Hi, my name is Justin Draeger, spokesperson for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. I am going to be talking to you about successful student loan re-payment and student loan forgiveness programs.

Host: What is student loan forgiveness?

Justin Draeger: In some instances, the Federal Government provides programs that will forgive or cancel out a portion of your student loan balance. In those instances, generally, you have to do - meet several criteria. You have to perform volunteer work or a work in the public interest or in some sort of public service job, perform a military service or volunteer service, a teacher practice medicine and certain types of communities or meet other criteria specified by the forgiveness program. The most common types of forgiveness programs are probably, the Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program which is available to students who become full time teachers in elementary or secondary school and that those students from low income families. Another popular loan program is the Pubic Service Loan Forgiveness Program which is new, it began in October 2007. It is offered to the students working in a public service job which generally means for the government or a public non profit. There are also a lot of other well not technically forgiveness programs, organizations that offers assistance to borrowers in paying off their loans, that includes the military, through Military Service Loan Forgiveness, a Marine Corp, Peace Corp, and other volunteer based organizations, private entities like private employer sometimes offer loan forgiveness or loan re-payment provision and state agencies, a lot of states offer programs where there are high needs like in science technology, engineering or math or in nursing that are looking for students to go into those fields and if you do and meet their criteria they will offer you some loan forgiveness.