Taking Action on Nonprofit Student Debt
The Nonprofit Student Debt Project is a CalNonprofits initiative to educate and inform nonprofit staff and employers about the crisis of student debt and its impact on the nonprofit workforce, to advocate for public policy changes, and engage our community on solutions.
2024 Nonprofit Student Debt Survey
The crisis of student debt continues to have serious implications for the nonprofit sector, an issue confirmed by our new 2024 Nonprofit Student Debt Survey. We learned that people of color still carry an inequitable share of student debt burden, that student debt is a roadblock to nonprofit careers, the PSLF program is seriously underused, and more.
Offering an employer student loan repayment program to your staff is one of the key recommendations from this new Student Debt Survey. To support that, CalNonprofits has partnered with Highway Benefits to help our members easily offer tax-free educational assistance benefits, including employer student loan repayment and tuition reimbursement. CalNonprofits members will receive a discount of $500 off their implementation fee of $1,000 when signing up to offer this new employee benefit through Highway; the implementation fee is completely waived if any members sign up before February 1, 2025.
We strongly encourage nonprofit leaders and staff to learn about the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and make sure they are – and remain – eligible for forgiveness. Watch this space for coming updates, new toolkits, and more! There have been many changes since PSLF was introduced in 2007, particularly in just the past year.
In particular, we are focused on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF) as a vital resource for the nonprofit sector. PSLF offers loan forgiveness to staff of nonprofit organizations after 120 payments are made on a qualified repayment plan.
What’s in the works
We’ve assembled a task force of knowledgeable advisors to help us supercharge awareness and expand knowledge about the PSLF program and other debt relief options as a way to empowering the wider nonprofit community. In addition to the release of our new Nonprofit Student Debt Survey, in the coming months we will:
- Hold a webinar on the topic
- Offer a new toolkit for both employers and employees
We are excited to have the contributions of this new group, the members of which represent:
Barrio Logan College Institute San Diego
California Black Power Network
College Access Plan
Elbow Room The Movement to End Student Debt
Mission Scholars Santa Barbara
NextGen
OneJustice SF
Junior Achievement of Southern California
SoCal Grantmakers
