When she enrolled at the University of Michigan, Shalca Nelson, like tens of millions of other Americans, took out thousands of dollars in student loans to help pay her way through. Nelson’s parents didn’t have the resources to save for her college education, but Nelson was determined to become a teacher, so after graduating from Michigan she got two masters degrees from Brooklyn College.
“Everybody I knew took out student loans if they wanted to go to college," said Nelson, who is now an instructional coordinator for pre-K and 3-K programs in Brooklyn Community School District 17 in Crown Heights. Nelson worked for years to pay off some of her debt while teaching in Brownsville and Canarsie but still owed more than $60,000 by the time the United Federation of Teachers guided Nelson, a member of the union, to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.
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