Your loan servicer will help you for FREE. Contact your servicer to apply for income-driven repayment plans, student loan forgiveness, and more.
The office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) provides approximately $120.8 billion in grant, work-study, and loan funds each year to help students and their families pay for college or career school.
Federal student loan servicers handle your federal student loans on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education. The biggest loan servicers are MOHELA, Aidvantage and Nelnet. Your loan servicer might have changed during the payment pause. Find out who your loan servicer is by logging in to your student loan account.
To learn more about the application process, read our PSLF form page. When you're ready to apply, we suggest you use the PSLF Help Tool to complete your form. If you still have questions, contact the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-433-3243.
First, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) approved 6,100 borrowers for $465 million through Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). Second, the Department approved nearly 85,000 borrowers for $1.26 billion in relief based upon borrower defense findings.
Federal student loans are owned by the U.S. Department of Education while private student loans are owned by the financial institution that granted them. Learn more how who owns student loans and how to find out who owns your student loan.
In October 2023, the U.S. Department of Education disclosed that MOHELA failed to send monthly student loan bills to 2.5 million borrowers, resulting in 800,000 borrowers missing a monthly payment.
Your loans were not sold. ED will continue to own your loans; however, MOHELA will manage your loans and assist you on ED's behalf as your federal student loan servicer.
Overview of Student Loan Ownership
Federal student loans are typically owned by the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), while private student loans are owned by the private lender who issued them. However, both the DOE and private lenders may partner with a third party known as a loan servicer to manage your loans.
The CFPB is one of the federal agencies responsible for overseeing private and federal student loan products and servicers.
Direct Subsidized Loans and Direct Unsubsidized Loans are federal student loans offered by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to help eligible students cover the cost of higher education at a four-year college or university, community college, or trade, career, or technical school.
As of mid-July 2023, approximately 662,000 borrowers have qualified for forgiveness under the limited PSLF waiver.
Are student loans forgiven when you retire? No, the federal government doesn't forgive student loans at age 50, 65, or when borrowers retire and start drawing Social Security benefits. So, for example, you'll still owe Parent PLUS Loans, FFEL Loans, and Direct Loans after you retire.
Why do loans get switched or transferred to a different servicer? Sometimes, we need to transfer loans from one servicer to another—for example, when a servicer's contract with us ends. Even if we transfer your loans to a new servicer, we (the U.S. Department of Education) still own your loans.
Federally-Owned Loans Serviced by MOHELA
We offer self-service tools and resources to help you navigate through the student loan and repayment process with confidence: make payments, change repayment plans, explore options and get help.
What happened? Student loans disappear from credit reports 7.5 years from the date they are paid in full, charged-off, or entered default. However, education debt can reappear if you dig out of default with consolidation or loan rehabilitation.
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.
Congress created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program in 2007 as part of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act (the “Act”). The final bill passed with wide bipartisan majorities before being signed into law by President George W.
The office of Federal Student Aid is responsible for directly managing or overseeing an outstanding federal student loan portfolio comprised of billions of dollars in Title IV loans and representing millions of borrowers.
Your interest charges will be added to the amount you owe, causing your loan to grow over time. This can occur if you are in a deferment for an unsubsidized loan or if you have an income-based repayment (IBR) plan and your payments are not large enough to cover the monthly accruing interest.
Let's say you have $200,000 in student loans at 6% interest on a 10-year repayment term. Your monthly payments would be $2,220. If you can manage an additional $200 a month, you could save a total of $7,796 while trimming a year off your repayment plan.
Meanwhile, 1 million people had a federal student loan balance of more than $200,000, up from 600,000 individuals.
For example, the interest on a $30,000, 36-month loan at 6% is $2,856. The same loan ($30,000 at 6%) paid back over 72 months would cost $5,797 in interest. Even small changes in your rate can impact how much total interest amount you pay overall.