After our January cover story "My Life, My Debt" appeared in NEA Today, more than 100 teachers and ESPs wrote in to share your own stories about student loan debt. Many wanted to know more about what could be done to alleviate their debt.

It's impossible to recommend a course of action for each member, but there are a few things that might help you immediately if you're grappling with student loan debt:

* With the passage of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, comes a new program called Income-Based Repayment. It will be available starting July 1, 2009, and will provide a formula that takes a person's income-to-debt ratio into account. That means a borrower will never have to pay more than 15 percent of his or her discretionary annual income towards student loan debt. Learn more about it here.

* Also, as of this past October 1, borrowers who work in public service positions--including teachers--are eligible to have their federal loans forgiven after ten years of qualifying payments. That program is called Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Even if your loans are bank-based (like those from Sallie Mae) you can look into moving those loans into a federal direct consolidation loan. Learn more about the lone forgiveness program and moving loans here.

* The Taxpayer-Teacher Protection Act authorizes up to $17,500 in loan forgiveness to eligible highly qualified math, science and special education teachers after teaching five years in a low-income school. It is available to new borrowers (teachers with no outstanding loan balances prior to October 1, 1998, who borrow eligible loans prior to October 1, 2005). For information on the program and to find out if you qualify for the loan forgiveness, call the Federal Student Aid Customer Service hotline at 1-800-433-7327.

* To see a chart of how individual states' student loan rates stack up with one another, check here.

* Through its lobbying and "College Affordability Concerns Me" campaign, NEA continues to advocate for legislation that will make it easier to consolidate loans and get aid. For example, thanks in part to pressure on legislators by NEA members mobilized by the affordability campaign, a troubling amendment that would have given student loan companies more than $4 billion at the expense of the grant aid to students was left out of the final version of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act.   

NEA Student Program Chairman Anthony Daniels is touring college campuses around the country this year, urging students to register and vote based on such education priorities as student loan forgiveness. Daniels is also meeting with student group leaders around the country to build a coalition of organizations that will help in the fight for assistance with student loans. And NEA continues working nationwide for a $40,000 starting salary for all teachers.

Even though so many people's debt situation is dire, some readers of "My Life, My Debt" took encouragement from their Association's work to alleviate the burden. Writes Amber Braton of Barnesville, Minnesota: "It was refreshing to read that this issue is being raised with legislators and that there are people who are fighting for teachers."


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