The Nonprofit Student Debt Project is a CalNonprofits initiative to educate nonprofit staff and employers, advocate for public policy changes, and engage our community on the problem of student debt and its impact on the nonprofit workforce — and what we can do about it.

At the national level, we are focused on advocacy to improve the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF) so it can benefit more nonprofit workers with student debt. Through PSLF, after a nonprofit employee makes 120 payments on a qualified repayment plan, they can qualify for loan forgiveness. 

Beginning in October 2021, and for a limited time, borrowers may receive credit for past periods of repayment on loans that would otherwise not qualify for PSLF.

This and other changes are explored in "Accessing Public Service Loan Forgiveness," a webinar we held in partnership with the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) and the U.S. Department of Education. The slide deck from the webinar is here. You can also download the Student Debt Toolkit for Nonprofits here.

We're excited that CalNonprofits members now have access to our new partner Savi, an online platform that helps employees navigate the complexities of repayment and loan forgiveness options. Both free and premium plans are now available to all our members – both individuals with student loans and nonprofit employers who would like to offer this helpful resource as a benefit to their staff who need it. Get more details here. 

Everyone has heard about the student debt crisis – more than 46 million people owe more than $1.7 trillion in student debt, as of August 2019, and the numbers are only growing. In California, the average debt for an individual graduating from a four-year institution is $22,785. Learn more about the scope of the student debt crisis on the Chamber of Commerce's Student Debt Statistics website. We estimate that more than 160,000 nonprofit staff have student debt. A 2016 survey conducted by CalNonprofits confirmed that student debt is hurting recruitment, retention and diversity in the nonprofit workforce.

We encourage nonprofit leaders and staff to learn about the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and make sure they are - and remain - eligible for forgiveness.

 

Nonprofit employees:
Options for Public Service Loan Forgiveness

• FAQs about the public service loan forgiveness program for nonprofit employees with student debt
  

 

 

Nonprofit employers:
Tools for supporting your staff who have student debt

• Student Debt Toolkit for Nonprofits
• FAQs about how employers can support, retain and recruit staff through the public service loan forgiveness program

 

WEBINAR: Need to understand how the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program works? Watch our in-depth webinar where we explain the eligibility requirements and how this program can help nonprofit (and public sector) employees with their student debt. How Nonprofit Staff Can Get Student Debt Forgiveness

Read our recent articles about student debt and what we're doing about it in the Stanford Social Innovation Review and the Nonprofit Quarterly, Part 1 and Part 2.

CalNonprofits also supports improvements to state policies governing student debt and supported these California bills in 2020 and 2021:

AB 376 (Stone, 2020) established the Student Borrower Bill of Rights, which created a state student loan ombudsman to track borrower complaints and set up additional protections for borrowers.

AB 424 (Stone, 2021), established measures to protect student loan borrowers with private loans.

For more on these and other legislation that impacts California nonprofits please visit our Legislation Tracker.

More resources:

PSLF Temporary Waiver Factsheet - PSLF Coalition

Student Loan Bill of Right - CA Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI)

This initiative is made possible by a grant from the Fidelity Charitable Trustees’ Philanthropy Fund, by the foundations that support CalNonprofits with unrestricted funds, and by our more than 10,000 nonprofit members. Thanks also to our CalNonprofits Nonprofit Student Debt Taskforce, made of 20 people statewide from various job positions.