In 2007, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program was started to encourage more recent graduates to join the public sector.

The program is unique in that it does the following:

allows public servants (like teachers, law enforcement officials, government workers, public health workers, and more) and employees at 501(c)(3) nonprofits to see the remainder of their federal student loan debt forgiven after 10 years of repayments.

However, according to the Obama administration’s 2015 budget—that has limits.

not necessarily

 

In other words, if you take federal loans to go to a very pricey liberal arts college—you won’t get all of your debt forgiven.

The budget caps that amount at $57,500. So if you still have more than that after 10 years—that’s the limit of what will be forgiven.

The PSLF lets you qualify even if you only make minimum payments (which, if you want to obtain a public sector job and your debt will be forgiven after 10 years, makes simple sense). However, due to interest rates, you may still owe nearly the same amount.

According to Boston.com:

it’s imminently possible for somebody making payments under PSLF to see their debt basically stand still or even increase over the 10 years of payments.

It remains to be seen if the proposal passes. But if it does—the incentive to get rid of student loan debt by becoming a teacher may vanish.