers a dedicated email address to verify employment, it streamlines the process. “I thought it was going to take a couple of weeks to get it back and signed and verified, but it took less than 24 hours,” she said.
After mailing the form to MOHELA, Murphy and her husband are now waiting for a decision on their forgiveness, and if approved, they will be saving $500 a month.
She said, “That’s enormous for our family. Living in Hawaii, we all know it’s not cheap, so we’ve got to try and do every little bit to beat away at the mountain.”
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