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If you're facing years of student-loan payments but aren't making much money because you're working in public service, the federal government has some good news for you: A law that took effect July 1 could allow you to have some of your college debt forgiven.

The debt-forgiveness provision of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, enacted last fall, is designed to encourage college graduates to enter — and stay in — public-service careers that many people might spurn in favor of better-paying jobs.

Here's how it works:

The program erases any student-loan debt — including principal and interest — that a public-service worker has after making monthly payments for 10 years.

You must remain in a qualifying public-service profession for the full 10 years that you're repaying the loans to be forgiven. If you work as, say, a legal-aid lawyer for nine years and then quit to take a job with a private law firm, you're disqualified.

Generally, the program applies to anyone who works full time for a state, federal or local government — including police officers, firefighters, the military and public-school teachers. It also applies to some people outside government, including employees of tax-exempt, non-profit organizations and those working in emergency services, public-interest law or public child care, health care or social work.

No. Only Stafford, PLUS and federal consolidation loans are eligible — and only if they are made through the U.S. Education Department's Direct Loan program.

As of July 1, anyone with a federally guaranteed student loan can convert it into a Direct Loan consolidation loan and thus qualify for the debt-forgiveness option. For information on how to do that, go online to loanconsolidation.ed.gov.

If you think you'll be eligible for the debt-forgiveness option, you might want to consolidate Stafford and PLUS loans through the Direct Loan program, but probably not Perkins loans, said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org, a financial-aid-information Web site. That's because Perkins loans already have special features that can make them more attractive than consolidation loans, including heavily subsidized interest.

In addition, if you work as a math or science teacher in a low-income area, you can qualify for a far more generous loan- forgiveness program available only to Perkins borrowers. (The Perkins forgiveness plan erases 30 percent of the teacher's debt in the first two years and all of it within five years.)

Some loans, such as private student loans, cannot be refinanced under the Direct Loan program, so they cannot be made eligible for debt forgiveness.

If you choose standard repayment, you'll pay off your loan in 10 years. But if you have significant student-loan debt and aren't earning a lot of money, a better option may be "income contingent" repayment. Under it, you pay significantly less each month — and sometimes pay nothing — depending on your income and how much you owe. That has the effect of stretching out your payments well beyond 10 years.

Every month you're in the income-contingent repayment plan, even when it requires no monthly payments, counts toward the 120 months required to qualify for debt forgiveness, according to the Education Department.

The less you pay each month under this repayment option, the more debt you'll have eligible for forgiveness after 10 years.

If you already have a federal Direct Loan, any payments you made after Oct. 1, 2007, will count toward the 120-month requirement. Payments made before that date — or made to any lender other than the federal government — won't count.

You should make sure your monthly payments aren't too low, Kantrowitz said. Under the income-contingent repayment option, it can be possible to make such low payments that they don't even cover the interest that's accruing. In such a case, you could leave public service with more debt than when you started.

"If you are not absolutely certain that you are going to stay in public service for the whole 120 months, you should make sure that your payments are at least covering the interest on your debt," Kantrowitz said.

The College Cost Reduction and Access Act provides a number of breaks for current students, boosting some grants and increasing borrowing limits.