President Trump signed a federal spending bill that gives thousands of borrowers in public service jobs another chance to get out of debt from a one-time expansion of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program.

This program was created in 2007 to help student loan borrowers working in the public sector to have the remaining balance of their federal student loans forgiven if they made 120 consecutive payments. Other qualifications include making the payments on time and in full, working full-time for a qualifying employer, such as a federal or local government agency, or an eligible non-profit organization and being enrolled in a qualifying repayment program.

Since this program has strict criteria that have to be met in order to receive loan forgiveness, many borrowers in the past have experienced problems such as enrolling in the wrong repayment program. Many borrowers also complained about being misled by their servicer.

The spending bill which includes $350 million to help student loan borrowers on a first-come, first-serve basis, who discovered they are ineligible for debt forgiveness and also $2.3 million for outreach efforts to borrowers who would have qualified for loan forgiveness but mistakenly chose or were misled by their servicer into incorrect options.