Maine will help you pay off your student loans | Digital Asia

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Maine wants to help you with your debt.

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Flickr / COD Newsroom

• Maine is willing to help you pay off your student loans if you move to the US state.
• Through the Educational Opportunity Tax Credit program, graduates who move to Maine can take off the money they pay towards student loans from their state taxes.
• STEM majors receive an added bonus through the program.

Got student loans? The state of Maine wants to help you pay them off. But there’s a catch – you have to move to Maine.

And while people love to visit Maine – it gets around 36 million tourists a year – the US state apparently can’t get enough young people to actually move there.

“We don’t have enough people in Maine to satiate our long-term workforce needs,” CNBC reported that Nate Wildes, engagement director of Live and Work in Maine, which markets the campaign said. “The fact that you have debt and the fact that you’ve graduated indicate you have something to offer to the economy.”

And that’s where this Educational Opportunity Tax Credit program comes in.

The Educational Opportunity Tax Credit program began as a way to encourage residents to stay in the state after they graduated college

It has now expanded to include anyone who graduated from a US college.

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Many travelers flock to Maine each year.

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Flickr/Jeff Gunn

Although the program varies depending on where you studied, the basics are as follows: Any college graduate that moves to Maine and begins working can take off the money they pay towards student loans from their state taxes.

In layman’s terms? If your yearly income taxes are $2,500, and you pay $2,000 towards your student loans, then you only have to pay $500 in state income taxes.

STEM majors get an added bonus

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If you graduated in a STEM field, you get an added bonus.

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Reuters

Borrowers from STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields) can get a check from the state if the amount they paid for their student loans exceeds their state income tax for the year.

For example, if a scientist paid $2,000 in student loans and owed just $1,500 in state income taxes, they’d receive $500 from the state of Maine.

This is great news for thousands of college students out there looking for a change – and looking for a way to pay off their student loans without going into debt themselves.

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