The nonprofit organization Teach for America placed 6,200 teachers this year in 1,500 of the nation’s toughest schools.

Considering the relatively low pay given to first-year teachers and the demanding working conditions they were almost certain to face, recruitment must have been difficult, right?

Wrong.

FOXBusiness.com tackles education as our “On Topic” for September. Check back every day to read stories about trends, concerns and analysis, at the K-12 level as well as in higher education.

The 6,200 selected for placement were culled from 25,000 applicants, according to Teach for America spokesman Trevor Stutz. Fully 11% of Yale University’s graduating seniors applied with Teach for America, he said, and 9% of Harvard University’s graduating class.

Teach for America falls under the broad rubric of national service, or programs that allow recently graduated students to pay off all or part of their student loans by committing to work either in a potentially difficult job or a remote location where workers are sorely needed.

With tuitions--as well as student-loan defaults--on the rise, former students say there is a growing need for more of these types of in-kind payment options.

Lauren Moore, 27, teaches 10^th grade math at Kappa International High School in the Bronx. She just entered her second year as a Teach for America member.

Soaring college costs are leaving students with increasingly large debt loads after graduation, Moore explained, and those huge debts are forcing students to make career choices they might not otherwise have made. In many cases, students are choosing higher paying jobs that will help them pay down their student loans instead of lower paying jobs that might be more fulfilling.

“That’s why these programs are important. If you’re a college student and you’re about to graduate, you’re choosing between a number of options. One job pays $40,000 and one pays $80,000,” said Moore.

“Maybe you’re getting pressure from your family and you want to make a smart decision. You might want to teach, but you’re afraid you might not be making the financially responsible decision by choosing the lower-paying job,” she noted.

The aid offered by programs like Teach for America “makes it so much easier to get over those fears,” said Moore.

With 75,000 members, AmeriCorps, the federal program that oversees Teach for America and scores of other nonprofit community support organizations, is the largest provider of in-kind student loan payments in the U.S.

Full-time participants in Teach for America, or any other program that falls under the AmeriCorps umbrella, receive an annual education award of $4,725 that can go toward paying down student loans.

Most AmeriCorps programs require a two-year commitment, which brings the total education award to $9,450. And most AmeriCorps participants are allowed to defer payment on their student loans during their two-year commitment.

In addition to AmeriCorps, there are a number of other organizations such as the Peace Corps, the National Health Service Corps, the Army National Guard and the National Institutes of Health that use loan-forgiveness programs to entice recent graduates.

The National Health Service Corps, for instance, recruits doctors and other fully trained health professionals to work in clinic often in rural areas where these services are hard to find.

John Kerry made national service a cornerstone of his failed presidential campaign in 2004, pledging to attract 200,000 volunteers to community service by the end of the decade.

A key element of Kerry’s proposal tied community service to paying down college debt.

With the economy in tatters and the Iraq war still front and center, national service has not yet emerged as an important issue in this year’s presidential campaign.

Nevertheless, Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has devoted significant space on his Web site to the topic, noting that AmeriCorp is forced to turn away tens of thousands of applicants each year due to limited funding.