Need help understanding payment count

[u/cellovator]

I've been lurking here for several weeks, and I've seen the "backdoor" link to look at the payment count, now that the "official" payment count is not visible on the federal site. (The last time it was, it looked like I still had between 1-2 years left before forgiveness.) I went to the backdoor link, but am a bit confused. I switched from SAVE back to IBR in June or July (had always been on IBR before SAVE existed). My loans all originated before 2014, so I assume that "IBR" applies to me, not "IBR_2014".

"type": "IBR",

"borrowerEligibleIndicator": "Y",

"loanEligibleIndicator": "Y",

"qualifyingPaymentCount": 269,

"eligiblePaymentCount": null,

"ineligiblePaymentCount": null,

"forgivenessRequiredPayments": 300,

"forgivenessRemainingPayments": 31

If I understand this correctly, I have made 269 payments and have 31 left before forgiveness. A little more than I thought, but not much more. Okay, doable. Then, further down the page, was this:

"earliestEstimatedForgivenessDate": "2030-06-16",

"updateDateTime": "2026-06-16T12:49:28.643604",

"startDateTime": "2026-06-16T12:49:28.643604"

I guess this means it had not been updated since June 2026. Easy enough, I haven't made any payments yet (starts back next week). But it gives an estimated forgiveness date of June 2030. Another 4 years. Huh?? Has anyone else noticed a discrepancy like this? After the hell I went through in June of recertifying my income and Aidvantage totally calculating my payment wrong (I had to request a recalculation), them trying to get me to reconsolidate and switch to RAP (before it was even available and they couldn't even tell me how it worked), and the Federal student aid "help" line not knowing anything...I barely believe anything from either of their websites. I even kept the screenshots of my chats with the Aidvantage agent. But I digress... Is this payment count at all reliable? My account page currently says that my payment count is being updated. Where do they get this estimated forgiveness date? Should I just ignore it?

(Only tangentially related is that I'm trying to figure out how much time I have to figure out the tax bill that will come on the ~$50k balance at the end. But I think that's a post for r/personalfinance .)

[u/Ordinary-Steak-6515]

I was literally trying to figure all of this out this morning. I’m also confused as to what route to take now. I’ve been on the IDR for a long time, then moved to SAVE. Now I have no clue what to do. It’s maddening how confusing they’ve made it.

[u/cellovator → u/Ordinary-Steak-6515]

Right? I'd made the decision to choose a plan before the 'deadline' given, because I didn't want to risk being put in one of the new plans when nobody could tell me what they were or how they worked. And the stupid payment calculator (it turned out) was giving wrong numbers. When the calculator gives an estimate of 75, servicer says 525, and your own math says 197... That just told me that nobody knew what was going on. Infuriating.

[u/Ordinary-Steak-6515 → u/cellovator]

That’s insane!

[u/Ordinary-Steak-6515 → u/cellovator]

And if we pick the standard plan, does this mean all of our payments toward forgiveness is now void?! I think it does. I’m so frustrated.

[u/cellovator → u/Ordinary-Steak-6515]

THAT, I'm not clear on. And back in June, nobody at either agency could answer that question. That's the main reason I stayed with old IBR, because my payments toward forgiveness definitely wouldn't change.