As a legal aid lawyer in Cleveland, Krystle Hayes spends her days helping clients with issues such as accessing special education services and obtaining public benefits like Medicaid and Social Security.

It's exactly the work she wanted to do when she pursued a law degree, but it's not the highest paying. And like most lawyers, Hayes graduated from law school with student debt. One thing, however, has given her some comfort when it comes to her loans: the opportunity to have her student debt canceled through the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

Signed into law in 2007 by then-President George W. Bush, the program is designed to incentivize people to pursue lower-paying careers that serve the public.

"I don't want to be drowning in debt for the rest of my life, but I also want to have a career that enables me to follow my passion" and support people in need, said Hayes, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland who became a lawyer after working in education.

President Donald Trump's administration is pushing a change to the PSLF program that civil legal services groups and public defenders say would politicize it and make it harder to recruit attorneys to jobs like Hayes' that pay less than the private sector.

Under the program, people working for the government or qualifying nonprofit organizations can have their student debt canceled after they have made 10 years of qualifying payments. More than 1 million people in a range of sectors — including education, healthcare and public safety — have had their loans forgiven through the PSLF initiative.

The U.S. Department of Education has put forward a proposed rule change to let it exclude from the program employers it deems to be engaged in activities that "have a substantial illegal purpose." Some legal advocates fear the federal government will disqualify organizations that provide services to immigrants, transgender people and other populations who have come under fire from the Trump administration.

Under the proposed overhaul, the education secretary would determine "by the preponderance of the evidence" that an employer engaged in illegal activities. Borrowers would not be able to request reconsideration of a final determination, and to regain eligibility, disqualified employers would have to wait 10 years or have a "corrective action plan" approved by the secretary.

The rule change, which could be finalized in the coming weeks, would deepen uncertainty for lawyers with student debt and exacerbate staffing issues in civil legal aid groups and public defender offices that are already stretched thin, legal organizations say.

"Our position is that the proposed change to the PSLF rules is both illegal — it is not authorized by statute — and if implemented, would threaten the ability of legal aid organizations and other public interest organizations to provide essential services to millions of Americans," said Abby Shafroth, managing director of advocacy at the National Consumer Law Center.

The rule is ambiguous and would give the education secretary unprecedented discretion to exclude employers from the loan forgiveness program, said Vikram Swaruup, executive director of Legal Aid DC, another group that opposes the rule change.

"That broad discretion is obviously incredibly troubling," Swaruup said.

The Education Department, where employees are currently furloughed due to the government shutdown, did not respond to Law360's requests for comment as of Friday.

Trump ordered the change to the PSLF program in March through an executive order. Among the activities that could disqualify employers from the program are "aiding or abetting violations" of federal immigration law and "engaging in the chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children in violation of federal or state law."

When the department issued the proposed rule in August, Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said Trump "has given the department a historic mandate to restore the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program to its original purpose — supporting public servants who strengthen their communities and serve the public good, not benefiting businesses engaged in illegal activity that harm Americans."

"The federal government has a vital interest in deterring unlawful conduct, and we're moving quickly to ensure employers don't benefit while breaking the law," Kent said in a statement at the time.

If published by Nov. 1, the rule would take effect in July.

Money Stress

Like Hayes, attorney Rob Poggenklass always knew he wanted to use his law degree to help people. The career path came with a hefty price tag: more than $96,000 in law school loans when he graduated from William & Mary in 2010.

Poggenklass, now the executive director of the criminal justice reform organization Justice Forward Virginia, made $48,000 a year at his first full-time legal job as a public defender in Newport News, Virginia, he said. He went on to other jobs, including working in his home state at Iowa Legal Aid.

Money has always been a big stressor for him due to the loans and the pay. But in 2022, his student debt was canceled through the PSLF program, and it was "an incredible feeling," he said. By that time, he owed more on the student loans than when he graduated, due to interest that accrued over the years despite his monthly income-based payments — a situation faced by many student borrowers.

Hayes said she has about $70,000 in student debt, which is from a combination of loans from law school, undergraduate studies and graduate school.

She still has about six years before she would qualify for loan forgiveness, but the federal program "definitely gives some peace of mind," she said, adding that as a mother of two young children, she greatly values financial stability for her family.

"Knowing that's there, it enables me to ... be the mom that I want to be and plan for the future for my kids that I want, while still being able to do what I view as important work," said Hayes, who graduated from Cleveland State University College of Law.

The PSLF program has faced challenges such as confusion among student loan borrowers over eligibility rules, as well criticism over the cost to taxpayers. Project 2025, the policy blueprint published by the conservative Heritage Foundation, called for terminating the program, saying it "prioritizes government and public sector work over private sector employment."

Supporters say the lower pay of public service work combined with rising law school costs and many attorneys' heavy student debt load — the median amount of law school debt is $112,500, according to the ABA — makes the PSLF incentive a crucial tool for recruiting and retaining lawyers for stressful roles that serve low-income clients.

The median entry-level salary for a public defender is $69,600, according to the latest available data from the National Association for Law Placement. The median starting pay for civil legal services lawyers is $64,200, and for those working for other public interest organizations, it is around $69,500.

That's compared with a median base salary of $200,000 for first-year associates working for law firms, according to NALP's survey data.

"It takes a special type of person" to do public interest legal work, said Michael J. Langley, executive director of the Miami-based Florida Justice Institute, a nonprofit focused on civil rights litigation and advocacy. "And when you're up in competition against ... private firms who could pay exponentially more, you need to have some sort of benefit, some sort of incentive, to recruit talent to want to stay."

Research has shown that student debt is a major factor in young lawyers' career choices.

Seventy-five percent of young attorneys who borrowed said their debt changed the career plans they had when they started law school, according to a survey released last year by the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division and AccessLex Institute, a nonprofit focused on legal education, law students and young lawyers.

The same survey found that nearly 80% of young lawyers pursuing loan forgiveness under the program agreed that they work in government, nonprofit or public service positions because of the program.

AccessLex, which offers financial education programming, has seen a spike in calls since the executive order on PSLF, said Derek Brainard, its director of financial education.

"It has bred a lot of uncertainty and anxiety," Brainard said.

The organization is among those that have submitted public comments opposing the proposed change.

Swaruup, of Legal Aid DC, said he believes uncertainty over qualifying for the program "could definitely push talented professionals out of public service entirely."

Staffing concerns aren't the only worries that legal organizations have. They also have their eyes on legal providers who might pull back on services because the education department could deem their activities "illegal."

Trump has already targeted BigLaw pro bono efforts through executive orders and other directives this year, singling out legal work done on behalf of immigrants and transgender people.

A lawyer's job is to be the best advocate they can for a client, said Radhika Singh, the vice president for civil legal services and strategic policy initiatives at the National Legal Aid & Defender Association.

"And so the uncertainty around whether raising a certain legal argument will be then found to facilitate illegal activity by the department is really chilling the ability of our advocates to go into court, or go sit at the table," she said.

Hayes, the Cleveland attorney, said she is concerned about the impact on the community if legal aid lawyers have to look for higher-paying jobs, because private firms don't typically handle cases like those of her clients.

"Who's going to advocate for them?" she said.

--Editing by Orlando Lorenzo.

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