LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The City of Little Rock is hoping to help its employees get assistance with student loan debt.
This week, the board of directors passed an ordinance to work with a local company to help navigate finances.
It's one of the first city governments to take action to help employees get debt relief.
Little Rock City Attorney Tom Carpenter said up to 200 city employees could face student loan debt.
"I got through three years of law school and it was like $100 a semester for tuition and a few hundred dollars for books," Carpenter said. "My son goes through law school and it's thousands."
Student loan debt is something many Americans face.
According to the Federal Reserve, more than 43 million people owe $1.7 trillion.
This week, the Little Rock Board of Directors approved a contract to help city employees receive loan forgiveness.
The contract is with Aptus Financial for $50,000. They will survey Little Rock employees to see who has loan debt. Then, they will help them get assistance through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.
"There's just not a lot of public knowledge about it," Aptus Financial CEO Sarah Catherine Gutierrez said.
In the past seven months, they've assisted in more than $2 million of forgiven loans.
There are some qualifications to receive this type of forgiveness.
"This is a program where after they make 10 years of payments on their student loans, who are in public service, they can have the remainder of their student loans forgiven," Gutierrez said.
Student loan payments will resume in October after they were put on hold during the pandemic.