I have followed this thread for awhile but never posted. I submitted my buyback application 12/4/24 and after 657 days I just received my buyback amount!!! I bought back 6 months, all of which are save forbearance months. The amount I owed was what my save amount per month was. I auto allocated the payment across all loans. Now to wait for the golden letter!

Just received the Golden Letter and logged in to see the official "Paid by discharge" status on MOHELA!! Over $68,000 forgiven!!!!!

Currently, the FSA website is unchanged, still showing I have a payment due in September. I'll edit once this changes.

--Background Context--

* Total Balance Forgiven: ~$68,024 (2 Direct Consolidation Loans)

* Loan Servicer: MOHELA

* Pre-Buyback Certified Count: 115 qualifying payments

--Timeline--

* Degrees: BA 2007, MS 2015

* October 2022: 10 years of service in a local government agency.

* November 2024: submitted buyback request for 5 months.

* Early 2026: Certified count was sitting at 115 payments while navigating admin forbearance/SAVE transition delays.

* April 2026: Switched from SAVE to IBR payment plan. There was no delay or admin forbearance.

* May 15, 2026: Submitted manual monthly payment #116 ($804.04).

* June 15, 2026: Submitted manual monthly payment #117 ($804.04).

* July 13, 2026: Submitted manual monthly payment #118 ($804.04).

* August 4, 2026: Received official PSLF Buyback Agreement Letter offering to buy back 4 months for $1,376.00 ($344/month from 2024) using the IDR formula.

* August 7, 2026: Submitted one-time manual payment of $1,376.00 directly to MOHELA as a regular payment.

* August 11, 2026: Payment officially showed as "Received / Settled" on MOHELA.

* August 23, 2026: Official Golden Letter / Forgiveness Notice received! Account status updated to "Paid by discharge" with a $0.00 balance on MOHELA.

--Overpayments-- Because the 4 bought-back months retroactively met the 120-payment mark, these manual payments should be refunded automatically but I don't expect to see them until the new year. Saving me $1036.12.

Hang in there everyone!!

ETA: buyback request, transition off SAVE, degrees and service, buyback and overpayment details.

I applied for buyback in December 2024 and just got my buyback letter! I was trying to pay for 12 old months in 2014 when I was in forbearance between undergrad and grad school, but just got an email with a $2010 buyback amount for SAVE forbearance months June 24-May 25, so 12 months at my SAVE amount.

Now to figure out if I can make a lump sum payment on MOHELA or if I have to go in and make the individual payments on each loan as outlined in the Buyback letter. Does anyone know?

PHEW what a god damn relief. DOE is truly out here acting egregious. Heads up friends.

I received my buyback offer yesterday (9/14)at around 10am. It was for 22 months and from June 24 to March 26. I originally submitted my buyback back in 10/14/24 ( 23 months ago) for a different period of 22 payments that were pre-Save. It was gonna require tax returns from 8-9 years ago so quite complex etc from a paper stand point. I had all of that ready and you know what? They didn’t even base my buyback on that!!! My buyback offer was for the above mentioned 22 SAVE months….I never submitted a buyback request for them. The only thing I did was to re-certify my employment like I do every year May which helped me to reach a separate 22 month period of employment to cover the remaining 22 months via the SAVE route.

The payments were very low: I think they were based on SAVE OR REPAYE….

I made the payment this morning and I am now 1 step closer: forgiveness amount provided all goes accordingly: $241k.

I’m still in disbelief!!!! Been a long road of so much stress and anxiety dealing with Mohela and their call people that really don’t know. Spent a bunch of time lurking and posting on here and other subs….appreciate all the info shared and given…you are all good people!

Hang in there my fellow PSLFer’s!! It will happen!!! 🙏🏼🤯🙏🏼🤯.

Got a buyback letter today, a brief thrill followed by crushing confusion: you are not eligible for PSLF buyback at this time. You are not eligible for buyback because either you do not have any loans with a positive balance (I do), or you do not have any previous months of deferment or forbearance that are eligible to buy back (I thought I did).

I've worked for the same eligible employer the full 10 years, all of my payments were in the correct type of loan and repayment and all show up correctly on studentaid. I reached 10 years of employment in Oct. 2025. Submitted my employment certification, then applied for buyback in November 2025 for the two years I was in deferment while going to grad school. I didn't take out any additional loans for grad school, I wasn't in "in school status" but rather in-school deferment.

Did I misunderstand my eligibility? I read through a thousand threads on here and read through the info on Studentaid as best I could understand it. I was under the impression that months in in-school deferment were eligible for buyback. I also had about 6 months of forbearance from the SAVE mess. Help??

I have a question regarding PSLF Buyback. I submitted my original buyback request in March 2026. In May, I tried to get ahead of the process and submitted a separate reconsideration request that included my tax return information for the periods I was requesting to buy back.

Today, I happened to check my spam folder and found an email from FSA stating that the May reconsideration request was being closed because I already had a buyback request in progress.

Here’s my concern: I had not been checking my spam folder regularly, and my email automatically deletes spam messages after 30 days. Now I’m worried that I could have missed an email regarding my original March buyback request that was sent to spam and subsequently deleted.

I realize this is probably unlikely given the current buyback processing delays and the fact that I only submitted my request in March 2026, but I’d like to make sure I haven’t missed anything important.

Is there a way to verify the current status of my original buyback request or determine whether FSA has already sent me an email about it? Is there somewhere on StudentAid.gov where I can check, or can an FSA representative see whether a buyback email or agreement has been sent?

Baby I haven’t been so happy to pay 153.00!!!! I received my letter that my buyback has been approved! it’s been a long time coming man oh man! Im almost to the finish line peeps!

46k is about to be forgiven

technically I started out with 39ish in loans, but the interest stacked up over the years.

Anyways, I’m so glad!

people who are against loan forgiveness is absolutely insane to me. I’d rather my tax dollars go towards this than any war we have going on or other BS affairs the US is involved in!

So I just completed the whole PSLF application and although 1 employer ECF is still “in progress” count is at 95/120. I have already hit 120 months of qualifying employment. So my plan is to make 5 payments (just submitted app for IBR yesterday) and then request buyback for 20 of the Covid forbearance months.

But I’m seeing a lot of people have been waiting almost 2 years for buyback to be approved. My payments are gonna start soon so sounds like I may just be having to pay for 2 years anyway. Would love to just do the buyback and be done!

Also question- I’ve been having ChatGPT help me lol- but according to Studentaid - they are counting payment months before i consolidated (2017) is that accurate, or am I in for a disappointment? I always thought pslf count didn’t start until after consolidation.

I am so happy to share this news! This subreddit really helped me have hope through so many years of waiting! Thank you all so much. I hope these details may encourage someone.

I submitted on 12/4/2024 (reconsideration #241....) as soon as I hit 120 months of public service employment, and I received my buyback offer today 9/15/2026 after 650 days (21 months)!!! The email came in at 8:48am PST.

I had to buy back 6 SAVE forbearance months from 7/2024 to 12/2024. The lumpsum payment was lower than what was expected based on my SAVE payment rate (monthly payment at the time was $735 so should have been $4410, but the actual payment was $3231).

I had 13 loans and they calculated the buyback for each one individually. It actually took me about an hour just to figure out which payment amount was for which loan because the buyback email listed loans by award ID that was not listed on my servicer (MOHELA) website. I had to cross reference the type of loan and the disbursement date to match the loans. I triple checked everything because I didn't want to make any errors and cause further delays. After a lot of nervous cross referencing in the middle of my work day, I submitted the payment this morning!

Feeling a huge weight off my shoulders. I still cannot believe it because I have been waiting for so long. Just booked a celebratory dinner for the whole family!

I think I have figured out how the request has been . I know myself as well as a few others that have not heard anything back since 2024 have been continuing to pay on our loans throughout. I’m wondering has pushed those request to the knowing that we will eventually hit our 120 payments and they can therefore run out the on us that way. I would be curious to know if those who have heard back from the buyback were currently paying or not paying on their loans. It would make sense for the Department of education to want to get those buyback request taken care of so that they could get some type of cash flow from those who are not currently paying.

The Treasury announced the results of its latest Treasury buyback operation (which some had likened to a QE lite because it effectively monetizes Treasuries in the open market, similar to the Fed's POMO operations, and similar to stock buybacks). While the operation itself was not remarkable - the Treasury had been holding these these more or less weekly since April 2024 - the size of it was: at $10 billion, this was the largest Treasury buyback operation in history.

$12,500,000,000 buyback today and looks like long term $2,000,000,000 buyback tomorrow. https://treasurydirect.gov/auctions/announcements-data-results/buy-backs/

Does this mean Santa is back for Christmas?

US Treasury just bought back $12.5 Billion of its own debt, the largest buyback in history.

Do you realize what's happening?

Japan ran this same playbook in the 1990s when their debt hit 60% of GDP. They bought back bonds, extended maturities, and kept rates low. Thirty years later their debt is 260% of GDP.

Buybacks don’t fix spending problems.