How long will it take for me to receive a refund after getting Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)? Payments are returned as they were received (e.g., electronic payment or check). They are typically processed in one to two weeks after discharge is complete.
If you are approved for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, you'll be notified that the entire remaining balance of your eligible Direct Loans, including all outstanding interest and principal, will be forgiven.
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.
Track Your PSLF form status and history
Once you've submitted a PSLF form, you can track its progress by logging in to StudentAid.gov using your account username and password and selecting “My Activity” in the dropdown menu under your name in the upper right-hand corner.
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.
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.
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 some or all of your payments were not made on a qualifying repayment plan for PSLF, you may be able to receive loan forgiveness under a temporary opportunity.
A final review of your account will be done to process forgiveness, which will take at least 90 business days.
When asked by the senators, MOHELA reported it had received 36,309 complaints in a year, of which almost 4,000 were still marked “unresolved” in its internal system. The latest PSLF report, dated June 2023, by the Office of Federal Student Aid shows the servicer has a backlog of almost 890,000 applications.
If you've made more than 120 payments on your Direct Loans and qualify for PSLF, you should be eligible for a refund, according to StudentAid.gov. Refunded payments are typically based on one of the following, whichever is most recent: The date you reached 120 payments for PSLF.
The number of qualifying payments you have made will be updated only when you submit another PSLF form that documents a new period of qualifying employment. Once your cumulative total of qualifying payments reaches 120, we will confirm your eligibility and work with your servicer to forgive your remaining balance.
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 timeline can vary from one loan servicer to the next. 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.
If you qualify for forgiveness of the full amount of your loan(s), you won't have to make any more loan payments. If you qualify for forgiveness of only a portion of your loan(s), you're still responsible for repaying the remaining balance.
Applications are approved at roughly the same rate. 2.3% of processed applications for PSLF had been approved since the program's inception. In the program's first year, 0.32% of applications were approved.
“Errors, even as minor as spelling mistakes, can cause rejections. For PSLF for example, borrowers must thoroughly fill out an Employer Certification Form (ECF) with all of their previous employers, their Federal Employer Identification Numbers, tax status, and other details.
You need 120 months of qualifying payments and employment, cumulatively. There is no deadline to get to 120 months or to apply for PSLF.
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.
You're entitled to a refund if the PSLF Waiver credits you for more than 120 qualifying payments on an existing Direct Loan. But if you made those payments towards a Federal Perkins Loan or FFEL Loan and then consolidated, you won't get a refund.
After you've made your 120th payment, you no longer have to submit an application for forgiveness, it will be processed automatically. Note however that you do need to be working PSLF eligible employment at the time you submit that final application that gets you to the 120 payments.
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.
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.