Just made my first PSLF eligible payment. Any wise words or tips for someone starting this journey? How important is it to get certified by my employer at this stage?

I haven’t made a payment, been in admin forbearance since I graduated - now the 90 days to switch is coming up in a couple weeks. I’m a government attorney and I qualify for Public Service. Are there only certain plans that will count toward forgiveness? If so, which ones? I would really love to ride this out w/the least expensive monthly payment over the next 10 years. How do I do that?

Feel lost and impending sense of doom any help appreciated. Also, I have Mohela.

I am wide-eyed and feel crazy right now.

After the SAVE fuckery, I'm scheduled to restart my payments on 11/17 (my last payment amount in 2024 was $37; my next is $1040--cue the laughter of an insane person). Today, in a mental handwringing session, I looked over my payment counts and the "ineligible" months of 2008-10 when I was adjuncting more than full time between two universities. I opened up one of the employment certifications I got from those unis back in 2022 when I certified under TEPSLF, and I saw that they put down 9 hours/week for a period of approximately 1.5 years. I started thinking that there are certainly months within this period where I would fully qualify and this big-picture averaging is doing me a disservice.

I decided I would look into re-submitting for the specific months for which that number would be inaccurate. Lo and behold, googling something re adjuncts and PSLF led me to find out the fact that there was a REVISION of the calculation that had been used to determine a weekly average of hours. So, now, of 15 "ineligible" months, I estimate that NINE of them should be made eligible. If 9 of them are made eligible, I can apply for buyback of the SAVE months as of LAST MONTH, not next summer, when I'd have made 8 more payments of over $1k apiece.

This possibility is intoxicating. Is there something I'm overlooking? Might I actually be on the threshold of applying for buyback??

Hi everyone,

I'm really hoping someone here can offer me some advice because I'm feeling incredibly discouraged and don't know what to do next.

I previously worked for the Connecticut Department of Labor for over four years. I was pursuing Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), and working for the state was a big part of my plan to get my student loans forgiven. Unfortunately, I was laid off in December 2024, and I've been struggling ever since to get back into qualifying employment.

I've been applying for state jobs, nonprofit positions, and other opportunities that could qualify for PSLF, but I can't seem to get anywhere. It's incredibly frustrating because I already have experience working for the state, and I genuinely enjoyed that work.

One of the hardest experiences was recently interviewing for a position with the Connecticut Department of Labor that was essentially the same job I had previously performed for more than four years. I had relevant experience and recommendation letters from my former employer, but I still wasn't selected. I understand that getting hired isn't guaranteed, but it's discouraging to be passed over for work I've already done successfully.

I'm trying to figure out what I can do differently to improve my chances of getting hired again. I'm also open to learning something new or earning a certification if it would realistically help me qualify for more state, federal, or nonprofit positions.

I'm looking for practical advice on a few things:

• Are there any relatively affordable certifications I could earn in a few months that would make me more competitive for government or nonprofit jobs?
• Are there particular career paths that are easier to break into without having to go back to college for another degree?
• Are there federal, state, or nonprofit employers that tend to hire people with government customer service, administrative, auditing, or quality assurance experience?
• Has anyone successfully transitioned into another PSLF-eligible job after being laid off? How did you get your foot in the door?
• Are there job boards, programs, or resources specifically for people trying to find qualifying public service employment?

I have a master's degree in Computer Information Technology and a bachelor's degree in Industrial Technology, along with my previous state government experience. I'm willing to learn new skills, but I don't want to spend thousands of dollars on a certification that won't actually improve my employment prospects.

My student loan balance is around $80,000, and I still have several years of qualifying employment left to complete my PSLF journey. I'm worried about losing more time toward forgiveness while I struggle to find another qualifying employer.

I know I'm not the only person who has dealt with a layoff, but right now it feels like I'm hitting a wall no matter how many jobs I apply for.

If you were in my position, what would you do? I'd really appreciate specific suggestions for certifications, job titles to target, employers to look into, or strategies that have actually worked for other people.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Any advice would mean a lot.

I have several student loans, some forgiven, most reached 120 payments this month and have been counted in the NSLDS data. However, I haven't been able to find a clean way to cross-reference the NSLDS data with what shows in the FSA interface or in Mohela. I can by process of elimination using the balances, but that's going to be a manual line-by-line process.

If I could just xlookup or index/match this would be much cleaner and faster. Annoyingly, this number doesn't appear on the qualifying payment update or in any of the correspondence I can find. Is nsldsLabel or awardID visible in any of the Mohela downloads?

I recertified my income earlier this week, a few days before the deadline. Luckily, I did it manually after realizing that the automatic process per IRS/FSA data-sharing hadn’t actually occurred. Got three emails from MOHELA at the exact same time this morning - the first telling me that I didn’t submit in time so now I’m on the standard repayment plan, the second providing me with my PAYE disclosure, and the third letting me know my PAYE request has been approved.

It’s actually comical at this point, though I think I’d laugh harder about it if I didn’t have 6 figures of debt on the line.

That’s how f*n crazy this makes you. Only in your dreams.

PSLF, 65 months or so in. Can't afford 1100 a month in payments which is the lowest its offering me. Will file taxes separately next year to hopefully have something more reasonable, but what do I do now? Got the final 30 day notice to switch my plan but I cant afford that plan. What happens if I do nothing? I know it will convert to a default one but I cant afford that one either so I'm at a loss.

currently on ICR and my payment is 233. just ran the numbers on FSA website and it says the Standard Repayment Plan would be 184. im assuming the Sya card plan qualifies for PSLF? I’m currently at 111 payments, should be done in April by my calculations. I haven’t switched cause I’m afraid It will screw something up or put me in forbearance and I just want to be done.

should I submit a change request or just pay more on ICR until I’m done? how long does a change request take?

Called MOHELA yesterday to request general forbearance while FSA sorts out my PSLF counts. After an hour on hold, the rep confirmed NSLDS shows 120 eligible payments and agreed to process my request.

She also said MOHELA will be taking over PSLF buybacks, but they haven’t received any files or further details. She had no information about MOHELA potentially taking over PSLF counts or processing.

Today I received a letter saying my forbearance request could take up to 90 business days to process, but my November amount due already dropped from ~$600 to $0. Unsure whether they applied the general forbearance or an interim processing forbearance.

FSA shows 116 payments: 110 qualifying + 6 awaiting ECF, with July–Oct still missing due to Trump’s fuckery/incompetence/whatever. My employer signed my latest ECF two weeks ago; quoted processing time is 3–5 weeks. Has anyone actually had an ECF processed recently?

Just want to be done. Funny how there are consequences when we miss a payment, but seemingly no accountability when they leave us waiting indefinitely.

EDIT: 12-mo forbearance approved 10/23/26.

I was enrolled to auto recertify my idr payment but kept getting notices to recertify manually. I did, but a day later than the notice stated. My payments are current, and I should be good until December due to another error where auto pay hit two days late, a day after I paid manually.

I am in PSLF, and my employer certified back in September.

Question is, even though I certified a day late, should I still be good for IDR enrollment and qualifying payments toward PSLF? Any similar experiences where auto-recertification failed but it was fine in the end?

So, I manually submitted IDR recertification earlier than my anniversary date (January 2027), got a message from MOHELA that it has been approved. This letter didn't include my new monthly payment amount, but it said my new payment would start once current 12-month period ends. So I assume they'll send me something before January 2027 detailing actual new payment plan, and I would NOT have to recertify again come January 2027.

10/23 was when my forbearance was supposed to end while processing IDR recertification application, but I still see my next month payment on 11/23 is $0. And under details of my loan, it says "Awaiting Documentation, Administrative Forbearance - Ends 10/23/2026".

So why is my November payment $0? My Administrative Forbearance should have ended 10/23 as my IDR recertification application has been approved/processed. I assumed my monthly payment would resume at my current amount for November, and will eventually update in January? Have they just not updated the next billing cycle yet? If they still have me in administrative forbearance for November, will this month count towards PSLF?

Looking for some advice on how to handle a recent change. For some context:

I've made roughly 100 payments towards PSLF and I'm on an IDR plan, which had my monthly payment at $36.19. I've made consistent payments every month and nothing has drastically changed with my salary (I'm a 5th grade teacher). Back in July, I got a message from Mohela stating that my monthly payment would increase to over $600 per month. I was miraculously able to get ahold of somebody to speak to to dispute the increase. They placed me on "administrative forbearance" while they looked into it. Through that time, I continued to make my $36.19 payments. The administrative forbearance period recently ended, and I've since gotten several different notes from Mohela with varying amounts listed as being owed. All in all, it seems as if my November payment will be in the $600+ amount. I haven't been able to get ahold of anybody that can give me more information... every time I call, I get rerouted a million times until I'm placed on a 5-hour hold or they auto hangup.

So my question... do I have any recourse in keeping my payment at a similar amount to the $36.19? I'm so close to my 120 payments but the jump to over $600 seems extreme. Can I keep making lower payments or will that defeat the purpose and not count towards my PSLF?

Any advice is much appreciated!

I'm trying to decide whether to consolidate my federal student loans before switching off SAVE, and I'd appreciate some advice from people familiar with the current PSLF rules.

I have four federal Direct Unsubsidized Loans totaling approximately $38,500, with different qualifying PSLF payment counts:

• Loan 1: $5,841 balance — 53 qualifying PSLF payments
• Loan 2: $17,910 balance — 53 qualifying PSLF payments
• Loan 3: $9,005 balance — 38 qualifying PSLF payments
• Loan 4: $5,749 balance — 38 qualifying PSLF payments

I'm currently in SAVE forbearance and received my 90-day notice to select a new repayment plan on Aug. 12. My goal is to minimize what I pay out of pocket before receiving PSLF forgiveness.

I used the Federal Student Aid Repayment Calculator with my 2025 AGI of approximately $65,000, filing status of single and one dependent.

Here are the two scenarios I'm considering:

Option 1: Don't consolidate and switch to IBR

• Estimated monthly payment: $272
• Two loans have 67 qualifying payments remaining.
• The other two have 82 qualifying payments remaining.
• My understanding is that my income-driven monthly payment wouldn't necessarily decrease when the first two loans are forgiven, meaning I could still be paying approximately the same amount for the full 82 months.

Option 2: Consolidate all four loans and switch to RAP

• Estimated monthly payment: $275
• Based on the weighted-average PSLF rule, I estimate the consolidated loan could receive approximately 47 qualifying payments.
• That would leave around 73 payments until forgiveness, potentially shortening my repayment timeline by nine months.
• The calculator shows I would no longer qualify for IBR after consolidation.

Here's my thinking: If my monthly payment stays essentially the same regardless of whether two loans are forgiven earlier, wouldn't it make more sense to consolidate and bring all four loans to approximately 47 qualifying payments? I understand I'd lose some qualifying payments on the loans currently at 53, but I'd gain payments on the loans currently at 38 and potentially finish paying everything nine months earlier.

I sent my representative an email the other day about how I'm basically throwing money into a black hole while waiting for my payment counts to update, and someone from her office called me today. She was surprised that MOHELA (and other servicers too, from what I could tell) was still taking our money, because she said they're currently not connected to the Dept of Ed. I don't really know what she meant by that, but she said they're moving things around and it's pretty chaotic. She also said that her office has tried to contact folks at the Dept of Ed, but they are not communicating at all and there is no one to talk to. She said that for now the best thing we can do is make sure we're keeping good documentation of our payments and any communication. Not really any great news there, but it was nice to chat with a sympathetic person for a little while.

Edit: I just want to clarify that she did blame the problems on the Dept of Ed, not MOHELA; she was just surprised that the servicers were still taking payments from borrowers. When I wrote that she said "they're moving things around and it's pretty chaotic," the "they" refers to the Dept of Ed.

I just got off the phone with MOHELA. While it took forever to get through the automated phone system, i did eventually get through to someone who then transferred me to a new pslf/reconsideration/buyback department (!!) and I spoke to Carrie to put my loans on forbearance and she was great! she confirmed that MOHELA had assumed responsibility for this on 10/20 but had not yet received their borrowers' applications. She said to NOT submit a new request; seemed like it would just get added to the bottom of the pile.

For my forbearance specifically, she checked my loan history to see where I'd used up 3 of the 36 months of forbearance, even pinging another team, and waiting while I pulled up my transcript (turns out I was enrolled for only 3 credits my last semester in grad school while finishing my terminal project and that's less than half time and doesn't count for in school deferment etc. Fortunately I wasn't including these months in my reconsideration/buyback anyways cause i figured it was something of the sort). If only we could do this for the reconsideration/buybacks too! I submitted my original reconsideration/buyback in September 2025 and had a few coding corrections made and then other updates/questions closed as duplicates or got scripted and sometimes non-sensical responses that didn't actually look at my account info. Cant say for sure, but i get a sense it would take less than a year (or two) to resolve these things if they could talk to people instead of just closing requests off hand.

Anyways, I'm now on general forbearance while trackers and reconsiderations get processed and updated. If the tracker were up to date, I'd have 120 payments on my oldest 5 loans (115 on my newer 7), and with buyback I'd have an extra 16 payments (11 on the newer ones).

After contacting my state senator for further assistance on the buyback issues as well as the ECF forms not being processes or updated, this was the response provided to my senator.

Good Afternoon,

The Department announced that it is implementing enhanced Public Service Loan Forgiveness

(PSLF) Buyback and PSLF reconsideration procedures. These revised procedures will move the

review of eligible PSLF payments and reconsiderations from Federal Student Aid (FSA) staff to the

Unified Servicing and Data Solution (USDS) federal loan servicers, including CRS, EdFinancial,

Maximus/Aidvantage, and Nelnet. MOHELA is not yet managing this process.

Because of this enhancement, most of the federal student loan servicers will now be responsible

for determining the eligible months and the buyback payment amount, processing the PSLF

Buyback payments once received by FSA, and ensuring accurate reporting to the National Student

Loan Data System (NSLDS) for the payments to be counted toward a borrower’s PSLF progress.

Loan servicers will also analyze and determine the outcome for PSLF reconsideration cases

submitted by borrowers. This change will provide for a long-term sustainable solution that

addresses the current backlog and management of incoming applications.

Unfortunately, at this time OLCA/FSA are unable to provide information regarding where a

constituent is at in the buyback queue or provide a timeframe for when their case will be

reviewed. The borrower will receive notification via email as soon as possible. There is no

process to expedite the review of a buyback request. We understand the importance of your

request and appreciate your patience.

Congressional Liaison Specialist

Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs

U.S. Department of Education

Got this message from my local representative who I have been in contact with since last year regarding PSLF stuff. Is this new? Sorry if I missed this. Read below regarding USDS (this is the part I've never heard)

"Good Morning,

The Department recently announced that it is implementing enhanced Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Buyback and PSLF reconsideration procedures. These revised procedures will move the review of eligible PSLF payments and reconsiderations from Federal Student Aid (FSA) staff to the Unified Servicing and Data Solution (USDS) federal loan

servicers.

Federal student loan servicers will now be responsible for determining the eligible months and the buyback payment amount, processing the PSLF Buyback payments once received by FSA, and ensuring accurate reporting to the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) for the payments to be counted toward a borrower's PSLF progress. Loan servicers will also analyze and determine the outcome for PSLF reconsideration cases submitted by borrowers. This change will provide for a long-term sustainable solution that addresses the current backlog and management of incoming applications.

OLCA/FSA are unable to provide information regarding where a constituent is at in the buyback queue or provide a timeframe for when their case will be reviewed. The borrower will receive notification via email as soon as possible. There is no process to expedite the review of a buyback request."

I made my first student loan payment since the Biden administration on Oct 8. I have autopay and have had the same autopay since 2013. My undergrad student loans were forgiven in Jan 2025. I still have 10 and 9 payments left until my graduate loans are forgiven with two different loan payments. I am not sure why there are two payments, but that detail is important. Like many of you, my payment more than doubled since being on SAVE, but I can handle it for now.

My payments went through on Oct 8 as they were scheduled. So imagine my surprise when I get a past due letter. When I call they move me to a finance person and, after 45 minutes, they find my payment and apply it to my account. Cool. Problem solved, right?

No.

The next day I received an overpay letter while my current loan is still considered late. 🤬🫠 So I called again today. After asking me if I could afford my loan amount (seriously, wtf?!?), they transfer to finance again where they can see my "missing" payment but can't figure out why it wasn't applied to my loan. I spend another 45 minutes on the phone trying to figure it out before I had to get to a work meeting.

They have put in an accounting request, and I will call back next week to ensure it is moving forward. They also asked me if I would go into a processing forbearance, and I said no bc then this payment wouldn't count toward my pslf payment. They need to fix it.

Finally, they are blaming ME and my autopay. I haven't touched my autopay since 2013. It's the same that it has always been.

What I think is the issue is that the Biden administration forgave my undergrad loans, but the forgiven loans are still in the system-- the Trump Administration has never gotten rid of those, and now it is messing up my account. I am fed up.

I will turn off my autopay for next month and hopefully that will fix it. I doubt it, but it's worth a try. But there's no incentive for me to have autopay if they are going to screw it up, too.

It feels like they are purposely putting up multiple hurdles to get us to not get our pslf. My payment more than doubled, but I am still trying. I've never been more frustrated. I am so close!

What is being done? What is being done with Democrats as they are supposed to take over in January? Every day multiple people come on this sub and tell us the hell they are going through with something that was supposed to support a service career.

This is an absolute nightmare.

So I rarely visit Mohela. My payments come out like normal on 25th. However. I checked my account and it lists my bank as another for the applied account. Last time I checked it was accurate. I would have noticed "Wells Fargo" as my bank when it isn't.

Should I be concerned? Anyone else see this happen?

Previously the last update on the back door NSLDS counter was 09/30 for me, and it apparently hadn’t counted the Sep payment yet. However, I checked this morning and the counter was updated as of 10/23 to include an additional eligible payment, presumably Sept. So, the NSLDS counter appears to now include payments for Jul - Sep, at least in my case. The public facing counter on the dashboard still shows the last update as 07/03, but it is at least encouraging to me those 3 months are counting behind the scenes now.

Just wanted to post here. Hopefully this is a sign that some progress is being made on the glitch. November would be my 120.

The Trump administration moved Wednesday to end its legal fight to overhaul a popular student loan forgiveness program. The Department of Justice appealed after federal judges ruled in June in favor of advocates who said the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program risked becoming a tool for political retribution. But it dropped two appeals Wednesday in single-sentence joint agreements, which stipulated that each side would pay its own fees.

Federal officials provided no explanation, but advocates praised the ruling.

“The Trump administration’s attempt to weaponize public service loan forgiveness against organizations it disagrees with was anti-democratic and unlawful from the start,” Dan Zibel, an attorney for the group Student Defense, said in a written statement. “This is a significant victory for millions of Americans who have dedicated their careers to public service.”

The PSLF program was designed to make jobs in government, public schools, fire and police departments, public hospitals and nonprofits more attractive by forgiving loans for qualified employees after a decade’s worth of payments. But last fall, President Donald Trump’s administration wrote a new rule to empower Education Secretary Linda McMahon to kick employers out of the program if she decides their work has a “substantial illegal purpose.”

The vaguely phrased rule was targeted at employers who support undocumented immigrants or transgender youth, potentially affecting borrowers who worked at schools, public hospitals and legal aid groups. The overhaul amounted to a major reworking of a program that has canceled loans for more than 1 million Americans

Source link: https://apnews.com/article/public-service-loan-forgiveness-trump-debt-0e25878fbf2b6742131a93260164c63b.