If you are going to college, there is a high probability that you will be taking out student loans to assist you with your college tuition.There are many benefits of federal student loans that are currently not offered by private student loans, and one of biggest benefits to federal loans is loan forgiveness.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness: Thepublic service loan forgiveness program was created to encourage individuals to enter and continue working full time in the public sector.Under this program, you may qualify to have your student loans forgiven in only 120 qualifying payments.That means in ten years you could be completely finished paying on your FederalStudent Loans.Whatever balance remains on your loan after those 120 payments would be forgiven by the U.S Government.

However, there are a few catches:

• Your Federal Loans must be Direct Loans.Consolidating all your federal loans into the William D. Ford program will convert all your loans into Direct Loans.

• You must be in a qualifying repayment plan which is the Income Based, Income Contingent, or Standard 10 year repayment.

If you plan on working in the public sector after college, make sure you consolidate into the direct loan program and into a qualifying repayment plan.

Teacher Loan Forgiveness: Teachers who work at a title 1 school for 5 consecutive full time years may qualify for principal reduction on their federal student loan of up to $17,500.The amount that would be forgiven is dependent on what subject you are teaching at the school, and otherqualifying factors. Math, science, and special education teachers can qualify for the full $17,500 in federal loan forgiveness.

Teachers who qualify for principal reduction, would also qualify for the public service loan forgiveness as well.So not only could you see principal reduction on your loan, but you would only be required to make 120 monthly payments prior to having the loan completely forgiven.

Income Based Repayments: Theincome based repayment plan is arguably one of the programs that offers the most relief to federal student loan holders.Under this repayment plan, you would have a monthly payment based exclusively on your income and family size.The balance of your loan is not considered in this repayment plan. A single person with an income under $17,000 you would qualify for a payment of ZERO on their federal student loans.

This repayment plan is different from a deferment or forbearance as the actual payment amount could be $0.00, unlike a deferment which simply pauses your loan.If for three years you are not working and qualify for a zero payment, that is 36 months that would be taken off the term of your loan.

During the months where your payment does not meet the interest that would normally accrue on your student loans, for the first three years that interest would not be capitalized, or added onto the balance of your loans.This form of loan forgiveness can save you thousands of dollars during the initial three years of interest forgiveness in the income based repayment plan.

Start Early:Researching and learning about all the programs available to you for assistance with your federal student loans should start while you're in college.Upon graduation, you should immediately try to enroll into these programs so your path to student loan forgiveness can be on track from early on.You wouldn't want to learn after ten years of working at the city hall that your payment didn't count to forgiveness, would you?

_About The Author: Demetrios Sourmaidis is a writer forStudentDebtRelief, whose goal is to assist people with federal student loans get into any of the programs they qualify for.FollowStudentDebtRelief on Twitter@StudentDebtRlf_