NEA’s student debt experts have created tools designed to help educators through the PSLF application process. Check them out below!
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program was created to cancel the remaining balance of federal student debt for workers who provide 10 years of public service while making 120 monthly payments on their federal student loans.
For too long, a handful of policymakers have weakened programs designed to help all Americans achieve a higher education, and enabled profiteers, including federal student loan servicers, to make a profit off the backs of students and educators.
Our experts answered some of the most common questions about Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
What types of degrees are eligible for forgiveness under PSLF?
The type of degree does not matter. In fact, you can qualify even if you did not graduate. The requirements are based on your years of service and the number of payments you have made. It also only forgives federal direct student loans.
How many loans can be forgiven? Is there a limit on the dollar amount that can be forgiven?
There is no limit to how much can be forgiven by PSLF. The program forgives the remaining balance of your federal student debt after 10 years of service and 120 payments to your federal student loans. We have seen NEA members receive forgiveness on loans with balances of $20,000, $100,000, and even more.
Do the years of public service have to be consecutive? What if you have a break in employment or transfer jobs?
Employment does not have to be consecutive. As long as you make a total of 120 payments after October 1, 2007, while working for a qualifying employer, you are eligible. Note that payments made while working for a non-public-service employer do not count towards PSLF’s 120 payments.
Do all my 120 monthly payments need to be made on time to get credit towards PSLF?
Not anymore! To reach Public Service Loan Forgiveness, you must make 120 eligible payments – under the original regulations this meant 120 payments made on-time, under an approved income-driven repayment program, while employed at a qualifying public employer. But the Biden Administration has made regulatory changes that make it easier to make a qualifying payment under an income-driven repayment plan.
As of July 1, 2023, you can make progress towards PSLF when:
- You make a late payment, make several partial payments during the same month (resulting in a total credit of 1 payment for that month), or pay ahead in a lump sum.
- You are in certain kinds of deferment or forbearance, including:
- Cancer treatment deferment
- Economic hardship deferment
- Administrative forbearance
- In addition to making your regular monthly payment, you may make additional payments to "buy back" any months in your payment history where you didn't receive PSLF credit because you were in certain deferment or forbearance, which are not eligible to receive PSLF credit. For more information, visit the FSA's website here.
How Do I Find Out the Types of My Federal Student Loans?
If you are unsure what type of student loan you have, you can find out easily by logging onto studentaid.gov with your FSA ID and visiting your aid summary page.
Direct Loans begin with the word “Direct,” Federal Family Education Loans are indicated by “FFEL,” and Perkins Loans include the word “Perkins” in the name.
If any of your loans say “Perkins,” “FFEL,” or “Parent Plus” you will need to consolidate prior to applying for PSLF. You will need to consolidate those loans before June 30, 2024, to take advantage of the Department of Education’s one-time account adjustment, which will credit any payments made on those loans for the purposes of PSLF.
When your consolidation is processed, your PSLF qualifying payment count may temporarily reset to zero. Your PSLF payment count will then be readjusted based on the expanded criteria for qualifying payments under the Biden Administration’s one-time account adjustment.
How Do I Know How Many Payments I Have Made Toward PSLF?
If you have applied for PSLF before, you can log into studentaid.gov and find out how many qualifying payments you have made on your account.
If you have not applied for PSLF yet, you will need to fill out an application. You can apply with your FSA ID through the Department of Education's PSLF Help Tool. Help is also available through NEA's Student Debt Navigator, which provides NEA members with free individualized support.
Note, from May through July 2024, payment counts will not be updated due to PSLF transitioning to be serviced in-house by the U.S. Department of Education. All payments, including payments made during the pause, will be reflected on studentaid.gov accounts after the pause ends in July.
Do Plus Loans qualify for forgiveness under Public Service Loan Forgiveness?
Yes, like other Federal Direct Loans, Direct Plus Loans are eligible for forgiveness under Public Service Loan Forgiveness. There are two types of Plus Loans:
- Those made directly to graduate or professional students, and;
- Those made to parents of dependent undergraduate students.
If you took out a Parent Plus Loan on behalf of a dependent student, those loans cannot be repaid under an income-driven plan. You must first consolidate your Parent Plus loans (you can consolidate even if you only have one loan) into a Direct Consolidation Loan, at which point you can take advantage of the Income-Contingent Repayment plan (but not SAVE or other income-driven repayment plants). Your payments on the consolidated loan will then count towards the 120 for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
Previous payments on Parent PLUS Loans WILL count for PSLF, as long as you apply for consolidation by June 30, 2024, to take advantage of the account adjustment.
Do all income-based repayment plans qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness? What are they all called?
Yes. Any of the four types of Income Driven Repayment (IDR) Plans qualify for PSLF. The four different kinds of IDR plans are:
- Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE)
- Pay As You Earn Repayment Plan (PAYE Plan)
- Income-Based Repayment Plan (IBR Plan)
- Income-Contingent Repayment Plan (ICR Plan)
More information on these plans is available on the website of the Department of Education’s office of Federal Student Aid here.
The new Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) income-driven repayment plan will drastically reduce student loan payments because it:
- Requires borrowers to pay no more than 5% of their discretionary income monthly on undergraduate loans (opposed to 10% on existing plans).
- Redefines “discretionary income,” guaranteeing that no borrower earning less than 225% of the federal poverty level – equivalent to $15 minimum wage – will have to make a monthly payment.
- Forgives federal student loan balances after 10 years of payments (opposed to 20 years) for borrowers with original loan balances of $12,000 or less.
- Covers the borrower’s unpaid monthly interest, so a borrower’s loan balance will not increase provided they make their monthly payment, even when that monthly payment is $0 because their income is low.
- Allows borrowers to make “buy back” payments for months in deferment or forbearance that were not eligible for forgiveness programs, like PSLF. For more information, visit the FSA's website here.
I have student loans from a private bank, can those get forgiven through Public Service Loan Forgiveness?
No, Public Service Loan Forgiveness only provides forgiveness for federal student loans under the Federal Direct Loan program.
Does the age of the loan matter to qualify for PSLF?
Loan age has never mattered for the PSLF program. Only payments for periods of repayment after Oct. 1, 2007 are qualifying, since that is when the PSLF Program began.
Loan age only matters for Teacher Loan Forgiveness (TLF), which is a separate federal program from PSLF. Loans for that program cannot be older than October 1, 1998.
My student loan payments were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic. How does that affect my PSLF payment count?
From March 13, 2020 to September 1, 2023 student loan payments, interest, and collection efforts were paused for most federal student loan borrowers.
The months during the payment pause count toward PSLF for Federal Direct Loans, even if you were not making payments and even if you do not meet the 120 payment threshold until after the pause expires.
As part of the debt ceiling bill signed by President Biden on June 3, 2023, Congress ordered the end of the payment pause that began with the CARES Act in March 2020. Accordingly, interest accrual on federal student loans began September 1, 2023 and payments restarted on October 1, 2023.
I have a joint spousal consolidation loan, can I receive Public Service Loan Forgiveness?
If you have a Joint Spousal Direct Consolidation Loan, you can qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. If both you and your spouse have been employed full time by a qualifying employer at the time that each qualifying payment was made, 100% of the Consolidation Loan can be forgiven. If only one spouse meets the eligibility criteria, only the loan balance attributable to that spouse will be forgiven. For example, if you, the educator, had $60,000 in student loans and consolidated them with your spouse’s $40,000 of loans, and you are personally eligible for forgiveness, then about 60% of the remaining balance will be forgiven.
If you have a Joint Spousal FFEL Consolidation Loan, you do not qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
On Oct. 11, 2022, President Biden signed the Joint Consolidation Loan Separation Act, which will allow borrowers to separate their Joint Spousal Consolidation Loans. Once the joint consolidation loan is separated:
- Each spouse would only be responsible for their portion of the Consolidation Loan.
- Spouses with a FFEL Consolidation loan can apply for a Direct Consolidation Loan and become eligible for PSLF.
The Department of Education has not yet released an application for Loan Separation. An application is expected in late 2024. If you will apply, the Department of Education recommends that you contact the Federal Student Aid Ombudsman Group now and tell them that you intend to apply. You may also ask for administrative forbearance to pause your payments while you wait for loan separation. This forbearance time will count towards PSLF.
Beware of applications to separate your loans from private loan servicers. This will convert your federal student loans into private student loans that are not eligible for PSLF.
I Am an Adjunct or Contingent Faculty Member, Am I Eligible for PSLF?
Yes! In the past, PSLF has been a struggle for most adjunct and contingent faculty members because of a full-time employment requirement. Some employers refused to certify their adjunct or contingent faculty as full-time employees, others struggled to determine how many hours to credit their adjunct or contingent faculty to get them up to full-time.
Now, under new regulations adopted by the Biden Administration, employers must—for purposes of PSLF—credit their adjunct and contingent faculty at least 3.35 hours of work for each credit hour taught. In addition, the regulations have defined full-time employment as 30 or more hours per week at one or multiple jobs. This means that teaching a total of nine credit hours per semester at any number of institutions equates to PSLF eligibility! This should simply PSLF eligibility for many adjunct and contingent faculty.
At what point should I apply for PSLF? Can you apply retroactively as an educator who has been working for years?
Some public service workers like to apply each year to certify their employment and check on the progress of their payment count towards PSLF. Others apply when they have reached the 10-year mark and believe they have made 120 payments.
Submitting the application yearly will help confirm you are on the right track by ensuring you are making qualifyingpayments and working for a qualifying employer. It will also allow Federal Student Aid (FSA) to alert you if anychanges are necessary
What is an Employment Certification Form (ECF)?
To apply for PSLF, the U.S. Department of Education requires public service workers to file an Employment Certification Form (ECF) to show they work for a qualified employer. The ECF is included in Section 4 of the PSLF application.
You can use the Department’s PSLF Help Tool to fill out your PSLF form and ECFs or seek assistance from NEA Member Benefits through our Student Debt Navigator - neamb.com/Savi.
Note that the ECFmust be filled out by an official who can access your employment/service records––usually someone in your human resources department. Some school districts even have an HR person designated to handle ECFs.
I've applied for PSLF. How long does it take to process the application?
All PSLF application processing has been paused as the Department of Education transitions the servicing of PSLF applications from MOHELA to studentaid.gov. The pause is expected to end in July 2024.
Once the pause ends, response times may vary as the U.S. Department of Education is works through a record number of applications.
If an unreasonable amount of time has passed and you still have not received a response from the Department of Education, you can file a complaint with the Federal Student Aid Ombudsman who can run a review of your situation and student loan account;
- Where the page asks you to select a category for your complaint, select "Discharging, Cancelling, or Forgiving My Loans". On the following page, describe your situation in detail and attach any relevant documents.
I need my employer to verify my employment on my PSLF application. What are acceptable methods to receive their signature?
Before you submit your form(s) to the Department of Education, your employer(s) must verify your employment by signing Section 4 of your form. There are two accepted methods to complete this step:
1) Digital Signature
To get a digital signature from your employer, you will need the correct email address for an “authorizing official.” An authorizing official is someone who has access to your employment or service records and is approved by your employer to certify your employment. This is usually someone in your human resources department, though in some cases your direct supervisor or another person may be authorized to certify your employment.
Tell the authorizing official to expect an email from the U.S. Department of Education’s office of Federal Student Aid via DocuSign ([emailprotected]) on your behalf. Once your authorizing official certifies your employment by signing digitally, your form will be electronically submitted to the PSLF servicer for processing.
2) Print & Sign Manually
You may also submit a PSLF form by downloading the PDF and completing all the sections manually. You will still need to print out the form, sign yourself, and have your employer(s) sign Section 4 of your form.
If you submit a manual PSLF form, digital signatures from you or your employer must be hand-drawn (from a signature pad, mouse, finger, or by taking a picture of a signature drawn on a piece of paper that you then scan and embed on the signature line of the PSLF form) to be accepted. Typed signatures, even if made to mimic a signature, or security certificate-based signatures are not accepted.
Once signed you may mail the form to this address:
U.S. Department of Education
P.O. Box 300010
Greenville, TX 75403
or fax your PSLF form to 540-212-2415
What is the one-time account adjustment?
The Biden Administration has promised to make a one-time adjustment to every borrower’s account to credit more time towards PSLF. More than 3.6 million borrowers will receive at least three years of credit toward loan forgiveness, and many will see their loans forgiven automatically. The adjustment is currently underway and will continue through summer 2024.
This adjustment will count all of the time spent in repayment, regardless of whether payments were made, the loan type, or repayment plan that the borrower was on, while the borrower was in qualifying public service employment towards PSLF. This adjustment will also count certain time spent in deferment or forbearance towards PSLF.
I Applied for Consolidation, What Happens Now?
Borrowers applying for PSLF may consolidate their loans for a number of reasons. For example, borrowers with Parent Plus Loans, FFEL loans, or Perkins must consolidate to be eligible.* Others may consolidate graduate loans with older undergraduate loans to achieve PSLF at the same time.
When you consolidate, your PSLF payment count may be TEMPORARILY reduced to zero. This is normal.
Under the one-time account adjustment, which is now underway and expected to be completed by September 1, 2024, your new payment count will match that of the loan with the highest number of qualifying payments.
For example, a borrower with 60 qualifying payments on a $30,000 loan and 10 qualifying payments on another $30,000 loan will receive credit for making 60 payments on the consolidated loan, but only if you consolidate before the June 30, 2024 deadline. After that date, when you consolidate, you will receive credit for the "weighted average" of your payments, which is based on the number of payments made on each loan and the amount of each loan. For example, a borrower with 60 qualifying payments on a $30,000 loan and 10 qualifying payments on another $30,000 loan will have a new payment count of 35 payments. So, act fast!
*If you have FFEL, Perkins, or Parent Plus loans, it is imperative that you apply for Direct Loan Consolidation prior to June 30, 2024, to take advantage of the account adjustment for PSLF.
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced that processing and servicing for Public Service Loan Forgiveness is being moved from MOHELA to StudentAid.gov. What does this mean?
Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) will no longer be managed by MOHELA as its designated loan servicer. The management of the PSLF program will be facilitated by the U.S. Department of Education.
Starting May 1, borrowers will be able to:
- Submit PSLF forms on studentaid.gov,
- Track their progress towards receiving PSLF on StudentAid.gov; and
- Get support through ED FSA contact centers.
- During this transition, from May through July 2024, PSLF forms will not be processed, but borrowers can still submit PSLF forms to the U.S. Department of Education. Forms will be processed after the pause ends in July. Payment counts will not be updated during this processing pause. However, all payments, including payments made during the pause, will be reflected on studentaid.gov accounts after the pause ends.
What is Teacher Loan Forgiveness? Is it the same as Public Service Loan Forgiveness?
Teacher Loan Forgiveness (TLF) is a separate federal program from PSLF. If you teach full-time for five complete and consecutive academic years at a low-income school or high-needs subject area, the program provides forgiveness up to $17,500 for Federal Direct Loans.
Under PSLF’s requirements, your five years of employment used to receive Teacher Loan Forgiveness would not be credited to PSLF, as you cannot simultaneously qualify for both programs due to the “double benefits” provision.
Teachers should seek help by going to neamb.com/Savi to determine which forgiveness program is right for them.
Teacher Loan Forgiveness does not apply to education support professionals, specialized instructional support personnel, or higher education faculty.
I already received Teacher Loan Forgiveness. Can I still qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness?
Under PSLF’s requirements, your five years of employment used to receive Teacher Loan Forgiveness would not be credited to PSLF, as you cannot simultaneously qualify for both programs due to the “double benefits” provision.
Teachers should seek help by going to neamb.com/Savi to determine which forgiveness program is right for them.
Teacher Loan Forgiveness does not apply to education support professionals, specialized instructional support personnel, or higher education faculty.
If you do not qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, there are other opportunities for support. NEA’s student debt experts have created tools designed to help educators through the complicated student debt system.
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