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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

What requirements are “absurd?”

From personal experience, I can tell you the requirement referenced in this snippet feels absurd:

“Others were turned away for having the wrong type of federal loan — those originated by private lenders through the now-defunct Federal Family Education Loan Program.”

Federal loan? Check. Working for a 503c? Check. Oh, wait — the type of federal loan you took out is the wrong kind. So you need to consolidate under this other kind. And yeah, it resets it such that none of the payments you made for the past 10 years count.

I’m lucky enough that it personally doesn’t really matter to me. I took on the loans for my education when the foregiveness program wasn’t in existence so I certainly wasn’t banking on a bailout. But the FFELP was still in existence when this program was being developed so I have no idea why those loans weren’t included.

The government pays for PSLF, in part, through revenues brought in through federal loan programs. Why would PSLF apply to loans where a private lender is getting the interest payments?

At the face level none of the individual requirements are absurd. That said, to meet all of their specific criteria is quite the challenge. Just take a look at the actual requirements. [0]

I work in local government and personally know dedicated public servants who would stand to benefit from this program but none of them qualify.

[0] https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancell...

It’s 5 requirements man. Are you seriously trying to say that: (1) working for the government (2) full time (3) with loans taken out under a Direct loan from the government (4) and making payments on an income based repayment plan for your loans (5) for 120 months is that hard?

I meet 4 of these 5 requirements by accident.

One example is that They told people 10 years ago that the job they were working qualified and they got letters each year saying all good and then changed their mind about the job qualifying. So now these people are screwed.

Can you back that with a citation? I'm reading this form and it seems pretty straightforward who a qualifying employer is. https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/sites/default/files/public-serv...

> A Qualifying employer includes the government, a notfor-profit organization that is tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, or a private not-forprofit organization that provides certain public services.

and it goes on to give definitions of "government" and "not for profit" orgs.

In a 54-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly said changes to the eligibility requirements, made several years after the program began, were “arbitrary and capricious.” Kelly called one of the Education Department’s main arguments “nonsense” and said a series of internal Education Department emails “decimates” another argument.

Kelly ruled in favor of three individual plaintiffs who worked several years in public service and were initially approved for loan forgiveness, only to be notified years later that the approval was retroactively denied by the Education Department based on new rules.

https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2...

Here’s another example but it’s about being in the wrong loan program or repayment plan. But the fact pattern is similar. The servicers and the dept of Ed did a bad job implementing this program.

“Lawson-Ross said she spoke to staff at Great Lakes around 10 times to confirm that she was on track for the forgiveness. "They told me, 'Don't worry about it. You're good to go,'" she said. Had she known her loans didn't actually qualify, she could have simply rolled them into a kind that did.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/18/borrowers-denied-public-serv...

For one, it’s been reported that a single late payment by a day kicks you out of eligibility. The requirements are designed with the intention that people will fail.

No the program requires 120 on time monthly payments, but those do not need to be consecutive. That’s always been the rule.

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