From Time:

A new report has found that 51% of bachelor’s degree recipients from public and private schools have student loan debt, with an average balance of $29,400 per borrower. Despite the US Supreme Court striking down the Biden administration’s primary student loan forgiveness plan, there are several other paths available to get relief from loans. President Joe Biden had promised to forgive some student debt, but the Supreme Court ruled his first plan unconstitutional. Currently, there are several ongoing federal student loan forgiveness programs, including income-driven repayment forgiveness, public service loan forgiveness, teacher loan forgiveness, and Perkins loan cancellation. Additionally, there are six loan discharge programs for federal loan borrowers, including bankruptcy discharge, borrower defense to repayment discharge, closed school discharge, death discharge, false certification discharge, and forgery discharge. It is difficult to qualify for bankruptcy discharge for student loans, but not impossible. To qualify, you must show the bankruptcy court that repaying your loans would cause you undue hardship, meaning you couldn’t maintain a minimal standard of living, the hardship will continue for several years, and you’ve made good faith efforts to repay the loan before declaring bankruptcy. Borrower defense to repayment discharge can apply if your college or university misled you or engaged in other misconduct and violated state laws and if you are eligible, some or all of your federal loans will be discharged. If your college closes while you’re enrolled or within 180 days after you withdrew, you may be eligible for a closed school discharge. Also, with some loans, the borrower’s estate is responsible for the loan even if the borrower passes away but with federal loans, the loan is protected by death discharge. If the borrower or student dies, the loan balance is discharged. Finally, if a school falsely certified your eligibility for student loans or if your identity was stolen and fraudulent loans taken out in your name, you could qualify for discharge of your loans under forgery discharge. People with Perkins loans can potentially qualify for loan cancellation based on their employment or volunteer service. Teachers can get up to 100% of their Perkins loans forgiven if they work full-time in a public or non-profit elementary or secondary school in one of the following roles: teachers at schools that serve low-income families, special education teachers, and teachers of high-need subjects, such as science, mathematics, or foreign languages. And some forms of employment or volunteer service can allow you to qualify for cancellation of some or all of your Perkins student loans. If you are one of the more than 43 million borrowers with outstanding federal student loans, you may qualify for a loan forgiveness program. These programs require several years of service and/or on-time payments, and after meeting the program’s requirements, the remainder of your loans are eliminated. To address this problem, President Joe Biden promised during his campaign that he would work to forgive some student debt. But in June, the Supreme Court ruled his first plan unconstitutional, which called for up to $20,000 of loan forgiveness per borrower. The Biden administration is now pursuing a more limited plan to offer some loan forgiveness. The details on this plan are still being worked out through a regulatory process called negotiated rulemaking, and it may be several more months until we know the specifics of who is eligible for what, but there will be fewer student loan borrowers eligible for under this plan. If you are one of the more than 43 million borrowers with outstanding federal student loans, you may qualify for a loan forgiveness program. These programs require several years of service and/or on-time payments and, after meeting the programs’ requirements, the remainder of your loans are eliminated. If you still have a balance at the end of your income-driven repayment (IDR) loan term, the government will forgive the remainder of your loans. The length of the repayment period depends on the IDR plan and the type of degree you pursued. There are multiple IDR plans, including a new, more generous plan the Biden launched in 2022 as the pandemic-era payment pause was ending. The plans vary in terms of time in repayment, percentage of income, and their definitions of discretionary income. PSLF is a federal loan forgiveness program for workers who choose careers with government agencies or non-profit organizations rather than for-profit companies, and it provides loan forgiveness for workers who choose low-paying jobs in public service. Teacher loan forgiveness provides education loan forgiveness to teachers for working at least five years in certain schools or educational service agencies. The Perkins loan program is no longer in effect, but borrowers with existing federal Perkins loans can potentially qualify for loan cancellation based on their employment or volunteer service. Additionally, federal loan borrowers may qualify for discharge of their existing loans through various federal programs, including bankruptcy discharge, borrower defense to repayment discharge, closed school discharge, death discharge, false certification discharge, and forgery discharge.



Read more: How to Get Student Loan Forgiveness