Hawaii’s loan forgiveness program helps ease the burden on health care workers’ families

GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE Psychologist and therapist Dawn Baxter got the first $50, 000 of her over $100, 000 in student loans paid off through Hawaii's 10-month-old HELP student loan forgiveness program to keep health care workers in Hawaii. Her son Michael Baxter sat with her last week at her Nuuanu home.

GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE Psychologist and therapist Dawn Baxter got the first $50, 000 of her over $100, 000 in student loans paid off through Hawaii's 10-month-old HELP student loan forgiveness program to keep health care workers in Hawaii. Her son Michael Baxter sat with her last week at her Nuuanu home.

Hawaii's $30 million program to pay off student loans for health care workers—up to $50, 000 for each of two years—means that Maui parents Angel and Louise Batoon can be more certain that their son, Luke, remains in the islands to continue his nursing career.

"As parents it makes us real happy because he has considered moving away out of state, " Louise said. "Housing is pricey, even for rent for a single professional. So it was very exciting for us that our son can stay in Hawaii and have hopes of starting a family. He is single."

"Actually, " Luke, 28, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser later, "I have a girlfriend. Hopefully, we can settle down one day, raise a family and teach them to fish."

It's a dream for both Luke and his parents that's closer to reality after the Hawaii Education Loan Repayment Program, or HELP, paid off half of his $30, 000 student debt from Chaminade University this year, with the final payment expected this month.

As a result, Luke said, "I'm never leaving. I grew up here."

Paying off student loans not only affects individual health care workers, but their families as well, and their desire to stay together in Hawaii.

It's a message that Gov. Josh Green has heard regularly since the state Legislature approved his $30 million proposal two years ago to launch HELP.

When the next legislative session begins in January, Green plans to propose an additional $30 million to help the next group of health care workers pay off their loans over the subsequent two years.

In a text to the Star-Advertiser, Green wrote, "I have heard from parents who are grateful for the HELP program because the loan repayment program enables their children to stay and practice medicine in Hawai 'i, which has a serious shortage of healthcare professionals across many disciplines. Through decreasing the burden of educational debt, we are attracting and retaining the very professionals who will help us forge a path toward a healthier future for all Hawai 'i. This is why I intend to request another $30M over the next two years."

Louise Batoon thanked Green and the Legislature for making it easier for her son to stay home to care for Hawaii patients.

"We're very, very grateful, " she said. "It makes us happy this burden has been lifted. He's a surfer who loves the water. Now our son can realistically feel that he can make Hawaii his home. He does want his own place. We're not rich people, so we cannot pay for such things."

HELP was created to retain health care workers across the islands and stem their exodus to less expensive states, with the goal of also returning expats with health care jobs on the mainland.

The program was so flooded with initial applications that it's now running low on money, and in September was down to $10 million.

But Dr. Kelley Withy, who runs HELP through the University of Hawaii's John A. Burns School of Medicine, continues to encourage applications.

The original $30 million in state funds was augmented by a $5 million contribution from Lynn and Marc Benioff to pay off student loans for health care workers specifically on Hawaii island, where the Benioffs have a home. Marc Benioff is co-founder, chair and CEO of software company Salesforce and owns Time magazine.

Withy continues to seek more outside donations to keep HELP funded.

Green began his Hawaii medical career working in rural Kau on Hawaii island through financial assistance to treat mostly low-income patients and families. He especially wants to keep health care professionals in rural areas and the neighbor islands that particularly need health care.

In HELP's first 10 months, 890 applicants were accepted to have as much as $100, 000 in student loans paid off over two years.

Another 1, 328 were provisionally accepted but have been put on a waitlist.

"They'll get it. They just have to wait a little, " said JABSOM spokesperson Matthew Campbell.

Of the original 890 applicants who were accepted, over 42 % work in rural areas or on the neighbor islands, Campbell said.

And 104 of them "have been able to completely pay off their loans, " he said.

Student loans can be paid for a long list of health care workers including audiologists, social workers and surgeons.

In exchange, they have to agree to work in Hawaii for two years and treat 30 % of patients who receive Medicaid or Medicare, which Green previously said applies to "almost the entire state "—or "people who are struggling."

For Michael Baxter, 24, having HELP pay off his mother's student loans represents a new financial era for his single mom, Dawn Baxter, 57, a psychologist and therapist in private practice on Bishop Street.

"It's life-changing, " Michael said. "This is a big deal."

Dawn was only able to rent their two-bedroom, one-bath condo in Nuuanu that Michael grew up in.

"She's been putting herself through school since I was a baby, " Michael said.

"I never knew my father, so she played both roles. I've had a great life because she's put in a lot of work."

Dawn paid for Michael's piano lessons and soccer teams, took him to Europe and Southeast Asia because she thought it was important to expose him to different cultures—all while putting in over 5, 000 hours of volunteer work that resulted in a presidential volunteer award from then-President George W. Bush for outstanding community service, along with the award for Chaminade University's 2010 outstanding student.

"She works too hard, " Michael said. "But she always provided for me as a single mother to give me the best of life."

Dawn never talked about her financial situation while Michael was growing up, but he sensed the weight of her debt.

Now, he said, "The loan is a big burden lifted."

"She's a beautiful woman and definitely deserves the world for all she's done, " Michael said. "She takes work home. She'll help anybody in need. She sees the best in people."

Dawn's practice includes marriage and family therapy while specializing in trauma, addiction and severe mental illness.

She attended Kapiolani Community College, the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Chaminade, racking up "over $100, 000 " in student loans toward her dream of becoming a therapist to help others, Dawn said.

When she was accepted by HELP, "I cried like a baby, yeah I did, " she said.

Dawn had "saved and saved and saved " and was finally able to buy the condo she had been renting for years at the start of the 2020 COVID-19 era.

Getting her student debt wiped out now provides new opportunities.

Money that would have gone to her students loans now can be used to "cover the mortgage, and it helps me help my son go to college himself, " Dawn said. "It's decreased my anxiety and increased my ability to pay bills, a lot of different things. It's really a miracle."

Nick Davidson, a 51-year-old landscape architect, met his wife, Candice Myhre, 52, after she already had completed medical school and residency and become a doctor.

They weren't able to buy a home when they lived in Manhattan Beach, Calif., and took the chance for Myhre to work temporary hospital shifts on Maui and the Big Island, to see how they liked Hawaii, accompanied by their daughter, Seaena, now 12.

They all liked the friendly, community feel of rural community life and ended up settling on Kauai, where Myhre now works as an emergency room physician at Wilcox Hospital.

In 2018 they were "barely able " to buy a two-bedroom, three-bath home where Sea ­ena sleeps on a small bed next to her parents' bed, Davidson said. His 20-year-old daughter, Mia, from a previous marriage sleeps in the other bedroom.

Being able to live and work in Hawaii, Davidson said, "is not easy at all, even for someone who makes good money but has a challenging job and a big student loan."

After "years and years "

of paying down her student debt, Myhre still owed about $60, 000 by the time she applied to HELP, Davidson said.

"She was 'cautiously optimistic'—a great word—because it almost sounds too good to be true, " he said.

Now that she's been approved, erasing the debt "is just such a great thing that takes a lot of pressure off the family, especially with the cost of living on Kauai. We love Kauai and feel so blessed and grateful and lucky."

At the same time, Myhre has seen colleagues forced to relocate to the mainland because of their own student debt and inability to buy a home, Davidson said.

"We need good physicians, so it's important to have people who can serve the community and be able to stay here, " Davidson said. "What you don't want is good physicians having to leave because they can't afford to stay here."

Luke Batoon lives in his parents' three-bedroom, two-bath home in Kahului and works for Maui Memorial Hospital.

Now, through financial assistance from HELP, Luke wants to move to Kauai, find another nursing job, renovate a family home that's been unoccupied for 20 years and help care for Louise's 85-year-old father.

"He wants to be close to his grandpa, " said Angel, Luke's father.

None of it—Luke's dreams to keep working in Hawaii, care for his grandfather and start a family of his own in a house of his own—would have been possible while carrying his student debt, he said.

"The people of Hawaii and other medical professionals want to commit here, " Luke said. "I take care of my aunties and uncles and other local families. But we need help. I definitely wouldn't have that option if I was on the mainland."