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A statewide program designed to help new teachers pay their student loans is not being used as much as it could be, an official with the program said.

CollegeInvest, a nonprofit division of the Colorado Department of Education, helps students and working professionals pay for higher education. Its Loan for Teacher Incentive, or LIFT, program gives qualifying teachers as much as $8,000 toward the repayment of Stafford student loans.

CollegeInvest spokeswoman Anna Black said the LIFT program has money teachers aren't taking advantage of. The program is intended to help school districts retain new teachers who may be struggling to make ends meet.

Steamboat Springs Middle School teacher Kathleen Huron signed up for the LIFT program after graduating from the University of Colorado in Denver with a master's degree in special education.

"It was really simple," Huron, 32, said Thursday. "I got online and sent in my application, which was one page, and they've been paying my loans for four years."

Huron teaches the sixth-grade resources class at the middle school.

CollegeInvest payments of $2,000 a year will reduce her loan debt from $21,000 to about $15,000, Huron said.

To qualify for the LIFT program, teachers must meet the following criteria:

n Have graduated from a Colorado college or university

n Work half time or more as a teacher of mathematics, science, special education or linguistically diverse education

n Or teach in a high-poverty rural elementary school, where 28 percent or more students qualify for the federal free lunch program. Regional qualifying schools are South Routt Elementary in Yampa and Moffat County schools, including East Elementary School, Maybell Elementary School, Ridgeview Elementary School and Sunset Elem--entary School.

n Must have a CollegeInvest student loan, a William D. Ford Direct Stafford Loan through the University of Colorado at Boulder or a Stafford loan through a LIFT-participating lender, including US Bank, Citibank and ASAP Union Bank and Trust.

Black said teachers who entered into their contracts after June 2001 are eligible for the LIFT program.

"For first-year teachers who started in the fall, it's not too late for them to start saving on their loans," Black said.