According to a new report from the Office of Legislative Research (OLR) and Office of Fiscal Analysis (OFA), 15% of Connecticut residents are in student loan debt, with an average debt of $35,681 per person.
With over 540,000 borrowers, this equates to around $19.3 billion of unpaid student loan debt in Connecticut. The state has the fifth-highest average amount of debt per undergraduate, with $35,853 for the class of 2020.
While over 300,000 Connecticut residents had applied for President Joe Biden’s student loan debt relief program, which would allow up to $20,000 of federal student loan debt forgiveness, the Supreme Court struck down the program by a vote of 6-3 this past summer in Biden v. Nebraska.
Connecticut, meanwhile, has several student loan forgiveness and reimbursement incentive programs set in law directed toward residents.
This past June, Connecticut’s General Assembly took up and passed a $6 million commitment over two years to establish a pilot program that would reimburse qualifying residents up to $20,000 for student loan payments.
To qualify for the pilot program, recipients must be current residents of Connecticut who have lived in-state for at least five years, have attended a vocational school or college in Connecticut, and have an annual income under $125,000 for an individual and $175,000 for a couple.
The pilot program makes reimbursements to recipients of up to $5,000 a year for up to four years.
Recipients must also complete 50 hours of community service at a nonprofit and submit proof of eligibility each year they participate in the program.
Payments are provided on a first-come, first-serve basis.
While the pilot program is the most robust in terms of the amount of money offered to residents, other programs offer reimbursement grants and loan forgiveness ranging from $2,500 to $5,000 per year.
In a separate OLR report, each program is listed with a description and requirements.
Ranging from engineering and health science to nursing and teaching students, the programs available through the state offer many opportunities for residents looking to waive some of their student debt.
As of January 1st, all federally exempt loan forgiveness, plus up to $10,000 of federally taxable forgiveness, is now exempt from state income tax.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
What is the Town by Town debt?
This is immoral. Why should taxpayers who never went to college subsidize people who took out loans promising to pay them back ? This sets a bad precedent.
Time to change the way loans are handled. Shift the loan responsibility to the Colleges and Universities! As long a the government holds the debt nothing will change!
More vote and loyalty buying (and corruption courting!) with taxpayer funded freebies by the Donkey Party. This reads like an advertisement for the assorted available gov programs, (complete with links!) not a balanced examination of the issue itself.
Why should I have to pay for someone else’s responsibility? $125,000 for a single person to not pay back their debt???????
Would it not be a more revealing article if the amount of student debt was reported to which colleges and Universities the debt was from? If you are going to forgive debt, would it not make sense to forgive debt to in state schools rather than private schools? Why should CT taxpayers cover the student debt for a person who choose to go to Yale vs. the University of CT.