The Biden-Harris Administration announced Thursday that over 60,000 nurses, teachers and other public service workers will receive $4.5 billion in student loan debt relief. The latest adjustment to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program brings the total debt forgiven by the current administration to $175 billion for more than 4.8 million borrowers.
The forgiveness program, known as PSLF, was created to allow borrowers who work in public service to have their loans wiped out after making 120 qualifying monthly payments. But it had been riddled with problems since its launch in 2007, with less than 2% of applicants receiving approval before the program was overhauled in 2021. More than 1 million borrowers have now qualified for PSLF forgiveness, according to the announcement.
If you're a public servant or federal employee, look for an email from the Department of Education from President Joe Biden or your union encouraging you to apply for the PSLF program.
Who qualifies for the PSLF program?
The program is eligible for public servants, including teachers, nurses, social workers, first responders and service members.
If you're working full time for a government or not-for-profit organization, you may qualify for the PSLF program. If you do, you could have the remaining balance on your direct student loans forgiven after making the required 120 qualifying monthly payments.
The PSLF is now fully managed by the Department of Education after a transition earlier this year. You can sign up for the PSLF through StudentAid.gov.
If you're already a part of the program, you can use that link to track your forgiveness progress or access your account. However, the site notes that the department is still working to update PSLF payment counts. If your payment counts look wrong, contact your loan servicer or submit a complaint with Federal Student Aid.
What if I'm enrolled in the SAVE Plan?
The PSLF program is separate from the administration's Saving on a Valuable Education plan, which has faced numerous legal challenges and is currently on hold.
However, if you are enrolled in the SAVE Plan, your loans are currently in forbearance, which does not count for PSLF. If you're enrolled in SAVE and trying to get forgiveness through PSLF, you may want to consider contacting your loan servicer, which may be able to offer you one of the following options:
Enroll in a different PSLF-eligible repayment plan to complete the required payments.
Enroll in a program that lets you "buy back" months of PSLF credit for time spent in forbearance because of the court's injunction. The program became available this fall.
More incentives to apply for the PSLF program
The Biden administration also announced that a number of organizations are offering incentives for their public servant members to apply for the PSLF program.
These organizations include the National Education Association, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and the American Federation of Teachers. You can see what each organization is offering in the Department of Education's press release.
Axentor on October 19th, 2024 at 15:12 UTC »
I will likely fall through the forgiveness crack like I did the financial aid gap. However more power to those who get it forgiven.
guitarmusic113 on October 19th, 2024 at 14:53 UTC »
My student loans were forgiven in 2023. This was under the TPSLF rules (temporary public student loan forgiveness). Basically they counted my ten years of adjunct teaching plus my five years of full time work at a state university. The student loans amount was 37k.
The TPSLF was a temporary program that expired in late 2022. I had major doubts about the program because PSLF never worked for me before. I almost missed the deadline because of these doubts and applied a few weeks before the temp program ended.
It was still a PITA with them denying my application once because I guessed the wrong start day (I had the month and year correct) of one of my employers. There were also numerous other delays with my application, each time taking at least 90 days to resolve. One delay was when they first counted my qualifying payments as only two of them when it should have been much higher. But was it worth all of that? Of course. It’s been life changing for me.
And now my only debt is 40k on my $600 a month mortgage which I make a double payment on each month. I do hope the whatever the new program is will work for more people.
Ipollute on October 19th, 2024 at 13:56 UTC »
“The forgiveness program, known as PSLF, was created to allow borrowers who work in public service to have their loans wiped out after making 120 qualifying monthly payments. But it had been riddled with problems since its launch in 2007, with less than 2% of applicants receiving approval before the program was overhauled in 2021. More than 1 million borrowers have now qualified for PSLF forgiveness, according to the announcement.
If you’re a public servant or federal employee, look for an email from the Department of Education from President Joe Biden or your union encouraging you to apply for the PSLF program.”
Fast TLDR