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It seems like a widespread problem in the US that public defenders get paid like shit, even though most of them have huge loans from law school. Or more generally: the people who need a lawyer the most are also the people least able to afford one.
A federal government program that pays off law school after 10 years as a full-time public defender (and covers most interest in the meantime) seems reasonable. Or just a scholarship for people with high LSAT scores that covers full tuition in exchange for x years of service, with clawback provisions.
As gattsuru mentioned - this program does exist on the federal level. The problem with it is that (A) there is a question of whether it will still exist in 10 years when you need all your debt forgiven, and (B) the $150-250,000 it ends up forgiving is frankly peanuts compared to the $225,000 starting annual salary BigLaw firms are offering. So, you could go work as a Public Defender for $70,000 a year and by year ten maybe break six figures in exchange for what can be called a single lump sum payment of $250,000 - or you could go work at Dewey Screwem and Howe for $225,000 a year and in a decade be making half a million a year.
So while Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) does attract people to prosecutor and public defender's offices, it will struggle to attract the highest qualified law students who graduated from the top law schools. BigLaw slots are generally limited to the top 20% or so of all law students in the country, so it's not drawing away everyone, but it is drawing away the vast majority of the classes at Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, and the top 10% of everyone in the top 50 law schools in the country.
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Some similar programs exist in many states and federal law, albeit with a few additional requirements. They have downsides -- they unavoidably attract younger lawyers with less trial experience -- but they're better than not having the programs.
There are increasing efforts to increase pay (eg, see the costs analysis assumptions for the Oregon bulk expansion).
But the money is only one side of the problem: public defense remains extremely unglamorous, unfun, unpleasant, and often unsafe work. Ymeskhout can point to clients who've stalked their public defenders, and it goes up pretty quickly from there.
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It's too bad reading the law isn't a more popular option for people to enter into the legal profession. Would provide both a huge boost in manpower available to assist with high time things like public defense and eventually create a larger pool of attorneys with more relevant experience to make a trial system work.
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