Member-only story
A New Day for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program
New form. New data. New servicer.
If you have student loans, you have probably looked at the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. After doing your research, you probably came to one of two conclusions.
- This program rocks. I’m all in!
- This program sucks. I’m staying away!
While I’m in the first category, I completely understand those in the second. PSLF has been a quasi-disaster, but not because the program is bad. In fact, the program has forgiven over $450,000,000 in student loans since 2017.
The disaster happened because of poor planning by the Department of Education and the sole loan servicer who handles PSLF, FedLoans (a division of PHEAA).
Things have been turning around recently, but there are still some headwinds before getting to the promised land.
New Form
The new PSLF form was made publicly available in November 2020 and combined everything into a single piece of paper.
- Initial employer certification
- Payment count updates
- PSLF application
- TEPSLF application
