Mr. Rudert, who graduated from law school owing nearly $135,000 on student loans, said he would have picked a different employer if he had known
that his work at Vietnam Veterans of America would not qualify.
Mr. Rudert submitted the certification form in 2012 and received a letter from FedLoan affirming
that his work as a lawyer at Vietnam Veterans of America, a nonprofit aid group, qualified him for the forgiveness program.
Only certain types of federal loans qualify, meaning
that many borrowers need to restructure their debt to make it eligible — and the Education Department has done little to clarify gray areas, Ms. Abrams said.
In a legal filing submitted last week, the Education Department suggested
that borrowers could not rely on the program’s administrator to say accurately whether they qualify for debt forgiveness.
“We don’t know how this will pan out.”
Linda Klein, president of the American Bar Association, called the department’s response “illogical, untenable
and bewildering.” An unreliable certification system “exposes those undertaking public service work — exactly what Congress intended them to do — to crippling financial risk,” she said.