Your Guide to Loan Forgiveness Programs for Teachers
Everything you need to know to get your loans paid for.
Author: Brooke Selg
- Loan forgiveness
- How-To
Everything you need to know to get your loans paid for.
Author: Brooke Selg
Teachers have options when it comes to student loan forgiveness. That means you don’t have to pay your loans back! Find out about programs just for teachers so you don’t miss out on huge amounts of financial relief.
In this article you’ll find:
The short answer is yes! You might hear words like loan forgiveness, cancellation and discharge. They basically mean the same thing: You might not have to pay back some or all of your student loans!
To receive loan forgiveness, you’ll generally commit to teaching for a certain number of years, or in a certain subject or type of school.
Getting loan forgiveness depends on your loan type, how long you’ve been teaching and a few other things. There are four main loan forgiveness programs for teachers. Three are federal through the Department of Education, and one is state-specific.
The most common way to get your student loans forgiven is through Public Service Loan Forgiveness. This program rewards people in public service careers. That includes teachers!
If you make your student loan payments on time for ten years (or 120 payments) and work full-time in teaching or other public service, you can apply to have the remaining balance of your loans forgiven. You won’t have to pay them back.
There are a few requirements:
Direct loans are federal loans. The U.S. Department of Education offers these loans. Direct loans are different from private student loans, which you might borrow from a bank or other financial institution.
Eligible Loans:
Ineligible Loans:
You can visit the Federal Student Aid website to learn more and see if you qualify for loan forgiveness through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.
The Teacher Loan Forgiveness program offers teachers in low-income schools or high-needs subjects options for loan forgiveness.
Highly qualified special education, math, and science teachers can get up to $17,500 of their federal loans canceled. Other teachers can still qualify for up to $5,000.
To qualify, you have to:
A Federal Family Education loan is sometimes called a Stafford loan. These student loans haven’t been issued since July 1, 2010. Student loans from the federal government are now made through the Direct Loan program.
Perkins Loan cancellation is for teachers who teach at a school identified as low-income. State education agencies identify low-income schools in their state and report them to a national database.
You can also qualify if you teach math, science, special education, bilingual education, foreign languages or another shortage area subject. Your state may have different subject areas that qualify, so be sure to look into the specifics where you teach.
In North Carolina, there are a few state-sponsored loan forgiveness programs.
The North Carolina Teaching Fellowship helps aspiring teachers pay for their college education. You can receive up to $10,000 a year in forgivable student loans.
If you plan to teach elementary education K-6, special education or STEM (that’s science, technology, engineering and math) you could be eligible!
For your end of the deal, you have to commit to teaching in NC schools for a certain number of years. For each year you receive the Fellowship award, you’ll teach for one year in a school identified as “low-performing” or two years in another NC school. Learn more.
North Carolina also has the Forgivable Education Loans for Service program. This program is for teachers who commit to teaching in a shortage subject area in NC public schools. You can get up to $14,000 of your loans repaid if you're eligible!
Visit TeachNC’s CFNC Forgivable Education Loans for Service page to learn more.
You can also find tons of valuable tips for paying for your teaching program in TeachNC’s Finances Guide.