The Education Department on Wednesday announced a sweeping overhaul to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that will immediately erase the debt of 22,000 borrowers to the tune of $1.7 billion. The government estimated another 27,000 borrowers could see about $2.8 billion in debts forgiven if they prove they were employed in an eligible job. The changes are designed to let borrowers correct errors and count payments they were trying to make toward the program. That should shorten the amount of time more than 550,000 borrowers – those who have already consolidated their loans – are required to make payments to qualify for forgiveness, the government said. The promise of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program was supposed to be simple. If college graduates were willing to forgo the private sector’s lucrative pay and work instead as a teacher, police officer or government worker, any federal student debt they had after 10 years of payments would be forgiven. The program has proven anything but forgiving. More than a decade after its inception in 2007, thousands upon thousands of borrowers have applied for forgiveness. The federal government has rejected nearly all of them. Now that is supposed to change, starting this fall. #loanforgiveness #studentloans