Proposed Changes to Student Loan Forgiveness Program Has Chilling Effect on Law Students and Public Service Attorneys
9.30.2025
A recent executive order proposing regulatory changes to student loan forgiveness for those who work in public service is having a chilling effect on law students who want to enter public service and those lawyers working in the field.
A webinar hosted by the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Access to Justice and the Committee on Legal Aid included representatives from the University at Buffalo School of Law and Albany Law School, as well as legal service providers concerned about the impact on their staff and ability to recruit in the future.
March 7 Executive Order
The executive order signed by President Trump looks to reshape the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program by limiting the type of public service work eligible for loan forgiveness. The order states “individuals employed by organizations whose activities have a substantial illegal purpose shall not be eligible for public service loan forgiveness.” The order cites activities such as abetting illegal immigration, supporting terrorism or violent protests, and facilitating gender-affirming healthcare as grounds for exclusion from debt relief.
The order does not change the debt relief program immediately but starts the regulatory rules change process through the U.S. Department of Education. The existing loan forgiveness program remains in place until the new rules are finalized, which could take up to two years.
The Impact on Public Service Providers
The proposed changes may affect borrowers who work for nonprofits dealing with civil rights, immigrant rights or climate change, who fear they will be disqualified from the program. They are caught in a difficult position: stay with a cause they’re passionate about and risk losing student debt relief, or switch to a “safer” public service job to ensure their loans are forgiven.
Vivian Storm with Long Island Legal Services Corporation said the high cost of living causes some of her staff to take on second jobs and use the services of their own agency. Now with loan forgiveness at risk, she said it feels like they are gambling with their futures.
Jennifer Storm of the Legal Project in Schenectady, which primarily serves victims of domestic violence, agrees.
“The changes to this program will impede our ability to provide high quality representation to our clients.”
Law Students Pivot Away from Public Service
Jamila Lee, vice dean of student affairs at University at Buffalo School of Law, said the state’s only public law school attracts many first-generation law students, who planned to enter public service to take advantage of debt relief. They come from disadvantaged communities and want to return home after law school to help their neighbors in need.
“The loan forgiveness allows people to think about law school who would never consider it possible,” she added. “It promises you a quality of life. Now they have to pivot to firm life to get financial freedom after law school.”
New York State Bar Association member and Albany Law School professor Sarah Rogerson said more than half of the 2024 graduating class entered public service.
“Our students are choosing to serve others in lieu of higher paying jobs in the private sector,” she said. “Now they may choose income over interest at the expense of their well-being.”
Lee is concerned that students moving away from public interest law will have damaging consequences.
“If this [change] takes full effect, over the next 30 years the need for attorneys who can understand and have a connection to marginalized communities will grow,” she said. “We won’t have attorneys who can empathize and understand what clients are going through.”
NYSBA Support
The New York State Bar Association supports the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program and supports legislation to expand the eligibility period for indigent legal service attorneys to receive certain loan forgiveness.
As one of our legislative priorities, NYSBA supports increasing loan reimbursement for certain attorneys who work in legal services with indigent clients. This policy is based on the recommendations found in the Report of the New York State Bar Association Task Force on Rural Justice, April 2020, which noted the then growing crisis of fewer attorneys in rural and poor urban areas thus leading to an inability to access the justice system. For the foreseeable future NYSBA will continue to advocate for this at the federal and state levels.
