A few caveats to this, in addition to the spouse problem:

1) You are shackled to this for ten years. Dropping out early isn't just bad - it's a financial catastrophe.

2) It's based on qualified payments, not "time served" or the like, and there's lots of things that can disrupt those. Plan to fight with your loan servicer.

3) Republican administrations tend to do a will they/won't they thing with approving the actual loan forgiveness.

I wasn't referring to the governmental assistance programs (which have these risks/limitations), but rather the programs run by the elite law schools themselves. They will actually pay a portion of your loan payments if you work in a qualified job.

I don't know which schools currently offer this, but 15 years ago (when I was dating a HLS grad), they operated this way. I would guess that HYS and probably a handful of other top-10 schools would be able to afford a direct-payment program like this.

My spouse went to an elite law school, and their answer was "There's the public service loan forgiveness program. Good luck with that."

Most of the law students that go to HYS law schools are already wealthy, so the benefits are going to the wrong people. Furthermore, these graduates are mostly hired at elite law firms making huge salaries and are unlikely to take advantage of these programs. Easy to offer a generous program to people that don’t need it.