The Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE) does not administer any teacher loan forgiveness programs. However, GaDOE does report to the U.S. Department of Education a list of schools that are eligible for inclusion in the Teacher Cancellation Low Income (TCLI) directory. To learn more about loan forgiveness options, contact your loan provider or review the information available on the U.S. Department of Education Federal Student Aid website.
School TCLI eligibility details:
- Eligible schools are those with a free or reduced lunch percentage higher than 30.4 percent. Title I status is not considered when determining a school's eligibility. Eligibility for an educational program within a system (district) is based on the district free or reduced lunch percentage.
- Schools are added or removed from a year's eligibility list whenever the free or reduced lunch percentage crosses the 30.4 percent threshold. Adding or removing a school to the list does not impact the eligibility status from prior years.
- Due to the lag in free or reduced lunch data each year, schools are qualified based on data from the prior school year. However, COVID-19 caused interruptions to reporting that affect recent reporting years.
- For 2019-2020, eligibility is based on the free or reduced lunch percentages from 2018-2019.
- For 2020-2021, eligibility is based on the free or reduced lunch percentages from 2019-2020 (data collection for 2019-2020 was unaffected by COVID-19).
- For 2021-2022, eligibility is based on the free or reduced lunch percentages from 2019-2020 (the U.S. Department of Education approved applying two-year-old data due to free or reduced lunch data collection challenges caused by COVID-19).
- For 2022-2023, eligibility is based on the free or reduced lunch percentages from 2022-2023 and will be uploaded to the TCLI system in late November 2022.
- For 2023-2024 and future years, eligibility will be based on the free or reduced lunch percentages from the prior year.
To request that a school be reviewed for inclusion in the TCLI directory, email nhandville@doe.k12.ga.us with the following information.
- System (district) name
- School name or program name
- School year(s) requested
- Percentage of students who were free or reduced lunch for each year requested