“If I Could Go Back…”: Understanding the Education and Career Decisions of Forgivable Loan Recipients in the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program

This narrative case study features the early career experiences and outcomes of eight former pre-service teachers in the North Carolina Teaching Fellows program (NCTFP). The NCTFP is a teacher recruitment program that provides forgivable loans and professional development in exchange for participants’ commitment to teach in high-needs subjects upon graduation. Study participants joined the NCTFP in 2018-19 as postsecondary students in secondary STEM education. Interview and written data were collected in 2019 to understand how and why students chose to participate in the NCTFP and their educational and career goals. Follow up interviews were conducted in 2024 to understand how participants’ educational and career interests and plans remained consistent or deviated over time, especially in the context of NCTFP forgivable loans and service commitments. Three major themes illustrate the ways that educational structures, actual teaching experiences, and the loans themselves shaped participants’ lives, and their plans for the future.