Yesterday, October 6 2021, an announcement was made about Public Service Loan Forgiveness. They are making the following improvements:

• Counting all prior payments regardless of the type of loan you had at the time
• Simplify qualifying payment definitions
• Make it easier for military service members to participate in PSLF
• Help federal employees and service members participate in PSLF
• Renew denied PSLF applications, identify and correct errors on the part of the student loan servicer PHEAA
• Reach out to and communicate with borrowers eligible for PSLF
• Simplification of the PSLF application process
• Simplification of PSLF regulations

That’s a long list. So:

What does this mean for you?

If you still have student loans, and work for a qualifying employer (such as a non-profit academic medical center), this is likely a HUGE opportunity for you. Only ~16,000 borrowers have received PSLF, but these changes are expected to allow discharge of an additional 22,000 borrowers without having to make any additional payments. And over 550,000 borrowers are expected to have more of their payments count to the 120 on time payment requirements, by an average of 23 additional payments (almost 2 years!). [1]

The time to act is now. While the window will be open through October 31, 2022 (just over 1 year from now), many will find taking advantage of this to be a two-step process. And the Department of Education is going to be deluged in paperwork, you want to give them plenty of time to deal with your paperwork. So get on it now.

So what should I do?

There’s a variety of steps, depending on your own personal situation. The path starts with one step for all (find out if you qualify for additional payments), and then branches into three options based on your loan types. Play your own situation’s choose your own adventure path by following along at the StudentAid.gov’s announcement page, https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/pslf-limited-waiver .

Who doesn’t this help?

This doesn’t help many borrowers.

• If you aren’t working for an eligible employer, none of this matters; you have to be in public service. Schools, academic medical centers, government, military service, firefighters, police, those are common eligible employers. Working at a large tech company, sorry, not going to help you.
• Borrowers who already paid off their loans, even if that means they paid more than they would have had to under the new rules.
• Parents who took out Parent Plus loans.
• Borrowers who converted their federal loans into private loans.

Resources you might need:

• StudentAid.gov announcement, https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/pslf-limited-waiver
• Department of Education press release, https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/fact-sheet-public-service-loan-forgiveness-pslf-program-overhaul
• See what kind of loans you have, https://studentaid.gov/aid-summary/
• Full time employment and other PSLF paperwork, https://studentaid.gov/pslf

Happy filing!