Fresh Start Loan Program Resources for Staff & IPs

By Crystal Brakke

Fresh Start is a temporary program through the US Department of Education to address federal loans currently in default, creating repayment plans or forbearance options. The program is set to expire in September 2024 and the Education team wants to share information about it with DOC staff, for two reasons. First, anyone with federal loans currently in default is eligible for this program. We hope that you will review this information and/or share it with people in your own life who may be eligible for Fresh Start. Second, several of the Education Unit staff have been working on how to ensure our population has access to this information and get a better sense of how many people in facilities may be eligible for this program. St. Cloud and Shakopee team members did two weeks of information gathering in education intake sessions with new IPs that provided very helpful insights. Twenty seven percent of those surveyed self-reported they had some kind of outstanding student loans.

Knowing that this is a time limited program, we want to get information distributed in a way that provides time for IPs to contact the Department of Education and initiate the process. Sheila Hoffman, a liaison between DOC and the Office of Higher Education, has done significant work to test the process IPs are supposed to follow and developed a one-page document and one-page FAQ. That is attached. We will be working to distribute this information throughout facilities in the coming weeks.

This is a process that the incarcerated person must initiate and complete themselves. DOC staff will not be expected to provide active support in this process (it requires the loan holder to be the one contacting them), but rather to be baseline familiar with it and point people back to the attached document for how to proceed with contacting the US Department of Education. OSI has approved the phone numbers for this program to be exempt from phone call time limits.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.