http : XXXX? XXXX & XXXX & XXXX & XXXX & XXXX Imagine if one notice from the federal government could cause you to question your major life decisions. 

More than half a million people may have found themselves in that situation after a new legal filing by the Education Department. 

Under a program known as Public Service Loan Forgiveness, some student loan borrowers were supposed to be able to have the balance of their student loans forgiven after ten years of both on-time payments and eligible work in the public sector. Meaning, a qualifying nonprofit, federal, local, state, or tribal government. 

The program started in 2007, so the first debt was set to be forgiven this coming fall. 

Last year a small group of borrowers learned that their eligibility for the program had revoked. These include four people, all attorneys, working for the XXXX, the XXXX, and XXXX. 


Student Loan Debt Has Nearly Tripled In The Last Decade NPR Ed A New Look At The Lasting Consequences Of Student Debt Nonprofits like these are not 501 ( c ) 3 charities or foundations, so it may be ambiguous whether they fall under the law 's definition of " public service ''. But the four argued in a lawsuit last XXXX, joined by the bar association itself, that their status should n't have been revoked, certainly not retroactively. 

They had followed all the necessary steps to qualify for forgiveness. They 'd enrolled in the correct repayment program and filled out an Employment Certification Form with XXXX, which acts on behalf of the Education Department. That form certifies that borrowers work for a qualifying organization or a federal, state, tribal or city agency. It 's suggested borrowers file an ECF every year. 





On XXXX, the department responded to the suit, saying, " XXXX XXXX 's response to the ECF does not reflect a final agency action on the borrower 's qualifications for PSLF. '' Meaning, in essence, all those years that borrowers submitted certification forms, the department was n't making any promises about forgiveness. 

Technically, the department is only responding to the narrow question about whether this small category of organizations is considered public service or not. However, " The retroactive aspect of this filing reasonably causes people to be nervous, '' says XXXX, a senior fellow at the XXXX and a former Deputy Undersecretary of Education under Obama, where he was responsible for overseeing the program during its early years. 

Nervous is right. More than half a million borrowers have signed up for the program. So we put the word out to find out how they were feeling. We heard " frightened, '' " anxious, '' " uncertainty, '' " regret, '' " betrayed. '' XXXX, who works for a nonprofit providing legal services to the elderly in XXXX, Idaho, has about {$80000.00} in debt. Like many borrowers, she told us, " A lot of my life-planning decisions were made factoring the loan forgiveness into the equation. '' She says she turned down higher-paying jobs in the private sector, for example. " I would feel very betrayed, for both myself and my XXXX sons, if this program is taken away, '' she says. " I would likely end up paying on my loans until I was in my XXXX and would have no ability to save for retirement or to help pay for my children 's college. '' XXXX is a parole officer in Texas with about {$30000.00} in loans. " It 's horrible, '' he writes, " because I was really depending on that to move on with my life and I do n't know what I 'm going to do. '' Not only have many people made financial and career decisions based on the program, some told us they avoided gettin