A lot of people apply for PSLF, but the odds of actually having your loans forgiven through this program are extremely low. Between September 2020 and June 2023, almost 4 million PSLF applications were processed, and only 19,218 of them resulted in forgiveness—that's only 0.5%.
Among processed applications for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), 2.3% have been accepted since November 2020. Among denied claims, 24.6% are denied due to incomplete paperwork. 14.4% of PSLF applications have yet to be processed.
You must be a direct employee of a qualifying employer for your employment to qualify. This means that employees of contracted organizations, that are not themselves a qualifying employer, won't qualify for PSLF including government contractors and for-profit organizations.
Important: If your employer is a for-profit organization, a labor union, or a partisan political organization, it isn't an eligible PSLF employer regardless of the kinds of public services it might provide.
One of the notable drawbacks of PSLF for doctors is the required commitment. To be eligible for forgiveness, you must make 120 qualifying payments, which essentially means 10 years of service in a qualifying organization.
Does my income level determine my eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)? There is no income requirement to qualify for PSLF.
To get PSLF, you have to get a total count of 120 qualifying payments. So you'll want to make sure that you're getting closer to your goal with each payment you make. Keep in mind, your payments don't have to be consecutive.
Once we've received all of the documentation needed to determine whether you qualify for loan forgiveness, you'll be notified. A final review of your account will be done to process forgiveness, which will take at least 90 business days.
The Department of Education denied 98% of PSLF applications between November 2020 and October 2021. Some borrowers discovered they weren't eligible for forgiveness after making years of payments working in what they thought were qualifying positions.
PSLF has erased $74 billion worth of student loans for more than one million public servants as of Oct. 17, 2024, according to the Education Department, which boils down to an average of $74,000 in debt forgiveness per borrower.
Because you have to make 120 qualifying monthly payments, it will take at least 10 years before you can qualify for PSLF.
As of mid-July 2023, approximately 662,000 borrowers have qualified for forgiveness under the limited PSLF waiver.
Yes. However, you must submit a PSLF Form showing that you were employed full-time by a qualifying employer at the time you made each of the required 120 payments.
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 a large amount of student loan debt, then Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) could potentially save you thousands of dollars. It also might knock years off your student loan repayment timeline. You must meet all of the criteria to be eligible for college loan forgiveness, but the payoff can be worth it.
If you meet the requirements for forgiveness, you'll first receive a notification from the U.S. Department of Education indicating you have been approved for PSLF.
Please allow at least 90 business days for your form to be processed. Loans NOT serviced by MOHELA? Your demographic information will not be on file until the PSLF form is processed which is currently taking at least 90 business days. Once processed your loans will be transferred from your current servicer to MOHELA.
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.
Most denials are for not making enough qualifying payments.
PSLF forgives the remaining balance on your Direct Loans after you have made 120 qualifying payments while working full-time for a qualifying employer. Only payments made under certain repayment plans (primarily income-driven repayment plans) qualify for PSLF.
Even if you do not have 120 qualifying payments at the end of the waiver period, you should submit the PSLF Certification and Application form to learn from FedLoan Servicing the number of qualifying payments you have already made. After the required 120 payments are made, you can apply for loan forgiveness.
Typically it takes at least 2 months to process PSLF Forms. During the busiest PSLF Waiver periods, estimates were between four and six months. If you're still within those time periods, continue waiting. You can always go to the My Activity page on studentaid.gov to check the status.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) PSLF allows qualifying federal student loans to be forgiven after 120 qualifying payments (10 years), while working for a qualifying public service employer.
These reasons include that we determined that it's a for-profit organization or that it is a not-for-profit that isn't a 501(c)(3) organization and that does not provide a qualifying service. Our decision that an employer isn't eligible is based on the best information that we have at the time.