Well that bites. (polite rant)

The place I worked at offered a deal to young Engineers.  Come on board, check it out, if we like you etc. agree to stay five years and we'll pick up your student loans.  Lets see, MIT, RPI et al about $30k/yr X 5 years; OK, I'll take the deal.

Our daughter in law got a similar deal.  Work in the school system for 10 years and we'll pick up student loans that qualify.  She starts year 10 in September.  Well, we don't do that anymore.  You and your husband make too much money AND you've been making you loan payments all along, so the deal's off.

She gave up a private practice on the side and more lucrative offers just to knock out the student loans.  Ah well, they decided to do the last year so she gets some kind of retirement from it later and she enjoys teaching.  May take a gig at a college.

There's always the part of private practice where you make house calls (psychiatry), same license no overhead.

OK, carry on.

Dan

Oh, thank you Department of Education.

Close family friend taught for several years on a Navajo reservation for a miniscule salary to qualify for the loan forgiveness. Same outcome.

That's scummy, I wish I could say I was surprised though. Was the loan repayment written into her contact with terms or was this just a verbal agreement?

RevRico said:

That's scummy, I wish I could say I was surprised though. Was the loan repayment written into her contact with terms or was this just a verbal agreement?

This, seems like it could be worth taking the employer to court over.

Sounds like breach of contract.  

I would be on the phone to a attorney. 

This is probably the federal loan forgiveness program. 

My wife had the option to qualify for it when she started her career (Dietitian at a Non-profit, teaching hospital). It took me about 5-10 hours of research to figure out that either we didn't/wouldn't qualify when the time came, or else it would have ended up costing us the same/more because of... well, I can't remember what it was anymore, but in any case when you actually crunched the numbers it didn't make sense FOR US.

Congrats to them on making too much money, and having them partially paid down though!

There was a stat NPR quoted a few months ago that 99% of Department of Education loan forgiveness applications are rejected.

It's basically a sham and, quite frankly, berkeleying embarrassing that our system actually operates this way. The benefit is supposed incentivize teachers to more readily accept work in poverty stricken, or low income, areas in order to more equitably distribute quality teachers.

There's currently a lawsuit in progress by the Mass AG. I'm sure New York isn't far behind but you may want to call your AG's office and find out.

I think I read something that of 40,000 student loan forgiveness applications only a few hundred had been granted last year. 

The numbers that NPR quoted was 29K applied and 289 accepted. It's a shame too. That is a big benefit for a lot of people. To basically have the rug pulled out from them is a sham. :(

Not sure if this is the same program as the NPR feature a few weeks ago...but people were supposed to file an annual renewal form.  Many of these renewals were lost, "received late" or even had clerical errors made by the administrator.   Even if it's the administrator's fault, the people were dropped from the program.   It sounded like a political operatives found a way to informally terminate the program.

Live & Learn as they say.  Do the next school year, find something that makes you happy.  Money concerns?   Ian's been on his own since 17 and pretty good at it.  She drives the CX-5 he owns, get rid of her lease, he drives something else.  (MB wagon?)  For six months of lease you can buy a $3000 something.

It's Connecticut.  Different standards, but she's coming around.

Yeah, >30,000 applicants, <300 accepted.   Welcome to the Gubbymint. 

Unless its a signed contract its worthless.  I got some loan repayment from the military, signed contract.  Sign on bonus with them, signed contact.  Retention bonus with them, signed contract.

Get a signed contract!

docwyte said:

Unless its a signed contract its worthless.  

Not in all states.  

Opportunities like where I worked are few and far between.  I disagree with "debt forgiveness"; you ate the meal, you pay the tab.  I really really disagree with the NY plan of free college for illegals, I pay taxes but have to pay for a community college while a law breaker gets a free ride. 

Not to throw kerosene on a fire, but interest free loans for college would be fair.  You're bettering yourself, your community and the lives of others by education, why be on the hook for the next 30 years?

OK, rant off.

Many companies would pay for a master's degree, provided a) a certain GPA was attained, and B) the degree was in something related to your job.  That's how I got my MS in Mechanical Engineering.  I'm surprised more private employers aren't offering something similar for paying for undergrad degrees- especially, as you note, since a 4 year BS in anything can run well into the 6 figures.  

Of course, leave it to the government, they'd probably figure out a way to tax it as a "benefit".  

It's the interest rate that kills us. I'm paying over 6%. Even during the recession it never dropped.

Man that sucks.  I hate to hear about things like this and pensions and such being pulled. You held up your end of the bargain, the organization has to hold up theirs. I was in a sales management job once and they told me that my commissions would have been too much so  they were changing my incentive package retroactively to pay me less.  I left in a matter of weeks.  

my wife also won't be getting her loan forgiveness...  Her sister got it a few years ago.  Seems to be a more recent change.  Lawyers seem to be hard hit as well.  The government was dangling this out there as a way to get more top lawyers to be public defenders...  Technically.. We were out of school before this was even a thing(so we went to school knowing that we would not have this at the end) but it was to be a nice benefit for all her years of putting up with garbage pay and me subsidizing classroom materials out of my pocket for your children...  But she's not doing this for the money...   /rant

From what I understand it's a new-ish DoE policy that leads to this. IIRC there are already a bunch of class action lawsuits pending...

914Driver said:

Opportunities like where I worked are few and far between.  I disagree with "debt forgiveness"; you ate the meal, you pay the tab.

Not to throw kerosene on a fire, but interest free loans for college would be fair.  You're bettering yourself, your community and the lives of others by education, why be on the hook for the next 30 years?

I honestly don't mind the government dangling a program out there like debt forgiveness. Tuition has been skyrocketing for quite some time now (as to why, that would flounder the thread) while pay for public servants has been pretty stagnant. To incentivize teachers, public defenders, et. al. to take a position that pays $30k-40k a year, instead of jumping into more lucrative private positions, you have to do something. Having the government pick up the tab for your education is a pretty good way to do that, which is why corporations also do it.

Normally I'm not a fan of trickle down anything, but there is a net positive effect for lower income areas being able to hire enough teachers or a public defenders office actually being fully staffed so the accused has sufficient representation.

The problem is that even community college has reached the point where you can't realistically get out without any debt without the assistance of generational wealth, being the philanthropic face of an organization, or being an elite sportsball player. That's a major problem for a lot of students, but its a particularly thorny issue for minority students due to a number of various socioeconomic sins committed in this country against those segments of the population.

I'm really pushing it right up against the line here so I'll stop there.

In summary: An educated populace has a net positive effect on society and due process is only assured to the accused when the resources exist to ensure it happens. Tax dollars fund both those initiatives. Loan forgiveness facilitates the ability to recruit talent to achieve those initiatives.

BoxheadTim said:

From what I understand it's a new-ish DoE policy that leads to this. IIRC there are already a bunch of class action lawsuits pending...

Yes, just to clarify, this is all due to changes in policy by the Department of Education. It's not a private employer issue.

Elections have consequences.

BoxheadTim said:

From what I understand it's a new-ish DoE policy that leads to this. IIRC there are already a bunch of class action lawsuits pending...

There's a direct correlation between the Devos tenure and what's going on currently with student loan forgiveness program. To the point where a number of analysts have outright blamed her for it. It also ties into why there's so much effort going into defanging the CFPB by the rest of the current administration.

In reply to The0retical :

Agree 100%

I'm trying to be careful about the flounder rule, but you nailed it. Thank you for your post.