How will I know if I qualify for loan forgiveness?
You may be eligible for income-driven repayment (IDR) loan forgiveness if you've have been in repayment for 20 or 25 years. An IDR plan bases your monthly payment on your income and family size.
Your loans should automatically qualify for forgiveness after you've spent 20 or 25 years in repayment. Reach out to your loan servicer about any steps you may need to take.
Your student loan servicer(s) will notify you directly after your forgiveness is processed.
Once we've received all of the documentation needed to determine whether you qualify for loan forgiveness, you'll be notified. A final review of your account will be done to process forgiveness, which will take at least 90 business days.
- work full time for a government agency or for certain types of nonprofit organizations,
- have Direct Loans (or have consolidated other federal student loans to qualify),
- repay your loans on an income-driven repayment plan, and.
- make 120 qualifying payments.
If you're working toward PSLF, complete and submit the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) & Temporary Expanded PSLF (TEPSLF) Certification & Application (PSLF form) annually or when you change employers. If you've made 120 qualifying payments, fill out and submit this same form.
The impact of student loan forgiveness depends greatly on a borrower's unique credit profile. For some, they may see a slight dip, but for most, forgiveness will have a net positive effect.
Borrowers with undergraduate debt would qualify for forgiveness if they entered repayment 20 years ago or more, and borrowers with graduate school debt would qualify for forgiveness if they entered repayment 25 years ago or more. Cancel student debt for borrowers previously enrolled in low-financial-value programs.
After you submit your Student Loan Debt Relief Application, you will receive an email confirmation. The federal government will review your application and determine whether you are eligible for relief. They will contact you with instructions if they need more information.
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.
Has the student loan forgiveness been approved yet?
Today's announcement brings the total loan forgiveness approved by the Biden-Harris Administration to $167 billion for 4.75 million Americans. Thanks to this Administration's efforts more than one out of every 10 federal student loan borrowers has now been approved for some debt relief.
If you qualify for student loan forgiveness or discharge in full, and have applied if necessary in your case, you will get a notification and will no longer need to make payments. In some cases, you may even get a refund, depending on the program you applied under.
What is the status of my Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) application? Log in to StudentAid.gov to track your Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) application status or PSLF progress. Contact the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-433-3243 with additional questions.
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.
As of mid-July 2023, approximately 662,000 borrowers have qualified for forgiveness under the limited PSLF waiver. Although the limited PSLF waiver period has ended, some borrowers who submitted their applications prior to the end date may continue to have their applications processed from the waiver period.
If we verify that your employment qualifies, we'll then review your payment history. You can check the status of your form(s) when you log in to StudentAid.gov. Don't forget to submit the PSLF form with your employment certification every year.
Please visit the U.S. Department of Education's PSLF site for more information or call 1‑800‑433‑3243 and speak to a PSLF support representative.
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.
Typically, the cancellation of any debt can be a taxable event. Borrowers would be issued a Form 1099-C, which requires them to report the discharged debt as income for tax purposes. Under current law, however, most forms of federal student loan forgiveness are not taxable federally through the end of 2025.
If you repay your loans under an IDR plan, any remaining balance on your student loans will be forgiven after you make a certain number of payments over 20 or 25 years. Past periods of repayment, deferment, and forbearance might now count toward IDR forgiveness because of the payment count adjustment.
Why do my student loans say paid in full?
You may notice your former servicer has cleared your loan account. For example, your loan balance may come up as “paid in full” on your former servicer's website or on your credit report. This does not mean you've received loan forgiveness. This is part of the loan transfer process.
There are specific situations when a student loan can be removed from a credit report and nearly all of them are related to inaccuracies. Some examples of inaccurate information include: Missed or late payments (either during regular repayment periods or forbearance and deferment) Student loan default.
You'll also be eligible for student loan forgiveness on any remaining balance after the repayment period ends. This is usually after 20–25 years. Both direct subsidized and unsubsidized loans are eligible for any of the four IDR plans.
You may qualify for a student loan refund if:
You were eligible for IDR forgiveness or PSLF. You are eligible for an adjustment to the number of payments counted toward IDR or PSLF. After this adjustment is made, you'll have more payments on your record than you needed to qualify for loan forgiveness.
If your federal student loans are forgiven, you could get a refund, and you might see your credit score dip. Anna Helhoski is a senior writer covering economic news and trends in consumer finance at NerdWallet. She is also an authority on student loans.
