Seeing the latest chaos on this subreddit, amidst the general government chaos, and I'm worried about relying on PSLF being available in 10 years. Most people on here seem to be making it through to the end, but you started long before this administration.

I went to a private for-profit graduate school (I have many regrets), and I have $400K in debt. It feels like a big gamble for me to rely on getting it forgiven.

Alternatives I'm considering are working for government and military institutions with added student loan repayment programs (e.g., EDRP). Short-term misery, more secure payoff.

Edit with more information: They're all GradPlus loans (no private loans). I have a clinical psychology PhD now, so I'm more or less in the medical field.

I applied for a new IDR plan in may to try and get ahead of the situation currently going down since I was on the SAVE plan, and two months later my IDR was approved and my payments are right around 100 a month.

I qualify for PSLF as I work for a non profit, so I am starting the journey of accomplishing that (3 payments down, 117 to go).

Has anyone gotten judged harshly by a loved one for doing a loan forgiveness repayment plan? I was told by a sibling this morning that by doing pslf I am not taking responsibility for my choice to go to college by taking out student loans.

I tried explaining that the government that gave me the loans also created the income driven repayment options and forgiveness plans, but it seems like that isn’t a good enough excuse for them. It seems like their opinion is that unless I pay the full amount I borrowed, I am not taking responsibility and I’m also not “wanting” to pay my loans off.

The thing is, if I didn’t qualify for these things that are available, that’s what I’d be doing.

How do you deal with the frustration of this sort of opinion being thrown at you? I’m just trying to not feel like I’ll be in debt until I die.

PS. As a millennial? College is 100% a scam. The fact that my generation was basically told we would fail at life if we didn’t go to college was a lot of the reason I went without knowing what I wanted to do with my life. I obviously still chose it myself, but yeah.

I didn't know what I was doing with these loans until last year. So I consolidated my loans (because it said I had to, to apply for PSLF) and this month I hit my 120th month of eligible employment certification, AND I THOUGHT I could buy back 22 months that was in deferment and forbearance but someone said NO! you can't once you consolidate!!! OMG I"M GOING TO CRYYYYYYY

My dashboard went from showing only 35 payments to now showing 74 qualifying payments this month. Finally, a ray of hope, though the real number should already be 120. At least there is meaningful progress!

13 payments left.

I accepted a teaching job in a new district thinking I’d be on an 11 month contract and could buy back 2 months forebearance, and hit that lucky 13 June 2027. Was gonna be my last year teaching.

Turns out they only offer 10 month contracts.

In June I’d have one payment left. I’d have to teach another year to get that one payment

I might as well not even take this job and just look for something I actually want to do for long term.

I hate that pslf is actually influencing big life decisions this much

Thinking i should cut and run live back with my parents and just reset my life

I received forgiveness after getting to 120 (hallelujah!). I continued to make payments until the actual forgiveness. On my MOHELA account it shows a refund dated 6/18/26. I haven’t received anything. Should I call them? I know the treasury issues refunds.. do they direct deposit? Send a check? Is it normal to wait this long?

I submitted the request to switch from SAVE to IBR 10 days ago. I used the tax import option. I just received an email from MOHELA saying it could be 90 days before it’s processed.

Did anyone get theirs approved and processed sooner? I just started a PSLF position and will be really annoyed if I miss out on 3 months of qualifying payments because MOHELA can’t get their shit together.

I tried looking through recent posts about this but I’m still confused. This is my first time actually recertifying my income since I was able to switch from SAVE to IBR in November 2025. I first applied July 2025 and had to make several calls to get it processed.

My recertification date on FSA is July 23 2026. Mohela’s deadline was June 18. I submitted my application on June 1, and it shows as completed/processed on June 2 on FSA. That application shows my new payment amount to be $390.

On Mohela, I got four letters about my plan request from June 2-4. On June 2, my plan request was approved and said my payment would be $375 due on June 23 which is the same as my previous amount. Then it seemed like I was placed in administrative forbearance (!?). The most recent letter I got was my June 26 billing statement on saying that I have a $595 payment due August 23 which is the amount stated in a previous Mohela letter if I didn’t recertify by the deadline which I did. The last payment I made was my regular $375 payment on June 23, even though I think it I was in admin forbearance but I was going off of the previous letter. Currently, the website doesn’t state that I’m in forbearance but it says “no payment due” for $0 on July 23.

Also, after I paid on June 23, I enrolled in autopay… the website shows autopay starting August 23 for $595. I’m not sure if I should remove that or what to do 😣. That was probably a mistake so please advise.

I’m going to call Mohela in a few hours when they open but I have no idea what to ask. Should I pay tomorrow? My new payment amount according to FSA was supposed to be $390. The website says $0 Do I pay? Or wait. I just got updated payment counts in July and when I was still seemingly on admin forbearance in October 2025 while switching from SAVE it doesn’t look like that payment counted.

Sorry for the long post, I hope it makes sense. I need advice on what to say when I call and when/how much to pay. TIA!

I received 3 letters that the plan switch was approved, but one of the letters which details the changes to my repayment schedule are not taking into consideration the 84 qualifying payments I've already made. Should I be concerned about this? It's listing out the 120 payment amounts I'll need to make, but I should only have 36 left.

Hey guys, wanted some community input into my particular situation. I am about to hit 120 payments this August. I was previously on the pay as you earn and my recertification date was July 19th. I decided not to recertify based off and increase in income. I got switched out into the standard 10-year repayment plan which is due in August. Should I go ahead and just pay that standardized amount and then submit for the loan forgiveness afterwards? Or should I change plans now, and risk any sort of processing delays?

I’m sorry if these are stupid/too general of a question but every time I try to research this my head starts spinning and the posts on here have been much more helpful than studentaid/mohela.

I’ve been in SAVE/forbearance BS for a while and I just got an alert that interest resumed accruing this month so trying to figure out what the hell I should plan to do for PSLF. I have 55/120 qualifying payments (despite being in my public service job for 7 years now). To do the income driven repayment it’ll supposedly be $780/month and I have currently $70k left in loans. Is that really the lowest I’ll be able to pay to get qualifying payments on the remainder of the loan? The calculator says I am ineligible for PAYE or RAP for some reason and from what I gather I have to do IDR, PAYE or RAP. At that point I’d pay about $50k and it makes me wonder if I need to seriously consider leaving my PS job to pay these loans quicker (I really do not want to do that). Also how do buybacks work? Can I try to buy back the months that I should have within my 7 years that I haven’t yet gotten credit for? Can I apply for buybacks much sooner than I would reach 120 since they seem to take so long to process?

Any guidance/suggestions are much appreciated.

Hi! I have met the PSLF requirement and I am currently waiting on a buyback offer. I applied back in October 2025 and have been in forbearance since then because of meeting the payment requirements and also from being in the SAVE plan. I recently switched to PAYE and I received a due payment notice for August. I’m trying to decipher if I should pay the payments until I get the buyback offer to hopefully help reduce the lump sum I have to pay, however, I am reluctant to do this for two reasons. First being that the buyback monthly payment amount may be less than what I’m currently paying on PAYE, and second is, I don’t know if making payments will throw off the buyback amount and keep me in limbo with them for longer than I need to be. I don’t know what they tend to do in these scenarios, but I thought it was just that they offered to send you a refund check which always seems like a sketchy option. Is anyone else in this situation or does anyone have any insights on what they recommend to do?

I’m completely at a loss and would appreciate advice from anyone who has dealt with something similar.
Like many borrowers, I was previously enrolled in SAVE. Last year, I successfully switched to PAYE because I had a partial financial hardship at the time.

Since then, my income increased, and I no longer meet the old partial-financial-hardship test. I was nervous about recertification, but my understanding was that I could remain on PAYE and my payment would simply be capped at the 10-year standard repayment amount.

EdFinancial confirmed that I was enrolled in automatic recertification because I had authorized access to my IRS information. I later received a message telling me to submit annual recertification paperwork, but when I called, I was told everything was fine because my IRS data was already linked.

As my anniversary date approached, I anxiously waited to see what would happen. I was incredibly relieved when my payment updated to the PAYE 10-year capped amount that had previously been calculated.
That relief lasted one month.

EdFinancial then moved me from PAYE into IBR. At first, I thought that was fine because I expected my payment to remain around the same capped amount.

Instead, I was moved to the standard repayment plan because EdFinancial said I was no longer eligible for PAYE.

For anyone wondering why the standard plan would be a problem: my loans are unconsolidated, and this is not the same as the 10-year standard amount used as the PAYE payment cap. EdFinancial calculated my standard payment using the number of payments it believes I have left in the original repayment schedule. Certain forbearance periods, including the COVID pause, apparently were not included in that calculation. So even though I have approximately 108 qualifying PSLF months, EdFinancial is calculating my payment as though I have around 63 payments remaining. That caused my monthly payment to jump to nearly double what I would have paid under the PAYE cap.

I contacted EdFinancial again. Multiple representatives acknowledged that I apparently should not have been removed from PAYE. However, they told me the easiest solution would be to apply for old IBR. They said I should qualify and offered two months of administrative forbearance that would count toward PSLF while the application was processed.

That seemed reasonable—until I submitted the application and EdFinancial told me I now qualify for no income-driven repayment plan at all.

I have spoken with multiple senior representatives who said they would send the issue to the back office. I cited the new legislation and the relevant statutory provisions stating that old IBR no longer requires a partial financial hardship. I also asked how they could claim I am ineligible for every IDR plan when RAP should eventually be available, even though RAP is not the plan I am currently trying to enter.
Despite all of that, I keep being dismissed because my salary increased.

I’m now facing a payment that is nearly twice the PAYE-capped amount, even though I am only about a year away from 120 qualifying PSLF payments.
What should I do next?
Should I:
-File a complaint with the Federal Student Aid Ombudsman?
- Submit a paper IDR application?
-File a formal complaint through StudentAid.gov?
-Contact my congressional representative or senator’s constituent-services office?
-Keep pushing EdFinancial to restore me to PAYE rather than applying for IBR?

Has anyone successfully fixed a situation where a servicer incorrectly removed them from PAYE or denied old IBR because they did not have a partial financial hardship?
At this point, I feel like I have done everything correctly and am still being penalized for servicer errors. I’m exhausted and honestly wondering whether I should give up. I’ve spent hours and hours away from my young family working on this and am feeling so demoralized.

I’ve been on PAYE for years and am pursuing PSLF. I recently recertified my income and no longer qualify for a partial financial hardship.

Aidvantage says I’ll remain on PAYE until my current certification expires, then automatically move into “expired PAYE” with my payment increasing to the 10-year standard cap. They also said I can instead apply for IBR, and my payment would be essentially the same.

My questions:
- Does “expired PAYE” continue to count for PSLF?

- Is there any advantage to switching to IBR if the payment is the same?

- Has anyone stayed on expired PAYE rather than switching, and did your PSLF payments continue to count?

I’ve seen conflicting information online, so I’d especially appreciate hearing from anyone who’s actually gone through this recently.

So I’m in my last year of school after several years off. I have a job working for the state when I graduate that is eligible for PSLF. I was previously enrolled in SAVE but of course that ended and my payments are currently deferred since I’m in school. Once it’s time to start paying what is my best option? I know there are multiple repayment plans and I’m overwhelmed. I want the payment to be a low as possible obviously, and want to make sure they all count towards PSLF which will be 10 years of payments. My total loan balance will be about $58k and I’m scared my monthly payment will be crazy.

Question about when to file my ECF for PSLF final forgiveness. I made my final autopay on 7/20. Mohela has it shown as paid and next due date of 8/20. The 7/20 payment would be my 120/120 when I recert. unfortunately Student Aid site has not updated. I would like to recert ASAP and get some movement on closing this out. do I have to wait until student aid site updates their payment for them to concur with my 120th payment and get the green banners. Any advice on how and when to proceed.

Hi all! I know the ICR plan will be going away in a couple of years. But I am wondering if anyone has a link to the information or knows how long it will be on FSA to apply for?

I received my letter from Mohela today about needing to switch to a new repayment plan within 90 days. I fully intend to wait until almost the last moment before doing anything. Last Monday, the 13th, I submitted my application for Borrower Defense and requested forbearance while I await a decision. My question is, do I still need to pick a repayment plan if I am in forbearance?

I have 2.5 years remaining on PSLF. I have been on PAYE the whole time and applied for recertification. I was denied today and told they were moving me IBR/PAYE permanent standard repayment plan. I called Mohela earlier and I am more confused and starting to panic.

I called and they said my income is too high and I no longer meet the partial economic hardship qualification. They told me I am eligible for ICR and IBR. A FB group had said that you cannot be removed from PAYE if you qualified at the time application. Which is true?

They gave me an estimate on the phone that ICR would be $294/ month and IBR would be $354/ month. By the calculations in the group post, I got ICR as $961/month and IBR as $414/month. They wouldn't tell me what the standard repayment price is if I choose to be moved to their IBR/PAYE permanent standard repayment plan.

Can I trust the numbers they gave me? I've heard their numbers are unreliable so I'm not sure if my best option is to choose IBR and hope it's not actually $414 rather than taking a chance on ICR and receiving a $900 payment?

I am starting to freak out because my administrative forebarenace that counts towards payments ends in 3 weeks. Are my calculations correct if I am a single person with an AGI of 73k?

Sorry for so many questions. I am really grateful for this group.

Hello,

I recently submitted my income re-certification for my IBR plan. Mohela put me on a processing forbearance without telling me that there is no time estimate for my IBR income recertification processing time. Does anybody know how long income recertification typically takes if I’m staying on the same IBR plan? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I was wondering if anyone is working for or worked for UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center)? And do they take a long time with employment verification for PSLF?

I’m finally about to start working again for an employer that’s PSLF eligible. I tried calling my loan service provider but they didn’t seem too sure on the answers so I wanted to ask here.

For PSLF can I pick any repayment option? If I pick the extended graduate repayment plan, it has the lowest payments for me. Whereas IBR/RAP are much higher.

And if I was on the save plan through residency, does my 3 years in residency count towards the payments?

My loan amount is 100k at 5.8%. I know it’s not super high but I have lots of family things going on right now so I’m trying to minimize the payments if possible.

I finally got my IBR plan through some massive escalation, but they put a forbearance on even though I wouldn’t miss a beat with payments. One document says payment due Sept, but the rest say August, the same day the forbearance ends. Anyone have this happen and it shakes out? Trying to avoid another call, because if I recall they don’t cancel forbearances quickly. Plus, payment date is on a weekend and wanted to pay prior to make sure it counts. Certainly can’t do that either.

Should I be worried?

I am at 118 payments. All of my former and individual Grad Plus/unsubsidized loans, from my original grad school debt, are still listed with partial green banners (pay count 42) below my current, consolidated loans (pay count 118). Under "View Details," they each list next payment due date as September 2022—which seems to indicate that these loans were all consolidated into the two current consolidated loans when I shifted to TEPSLF in October 2022.

Since I'm so close to 120, I'm naturally feeling paranoid. Should I be concerned about these "frozen" unpaid loans still showing up? Anyone else deal with this?

I have 10 payments left for PSLF forgiveness and have been on the forced SAVE forbearance since 2024. I applied for buyback 9/25 for 10 months that I have been on SAVE and I ended up having to resign from my non-profit employer and move to another state two months ago. I am staying with family while waiting for our house to sell and am not in an area or position to look for a new job yet. When I have to switch to a new plan after the 90 days and start making monthly payments, they will not be PSLF eligible since I’m unemployed, and since Buyback is such a hot mess, I’m just frazzled. Anyone else in this same predicament and if so, what’s your game plan?