STUDENTS

Loan Forgiveness Program Sees Changes

In early May, after Dean Joseph S. Nye, Jr. asked for their help in coming up with alternative ways to fund the school’s struggling Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP), students took up the challenge, turning to key alumni and to each other.

“By and large, we have focused our efforts on contacting the members of DALC [the Dean’s Alumni Leadership Council] and current recipients of LRAP funds,” said Cory Claussen MPP 2004, one of the leaders in the campaign.

Students also decided to make this year’s class gift a donation to the program, says Bridger McGaw MPA 2004.

“Dean Nye and President Summers suggested that we use the class gift as an opportunity to raise awareness of the program and show our unified support for this type of financial assistance,” he said. “Our goal is to have 100 percent of the class of 2004 giving this year.”

In March, the school announced that the loan program, which provides financial assistance to graduates working in low paying public service jobs, would have to impose a three-year time commitment to help students pay back their debt because of budget constraints. Previously, there was no time cap on the program and qualified graduates could receive funding for the life of the loan.

The program was established in 1987 as a way to encourage students to pursue careers in the public sector despite salaries that are often lower than jobs in the private sector. To be eligible, single students initially had to make $32,000 or less. In 2001, Nye raised the income level for single students to $50,000. This decision, in part, increased the number of eligible students (from 11 to 65 this year) and boosted the program’s expenses (from $46,000 to $250,000).

When the cutback was initially announced in March, students pitched tents near the tennis courts, wore buttons and t-shirts in protest, and asked to meet with Nye. In April, he agreed to grandfather current students into the loan program’s previous pay structure.

McGaw said he is optimistic that Kennedy School graduates will see the importance of making sure that funding for the loan program continues.

“We are taking on that challenge with the hope that alumni and donors will see that supporting the career path of a graduate of the Kennedy School who is committed to solving difficult problems facing the world for little to no salary is worth donating to,” he says. “Unlike graduates of the Law School or Business School, our graduates don’t need to be coerced with financial aid to go into public service, they just need help paying their bills.”