PSLF? Has anyone been forgiven on this forum?

[Anonymous]

Me to!  Still kind of unbelievable.  Having 65k gone from my debt is great... now I can finally look for houses.

[Anonymous]

Whoa! I just read an updated article. Out of 41,000 applications, only 206 forgiven!

[Anonymous]

Wow.... I’d love to see a link to the article!

[Anonymous]

Here is the one:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2019/01/03/student-loan-forgiveness-data/#457b1eb368d0

[Anonymous]

Congrats on getting forgiven! 

I know this post is a bit old, but I have some info. that may be helpful.

I work in a financial aid office and have personally signed up for PSLF (32/120 payments). Last week during our staff training, a representative from PHEAA came and spoke to the staff. She explained the main  reasons why so many people were denied; (1) not a qualifying employer, (2) payments not made under qualifying payment plan, (3) loans not eligible (private loans, etc.)

I gave up on PSLF a while ago and was trying to pay down my loans just to be done with them. However, even with about $20,500 in loans, I will save thousands by going through PSLF. I have to wait a few more years for them to be paid/forgiven- that's the downside. I can put the extra money towards paying other debt/building savings. 

Lastly, just an FYI: PHEAA is known for having issues/wrong information (probably due to the high volume of loans they service). They incorrectly calculated my PSLF originally, the PHEAA represenative said to resubmit the employer certification (and I listed out all the payments that should be qualifying on a spreadsheet to make it easier).

[Anonymous]

I think that the amount of information that the Dept of Education puts out on PSLF, and financial aid in general, is inadequate. In fact, Dept of Education admitted this already and that it please to the current PSLF.
The other part of that is that servicers have dinner and continue to do borrowers a great disservice. So while it's nice that PHEAA wants to go around and pretend to educate the public on the failings of PSLF, almost as if the errors were cause by the borrowers and they need to know how to prevent them, it absolutely does not take any personal responsibility for the majority of the failings bring their own fault.
Keep in mind, they are the Servicers FedLoan Servicing and AES. PSLF is now exclusively FedLoan Servicing. However, to this day they continue to misadvise students on the correct course of action for their loans. For example, if a student asks to consolidate and they are on PSLF or any loan forgiveness program, they should be telling them they'll lose all payments they have made so far! If a student has a loan that doesn't qualify in it's current state, they should let them know they have the option of consolidation before they let them start PSLF. They will often not advise people that they need to check the government list of qualifying occupations, tell them that the actual application for PSLF isn't even completed it submitted until the 120 payments are made and that they need to send in those employer certifications (keep a copy) every single year, ahead of time.
206 accepted applications out of over 46,000 isn't simply borrower error. It's a systematic failure.
If you go to the gov student loans page it will give you a close estimate to what will be forgiven. If you sign in it will fill in your loan information. It will also tell you your estimated payment. Mine have always been a bit less. If your monthly payments are dramatically different or your estimated forgiveness is, it's likely your servicer making the error. For PSLF, or any forgiveness, always ask your servicer at minimum annually to send you a qualifying payments count. They can do it; I request mine for REPAYE. This is the only way to know if your count is correct.
Lastly the majority of your payments need to be on an IDR plan. Consolidated parent loans on ICR specifically. Other payments can be on the standard plan but they have not yet defined "majority" so it's best for all to be on IDR. Plus there are special interest subsidies on REPAYE and IBR that can save more money.
Hope this helps

[Anonymous]

SO it hit my credit report and at least on Experian my credit score has gone from 694 to 722.  Not bad!