STEP ONE: owe the federal govt shit tons of money for student loans. srsly. you can owe them trillions of dollars and this will still work. also if you can manage to rack up trillions of dollars of student loan debt i will buy you a sandwich.
STEP TWO: this has to be FEDERAL loans now. no private lenders. however! i believe the feds will consolidate your loans into a nice ball of qualifying debt, so that's no big.
STEP THREE: get signed up (once you have to start actually paying it all off) for Income-Based Repayment. your income to debt ratio has to qualify, but unless you are bill gates it does, so okay. basically, instead of them dividing up your debt evenly over 10 yrs or 30 yrs or whatever the hell, they will base your monthly payment on your income and family size. for example if you make $50k annually and have 6 dependents your monthly payment is A DOLLAR. on the other hand if you are a sexy single and making $70k annually (i personally expect to make this total over my lifetime) then you owe $672 a month, which for paying off giant debts is pretty reasonable. the amount you owe does not matter, hence step 1.
STEP FOUR: no matter how much you still owe, even if you've been paying $1/month the whole time, as long as you have been paying your pittance faithfully, after 25 years the rest of your debt is forgiven. BAM.
STEP FIVE: however, because you are all wonderful warm-hearted people and not secretly Reptoids, you may qualify for loan forgiveness after 10 years instead of 25. 10<25 so that is good. there are three requirements for this magic:
STEP SIX: have the right kind of loan! you need Federal Direct loans, ie stafford or Grad PLUS. also i think you can consolidate other kinds of loans into something that works, but i don't have to worry about that so i wasn't paying attention. suckers.
STEP SEVEN: have the right kind of job! your options are: 501(c)(3) nonprofit, ANY govt position[1], or various other public-service-y things. you must be fulltime at this job, or be working at least 30hrs/wk total at qualifying parttime jobs. and you must be paid, volunteering doesn't count.
[1] ANY. federal, state, tribal, city, school board, whatever the fuck you want. be a trash collector, work at the dmv, it's all good. except you can't be in congress because i guess they love paying debts.
STEP EIGHT: pay yr shit, yo! once you have made 120 proper monthly payments on your loan, the rest of your debt is written off and you can quit to watch internet porn fulltime. proper payment means while working at a qualified job, on time, and on the right kind of repayment plan (your options are: income-based repayment, or stupid shit you shouldn't do). you don't have to make these 120 payments all in a row, btw. so you can work as a public defender for 5 years, take some time off to club baby seals, then spend another 5 years as a city bus driver. as long as you made all your payments properly while you were in the qualifying jobs, you are now debtfree and may begin your life of leisure.
STEP NINE: i ate some salt and vinegar chips today and now my stomach feels funny, so step nine is don't eat salt and vinegar chips. this may or may not change your loan status.
