Student Loan Deferments
Most financial institutions will defer student loan payments upon verification of the length of your postdoctoral training.
- Contact your lending institution and request a student loan deferment form.
- Complete the form and email it to postdoc@hs.pitt.edu.
- Your status will be verified based upon the length of your postdoctoral contract, the form will be signed by an institutional representative, and it will be returned to you.
- You are responsible for submitting the signed deferment request form to your lending institution.
- If you are reappointed, or if you transfer to another postdoc position, a new student loan deferral form is required.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness
- If you are employed by a government or not-for-profit organization, you may be able to receive loan forgiveness under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program.
- PSLF forgives the remaining balance on your Direct Loans after you have made 120 qualifying monthly payments under a qualifying repayment plan while working full-time for a qualifying employer.
- Postdoctoral training at the University of Pittsburgh meets qualifying employer criteria.
- Complete the Employment Certification Form and email to postdoc@hs.pitt.edu to request that an institution representative verify your employment/training.
Student Loan Repayment
- The NIH Loan Repayment Program (LRP) is a set of programs established by Congress designed to recruit and retain highly qualified health professionals into biomedical or biobehavioral research careers.
- In exchange for a two-year commitment to their NIH-mission related research career, NIH will repay up to $50,000 of their qualified educational debt.
- Eligibility requirements for applicants include:
- U.S. citizen, national, or permanent resident;
- Doctoral-level degree (except the Contraception and Infertility Research LRP);
- Domestic, non-profit research funding (Extramural) or NIH employment (Intramural);
- For new applicants, must have total qualifying educational debt equal to or in excess of 20% of their institutional base salary at time of award, for renewal applicants, satisfaction of the 20% is not required; and
- Qualified research for an average of at least 20 hours per week during each quarterly (13 weeks) service period of the award
- Forms for institutional verification are provided after creating an account through the LRP application system (https://www.lrp.nih.gov/OASSecurity/apply.aspx). Registration must take place during the open application period.
- Complete these forms and email to slstokes@pitt.edu