Any borrowers with loans that have accumulated eligible time in repayment of at least 20 or 25 years will see automatic forgiveness, even if they are not currently on an IDR plan.
Your student loan servicer(s) will notify you directly after your forgiveness is processed. Make sure to keep your contact information up to date on StudentAid.gov and with your servicer(s). If you haven't yet qualified for forgiveness, you'll be able to see your exact payment counts in the future.
Once we've received all of the documentation needed to determine whether you qualify for loan forgiveness, you'll be notified.
If you made payments after your 120th qualifying payment, those payments will be treated as overpayments and refunded to you if you have no additional outstanding loans. If your qualifying payment total is at 120 or more, your account is eligible to be placed into forbearance and no payment is due.
There is no limit to how much can be forgiven by PSLF. The program forgives the remaining balance of your federal student debt after 10 years of service and 120 payments to your federal student loans. We have seen NEA members receive forgiveness on loans with balances of $20,000, $100,000, and even more.
If you have loans that have been in repayment for more than 20 or 25 years, those loans may immediately qualify for forgiveness. Borrowers who have reached 20 or 25 years (240 or 300 months) worth of eligible payments for IDR forgiveness will see their loans forgiven as they reach these milestones.
The PSLF application process can take a few months. It may take longer if you haven't been submitting regular PSLF Forms, or shorter. During the wait, you have the option of continuing to make payments or putting your loans into forbearance.
If you work in certain public service jobs and have made 120 payments on your Direct Loans, you may be eligible to have your loans forgiven.
If you repay your loans under an IDR plan, any remaining balance on your student loans will be forgiven after you make a certain number of payments over 20 or 25 years. Past periods of repayment, deferment, and forbearance might now count toward IDR forgiveness because of the payment count adjustment.
From July 1, 2022, through April 30, 2024, MOHELA served as the interim PSLF servicer and processed the largest amount of forgiveness—nearly $55 billion for 737,000 individual borrowers—by an FSA contractor in the history of the program.
No longer a small Missouri-based company, MOHELA is now one of the largest federal student loan servicers, servicing the accounts of federal student loan borrowers in every state. Since 2021, MOHELA has more than tripled its portfolio of Department of Education (ED)-held federal loans.
We will process your PSLF form and determine how many qualifying payments you made during the employment period on your form and you'll receive a letter telling you the number of qualifying payments you have made. Log in to StudentAid.gov and go to My Aid in your Dashboard to see your PSLF progress.
Beginning July 2022, only 20 months ago, MOHELA began its work as the interim PSLF servicer on behalf of the government. During the history of the program, approximately 857,000 borrowers have received PSLF forgiveness.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program is fully managed by the U.S Department of Education on StudentAid.gov. Borrowers seeking PSLF can submit PSLF forms, track the status of their forms, view correspondence, and access payment counts through their StudentAid.gov account.
Loans serviced by MOHELA? If you faxed or mailed your PSLF form to MOHELA it may take up to 14 days for your mohela.com account to note that the form was received. Please allow at least 90 business days for your form to be processed.
If the total payments exceed 120, you might be eligible for a PSLF overpayment refund. Will you get a refund after student loan forgiveness? If you've already been granted student loan forgiveness or repaid your loans, you don't qualify for a PSLF overpayment refund.
You'll be notified or see a $0 balance
From this point on, your days of making monthly student loan payments are over. That is, unless, only a portion of your debt is canceled. If you still owe a remaining balance, you will still continue to owe monthly payments.
However, if you're seeking a refund from MOHELA, you can expect the first check to arrive within 90 business days, and the rest within 60 days. Also note that you'll likely receive multiple refund checks rather than a single refund.
Why did my college send me a check? A refund check is money that is directly deposited to you by your college. It is the excess money left over from your financial aid award after your tuition and additional fees have been paid. Your college may send you a check or the money may be deposited into your checking account.
If you work in certain public service jobs and make 120 payments on your Direct Loan(s), you may be eligible to have your loans forgiven. If you are a teacher in a low-income school or educational service agency, you may be eligible for Teacher Loan Forgiveness.
Don't forget to submit the PSLF form with your employment certification every year. If your PSLF form is approved for forgiveness, then you'll be notified that the entire remaining balance of your eligible Direct Loans will be forgiven, including all outstanding interest and principal.
The initial success rate was about 0.5%, and now it's above 1% only a couple of years later. You might think that's still ridiculous, but it shows the exponential path to a 50% PSLF success rate that will happen over time and lead to more student loan forgiveness on borrowers' loans.