WASHINGTON – The federal government promised college students in 2007 that if they took their degrees and went into a public service profession, they could apply to have whatever student loan debts they still had after 10 years forgiven.
So far, the reality has been somewhat different.
When the first 29,000 applications were filed with the Department of Education last year, just 96 were OK’d, an approval rate of 0.33 percent.