<p>Does anyone have any information regarding this? If someone was willing to take less money to work in poverty law and could make their loans IBR, then perhaps this would be the way to do it?</p>
<p>I found reference to it on Duke Law's website.</p>
<p>Student</a> Aid on the Web</p>
<p>Every T14 school has this program. I’m sure a number of lower-ranked schools do too. The devil’s in the details (e.g. phase out limit, what types of jobs qualify, etc.).</p>
<p>Is there anyone who has experience with such a program?</p>
<p>many schools, especially in the T14, have loan forgiveness programs. Also, like you saw, if you put your federal loans on IBR and do 10 years of work for a nonprofit, the remaining loans are forgiven. I use both programs, and they’re great. It would be much, much harder to do my job without them, and would cross homeownership and kids completely off my list if I did stay in public interest.</p>
<p>with that said…</p>
<ul>
<li><p>people shouldn’t do public interest if they don’t love it just for loan forgiveness…you’d get a lot richer working at a firm and paying all your loans back.</p></li>
<li><p>10 years is a long time…if you think you’re going to get 10 years of experience there and then switch to the for-profit world, it’s unlikely. </p></li>
<li><p>getting public interest jobs is pretty competitive and requires a specific skill set.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>not to discourage folks (I adore my job!) but just to give some info.</p>
<p>@stacy:</p>
<p>Thank you for responding. What, specifically, is defined as public interest? The website for the PSLF is very general, indicating that the work for a 501(c)(3) or government agency can be a variety of areas. So, would a person who was interested in such things be able to work in any of a number of charitable areas and have it considered “public interest” law? Or is there something specific? I know that the public defender organizations around here are all 501(c)(3)s.</p>
<p>I also have another question related to this. I’m looking at a possible internship with a non-profit which focuses on helping minorities in Seattle with a variety of issues, sort of like a non-profit legal clinic/resource clinic. I’m a certified paralegal who is a Jr. at UW and I wonder what would happen if I were to take a position at a firm as a paralegal and would enter into a IBR, and then decide that I wanted to take night school law school. Would the time that I was making the repayments under IBR factor into the 120 for the PSLF, or would it reset after going back to school?</p>
<p>Seattle has an issue that I find to be appalling that may or may not be unique to this city. There used to be written into the title deeds of certain properties that people of certain races could not live in or own the deeds to the land. To my understanding 30+ years ago all of these things were rendered to be illegal and they lost legal force. But, due to a legacy of these deeds, there are still specific areas with very high Latino and Black populations; many of which are experiencing significant gentrification. If someone doesn’t help many of these people could literally see themselves ‘punked’ (for lack of a better word) out of their dwellings and traditional family homes they’ve had for years. Sort of a Kelo v New London situation. </p>
<p>I haven’t decided this is 100% where I want to go yet. Even if I decide to go be a capitalist pig, I would be donating to non-profits such as this to try to protect people’s rights. I would just like to know that I could have the economic freedom to help the less fortunate/rich/connected.</p>
<p>My understanding is that they’re quite broad about what counts as public service and that all nonprofits and governments count. Also, I think the 120 goes per loan, so if you made 40 payments on your paralegal school loans while in qualifying employment, then went to law school, you’d need to make 120 qualifying payments on the law school loans and only 80 more payments on the paralegal loans to get forgiveness on whatever’s left. Of course, you should verify this!</p>
<p>I owed no loans from my Associate of Applied Science in Paralegal Studies, nor from my Associate of Arts & Sciences degrees but I will owe around $14k by the time I graduate with my BS/BA.</p>
<p>If the situation is as you assume, then it would make sense to go straight to grad school, but otherwise I should see about trying to get int the fight as soon as I can.</p>
<p>But, as you state in a prior post, working in the private sector and earning money could actually help these causes more if I was able to donate resources and time I’d culled from being a productive member of industry.</p>
<p>A lot to think about. Thanks for helping.</p>