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Spreading the word: Anne Watkins, Cristher Estrada Perez, Leslie Blatteau at WNHH FM.
Over 100,000 teachers, nurses, custodians, and other public-service workers in Connecticut have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to wipe out tens of thousands of dollars in student debt — if they take action by Oct. 31.
A New Haven-based nonprofit is working hard to get that word out and help people take advantage of the opportunity before the window closes.
The group is called the Student Loan Fund. It formed in 2019 to help people have their debts canceled through the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which wipes out debt for qualifying people who have made 10 years of monthly payments while working for nonprofits or government agencies.
Many people were turned down by the program in part because the program wasn’t run well. That’s why the program offered debt-burdened public service workers a year — starting last October — to refile applications or file for the first time to have debt wiped out.
But most eligible people don’t even know they have that option. Less than 1 percent of the 110,000 eligible people in the state have taken advantage of the program, said Student Loan Fund Executive Director Cristher Estrada Perez.
“You have worked for this,” she said during an interview Tuesday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
Click here to learn more about how to access the opportunity and to get help from the Student Loan Fund in doing so.
Teachers in particular need to know about this opportunity, said New Haven Federation of Teachers President Leslie Blatteau. Teachers often need to go into debt to obtain master’s degrees and then are paid less than their counterparts with similar levels of higher education, Blatteau noted. So she has begun spreading the word at union meetings. As if on cue, two stewards — one a Conte-West Hills Teacher, one a High School in the Community teacher — spoke up at one such recent meeting to report that they had taken advantage of the new opportunity and were freed from $20,000 and $50,000 respectively, Blatteau reported.
“That’s a raise to them, she said.
This program is separate from the broader student debt relief recently enacted by the Biden Administration.
Click on the play arrow to watch the full interview on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven" with Student Loan Fund Executive Director Cristher Estrada Perez, Fund founder Anne Watkins, and teachers union President Leslie Blatteau. Click here to subscribe to “Dateline” and here to subscribe to other WNHH FM podcasts.