Time is running out for public service workers to apply for full student loan forgiveness
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - A student loan forgiveness program is helping people in public service jobs wipe away their debt, but those who qualify have just three weeks left to apply before the criteria gets much stricter.
Dallas County Justice of the Peace Sara Martinez had $65,500 in student loan debts disappear.
"I called to verify what my eyes were seeing because I was really excited," she said.
She was the first in her family to go to college, and the day she graduated from law school her mother, an immigrant farm worker, cried.
"To go from a farm-working family to graduating from one of the top 20 law schools in the country was a big deal. For all of us," she said.
That education, though, left Martinez roughly $230,000 in debt, costing her as much as $1,200 a month.
Working in public service jobs – for a food bank, a mental health organization, a public defender's office, and now as a justice of the peace – also meant making a smaller salary than she would have in private practice.
Still, she says, she wanted to give back to her community.
"We have a lot of people who come here in dire need of services," she said of her Precinct 5 office.
The federal government has a loan forgiveness program for people who work in public service jobs for ten years or more.
Teachers, police officers, firefighters, and anyone working at a nonprofit are among those who could potentially qualify.
The criteria was so strict that the US Department of Education reports only 7,000 people were ever approved for loan forgiveness through the program before last year when the federal government made it temporarily easier.
Since then more than 175,000 people have been approved.
That includes Martinez who after 17 years making student loan payments is finally able to focus on putting money away for retirement.
The window to apply for the Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness program closes on Oct. 31.
You can find applications and more information on the program here.