T. Camille Moman inquired regarding the education award and her's what she found.

T. Camille Moman
NCALL Research, Inc

I spoke to someone at Direct consolidation yesterday about this program and here is what I found out.

You must have a Federal Direct Loan to qualify....but if you don't, you may do a Federal Direct Consolidation of your current loans.

With Federal Direct Loans you may chose from a income based payment (best plan) , income contingent payment, or standard payment.  You may not have the Income Sensitive Plan if you are planning to apply for public forgiveness.

Once you have your Direct Loan you will have to make 120 payments (10 years) and then apply for the Public Forgiveness.  Once apply they will verify you have been working for an tax exempt 501 (c) organization and you balance will be forgiven.

I also asked about our Education Award and how it could be best applied.

She said it would be best to take the following steps:

Consolidate into Federal Direct.

Place into forbearance until the end of my term of service

Verify account is eligible for prepayment

Have the full payment applied (this would advance payments so if your standard payment is $400 it would post 11.87 payments automatically)

Then apply for the income based plan and continue making payments.

Accounts that are setup for electronic withdrawal, are in deferment, a grace period, forbearance, are not eligible for prepay

Also accounts in income based or income contingent payment plans are not eligible for prepay.

The phone number is 1-800-557-7392

website is http://www2.ed.gov/offices/OSFAP/DirectLoan/index.html