A week ago Heather Jarvis, a student loan expert, went public with a new website that offers a wealth of information about student loan repayment. If you plan to utilize the IBR and PSLF program you may want to follow her blog.
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http://askheatherjarvis.com
LRAP application check list for continuing participants
Checklist FOR CONTINUING PARTICIPANTS
- Employment verification, and a copy of a published job description if you changed your job or responsibilities
- For private loans, a current statement that shows your current balance, capitalized interest, interest rate, and monthly payment amount verification.
Sign up for Electronic Funds Transfer by following the EFT authorization instructions for UC Berkeley vendors. Please notify us of changes (address or employment change and/or pay increase) immediately by email and check the LRAP website for more details.
LRAP Fall 2011 application deadline
The deadline for Fall 2011 LRAP is May 1 and our online application is now available.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) and IBR
The following websites are great resources for more detailed information from the Department of Education about the federal PSLF and IBR:
Monthly Student Loan Payments
Do you want to figure out what your monthly student loan payments are going to be?
FinAid.org has a loan consolidation calculator which allows you to enter several student loans with various interest rates and repayment plans.
LRAP 2010 cancellation application
The deadline for LRAP Spring and Fall 2010 cancellation is on February 28, 2011.
LRAP documentation requirements:
· Employment verification: Documentation that you remained in qualifying employment.
· Monthly payments: You must provide your payment history by downloading a copy of your account statement from your lender onto your computer and converting it to a PDF file. It is not acceptable to copy a segment of the statement and send it in the form of a Word document.
· Qualifying payments: Only your payments within a LRAP cycle (Jan 1 – June 30 and July 1 – Dec 31) qualify for cancellation. Payments made before or after a cycle will not be applied. LRAP guidelines mandate that you are enrolled in a structured repayment plan. To take maximum advantage of the LRAP, participants in the Standard Track are required to structure the repayment of their debt with a standard 10-year repayment plan.
The amount of LRAP loans forgiven will be no more than the actual scheduled loan payments made and based on your actual income. Participants cannot apply for a LRAP loan based on a 10-year repayment schedule, make payments that are less than that, and expect the entire LRAP loan to be forgiven.
LRAP Benefits for Civil Legal Assistance Attorneys: First-Come, First-Served
Re-posted from “LRAP News & Announcements” June 2010:
LRAP Benefits for Civil Legal Assistance Attorneys: First-Come, First-Served
Equal Justice Works reports that a new Federal loan repayment assistance program for civil legal aid attorneys is going to become available soon. The new program is called the Civil Legal Assistance Attorney Student Loan Repayment Program (CLAAP) and will assist already licensed graduates in the field of civil legal assistance with the repayment of eligible federal student loans. The attorneys will need to work full-time and remain employed for three years.
An attorney may be awarded up to $6,000 in repayment assistance in 2010 (actually received in 2011), and may be prioritized to receive assistance in future years if Congress continues to fund the program. An attorney may receive a lifetime maximum of $40,000 in assistance.
This program has been funded with five million dollars for the fiscal year 2010. The Department of Education will commit these funds to eligible civil legal assistance attorneys on a first-come, first-served basis.
Applications are expected to be due August 16, 2010. The date that applications will be available is unknown, but should be soon. Eligible attorneys should complete the application as soon as it is available because funds are unlikely to cover all applicants.
If you are enrolled in IBR and plan to apply for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness after 10 years of public service, please be aware of the ineligibility double-benefit clause pertaining to the loan repayment assistance program for civil legal aid attorneys and PSLF under CCRAA. Details are listed at Equal Justice Works.
The impact of CLAAP on LRAP support depends on your loan portfolio and repayment plan.
Welcome!
Welcome to Berkeley Law’s Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP) blog!