Overview The Department of Education is temporarily pausing processing of PSLF applications & forms PSLF borrowers should download their information from their MOHELA account before April 30th Why is the Department pausing PSLF processing? Is my account still with MOHELA during the pause? Is MOHELA still going to service my loans after the transition to the new BPOs? Do I still have to make payments on my loans during the processing pause? Should I still submit my PSLF Employment Certification Form (ECF) during the processing pause? What should PSLF borrowers expect after the pause ends ..read more

So far, over 4 million people have gotten student debt cancellation as a result of relief programs and fixes to those programs by the Biden Administration. However, the biggest student debt relief program proposed by the Biden Administration, which would have provided up to $20,000 in debt relief for tens of millions of working and middle class borrowers, was blocked by the Supreme Court last summer. President Biden Announces New Student Debt Relief Plans that Aim to Provide Debt Relief to 30 Million Americans On Monday, President Biden announced that the Department of Education was working on ..read more

This week there have been two big student debt relief announcements from the Biden Administration. Today, President Biden announced that 277,000 more people are having their federal student loan debt canceled. And Monday, President Biden announced plans for new debt relief rules that aim to provide some measure of debt relief to nearly 30 million Americans with student loans. This article covers what borrowers need to know about today’s debt relief announcement. A second article, available here, covers what borrowers need to know about President Biden’s plans to expand debt relief to 30 millio ..read more

Today, the Biden-Harris Administration announced that nearly 153,000 borrowers enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan are getting their loans canceled thanks to early implementation of the shortened time to forgiveness component of the new repayment plan. We previously wrote about this issue in our January blog post, but the first round of borrowers eligible for cancellation will now officially receive the good news that their loan balances have been wiped out. This big news is an important reminder that many more borrowers could be eligible for loan forgiveness if they tak ..read more

To help fix massive past problems in the student loan system that prevented people from getting the credit they should have toward loan forgiveness, the Department of Education is currently working on giving borrowers retroactive credit toward loan forgiveness. The Department is calling this credit a “one-time payment count adjustment.” The goal of the payment count adjustment is to help borrowers who have been hurt by loan servicing failures get the credit they should for the time they have already spent in repayment. This will help millions of borrowers get closer to having their loan balanc ..read more

Last year, the Department of Education awarded new student loan servicing contracts to five companies: CRI, EdFinancial Services, Maximus Education, LLC, MOHELA, and Nelnet. The goal of the changes is to improve student loan servicing, provide better customer service to borrowers, and hold servicers more accountable for their mistakes. The changes will go live this spring. NCLC released a report today analyzing the changes and the potential impact on student loan borrowers’ rights and experiences. While some of the changes will be straightforward to implement, there are a number of changes tha ..read more

A number of student loan borrowers have reached out to NCLC in the last few months regarding issues with Public Service Loan Forgiveness (“PSLF”) and the one-time payment count adjustment. Borrowers are reporting problems with how MOHELA is counting their eligible payments after consolidating their loans, including that their accounts are incorrectly showing zero qualifying payments for PSLF.  If you have recently consolidated your loans and submitted your Employment Certification Form in order to be eligible for credit toward PSLF, don’t panic if your payment counts aren’t updated correc ..read more

And What Borrowers Can Do When Their Servicer Fails Them Federal student loan borrowers are entering their fourth month of repayment since the end of the payment pause in September 2023. For many, the return to repayment has created uncertainty and anxiety about managing an additional monthly payment and understanding loan repayment options, and about 40% of borrowers missed payments the first month. Contributing to the confusion, the Department’s loan servicers have committed numerous widespread and documented errors in billing borrowers and managing their loans.  The Department has anno ..read more

Today, the Biden-Harris Administration announced that some borrowers will soon begin receiving debt cancellation after as few as 10 years in repayment, instead of the 20 to 25 years of payments previously required for most borrowers. Starting in February, borrowers who are enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan and who originally took out $12,000 or less in federal student loans will have any remaining balance on their loans canceled after 10 years of qualifying time in repayment. People who borrowed more than $12,000 may also benefit: For every additional $1,000 borrowed ..read more

What now for borrowers? Have problems with your loans? What is the Department of Education doing to help borrowers now? What’s next for student loan cancellation? What about the new SAVE plan? Where can I find more information on returning to repayment? Your Return to Repayment Checklist After nearly three years, the student loan payment pause officially ended on September 1st. Borrowers will start getting their first bills in September that will be due sometime in October. The bills are supposed to come at least three weeks before they are due. NCLC has heard from a number of borrowers in r ..read more