Dentist sues state over student loan agreement.
An Auburn dentist has filed a lawsuit against a state agency as she claims it broke agreements over her student loans.
Dr Kristina Lake, based in Lisbon, says that she was promised that her loans would be reduced if she worked in under-served areas in Maine when she qualified.
Last week she accused the Maine Dental Education Loan Program (MDELP), and its parent company the Finance Authority of Maine (FAME), of breeching a contract in which it was agreed that Dr Lake would be paid 25 per cent of her outstanding debts for every year she worked in an area of Maine that had few dentists.
In 2004 she enrolled at the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine and says that she spoke to a FAME representative who confirmed that the debt forgiveness program did not have a minimum requirements for the number of hours worked to be eligible for the scheme.
She left the university with an $80,000 student debt which she believed would be partially paid with interest.
Dr Lake began practicing in an under-served area in June 2008 at a facility that had been specified by the contract she had signed with FAME.
However, in May 2009 she was informed that FAME would not be easing her debt as she wasn’t a full-time employee. However, Dr Lake claims that FAME does not have any regulations which say that she had to be a full-time employee.
Dr Lake is also claiming that a FAME agent negligently misrepresented the MDELP.
The authority has since refused to comment on the pending litigation.
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