Public Service Loan Forgiveness

[icemaster]

Good morning.  Has anyone ever received a public service loan forgiveness for their student loans?   I have a long way to go to qualify (10 years) but I’m curious to know if anyone has successfully done this.  If you don’t feel comfortable responding, you can message me privately.  

[rightspeech]

I have not but I know someone that had 98k forgiven. I personally saw the final dept. of education letter.

I'm pretty well versed in it. My group supervisor signs my employment certification letter every year at PACS. When you send it in they let you know how many more payments you have to go until forgiveness. I'm on track to have about 170k forgiven.

[prescient]

99% of applicants are denied. It’s disgraceful how the program has been run

[roymcavoy]

From someone I know who also completed it, the denials happen more at the initial level. Once you get in, the process is easy. I have approximately 3y remaining.

[rightspeech]

You definitely need to be on top of it. You don't just wait around 10 years and then file for forgiveness. I think a lot of the denials either don't have the right loan or don't work for the government. They work for some non-profit they are calling public interest which is then contested. They got sued by the American Bar Association because DOE said ABA employees were not public interest. When you send in the employment certification form and they calculate your payments DOE is confirming you have qualified loans and employment.

You also want to maximize forgiveness. You get in Pay as You Earn (PAYE) to limit payments to 10% of your discretionary income then you max TSP and HSA to lower you adjusted gross income and you file separate from spouse so only your income is in the calculation.

[christina]

Jun 11, 2021 6:46:40 GMT -5 prescient said:

99% of applicants are denied. It’s disgraceful how the program has been run

That was under prior admin. Current admin is saying they are more open to approving these

[Burt Macklin]

Mine were forgiven last November - combination of six years of active duty time and then ultimately three different Fed jobs (GS and ALJ).

I was extremely diligent with making sure all of my payments were showing up and had to request a recount for a few missing ones in 2018. I did the annual certifications or whenever I moved jobs, so the final application process was pretty simple.

I now don’t remember the whole consolidation process a decade ago but I spent a lot of time making sure I had the details correct as I was in the second year where PSLF was a thing (2008), so a lot was unknown about the program. Most folks I know that got denied were based on problems with not having properly consolidated or that were paying under a non-qualifying repayment plan. It’s not the most user friendly system so I am sympathetic but the people I know who got rejected ultimately only had themselves to blame versus the big bad Dept of Ed.

[prescient]

Jun 11, 2021 9:01:31 GMT -5 Burt Macklin said:

Mine were forgiven last November - combination of six years of active duty time and then ultimately three different Fed jobs (GS and ALJ).

I was extremely diligent with making sure all of my payments were showing up and had to request a recount for a few missing ones in 2018. I did the annual certifications or whenever I moved jobs, so the final application process was pretty simple.

I now don’t remember the whole consolidation process a decade ago but I spent a lot of time making sure I had the details correct as I was in the second year where PSLF was a thing (2008), so a lot was unknown about the program. Most folks I know that got denied were based on problems with not having properly consolidated or that were paying under a non-qualifying repayment plan. It’s not the most user friendly system so I am sympathetic but the people I know who got rejected ultimately only had themselves to blame versus the big bad Dept of Ed.

Eh. I’m usually on the side that user error is the primary problem but in this case, there’s always been a huge disparity in the advertised offer and the reality. “Work for the federal govt and have your loans forgiven after 10 years” is all that’s emphasized as a carrot to do public service. The reality of what loans qualify (ie almost none) is the joke. IMO it shouldn’t matter what the source of the loan is, particularly with how Sallie Mae runs the system like an organized crime racket

[patiently]

I received a partial discharge (joint spousal consolidation loan....long story). If you have any questions about it, feel free to message me. It was a relatively straightforward process.

[roymcavoy]

Jun 11, 2021 9:32:52 GMT -5 prescient said:

Jun 11, 2021 9:01:31 GMT -5 Burt Macklin said:

Mine were forgiven last November - combination of six years of active duty time and then ultimately three different Fed jobs (GS and ALJ).

I was extremely diligent with making sure all of my payments were showing up and had to request a recount for a few missing ones in 2018. I did the annual certifications or whenever I moved jobs, so the final application process was pretty simple.

I now don’t remember the whole consolidation process a decade ago but I spent a lot of time making sure I had the details correct as I was in the second year where PSLF was a thing (2008), so a lot was unknown about the program. Most folks I know that got denied were based on problems with not having properly consolidated or that were paying under a non-qualifying repayment plan. It’s not the most user friendly system so I am sympathetic but the people I know who got rejected ultimately only had themselves to blame versus the big bad Dept of Ed.

Eh. I’m usually on the side that user error is the primary problem but in this case, there’s always been a huge disparity in the advertised offer and the reality. “Work for the federal govt and have your loans forgiven after 10 years” is all that’s emphasized as a carrot to do public service. The reality of what loans qualify (ie almost none) is the joke. IMO it shouldn’t matter what the source of the loan is, particularly with how Sallie Mae runs the system like an organized crime racket

I had this same conversation with a coworker who swore to me he had tried and failed at this process and told me it wasn’t worth the effort. I’m glad I did not listen to him and I’d suggest that everyone research it themselves before assuming it’s not worth it.

[intothewild]

Jun 11, 2021 6:31:23 GMT -5 icemaster said:

Good morning.  Has anyone ever received a public service loan forgiveness for their student loans?   I have a long way to go to qualify (10 years) but I’m curious to know if anyone has successfully done this.  If you don’t feel comfortable responding, you can message me privately.  

Feels like a huge scam. Most applicants are denied and I’m not even sure why. They really could have made the program easier.

No exaggeration when people say 99% of people are denied.

Congrats to the lucky few who slipped through.

[rightspeech]

Yea I've heard they want to make it easier in exchange for capping forgiveness at 50k. Even Obama wanted to cap at 50k. Good thing congress can't pass anything.

PSLF is the only reason I'm here. I had offers from private firms with similar starting salaries out of school.  Without PSLF, I would have taken one of them and been a real attorney.  It's something I dwell on all too often.

[aa7]

Worked for Fed for 12 years and mine was denied. FFELP loans. Then did federal consolidation to get them held by Fed. But then couldn't get into right payment plan. It's really weird that if you have tons of loans and super high payments, you could qualify for IBR and then get 100,000s forgiven, but if you are like me and had scholarships so your loan balances are lower, you dont get forgiveness for a lesser amount. Just crossing my fingers for universal forgiveness of federal loans by the Admin or Congress.

[nappyloxs]

There is an excellent subreddit r/pslf that has useful info and tips.

[stevil]

Out of curiosity, do you have to pay taxes on the amount forgiven?

[rightspeech]

No PSLF amount forgiven was always tax free, recently CARES act made all student loan forgiveness tax free

[ohodiablo]

Seeing as Biden doesn't seem interested in student loan forgiveness, he should allow public sector employees to remain in forbearance for the duration of his administration. Similar to what is happening now, with the non-payment months counting toward the 10-year forgiveness requirement.

This would serve the multiple purposes including showing he is doing something about student loan forgiveness, supporting public sector employees and incentivizing federal employment as a competitive career path.

[Ace Midnight]

The key recipe: Qualifying loan, qualifying employment, qualifying payment plan. The problem with the initial surge of disapprovals (October 2017 was the first month that anyone could possibly have been forgiven) was that many folks had been incorrectly advised their employment qualified - certain non-profits, etc., that did not qualify. Another problem is that folks took forbearances or were otherwise in the wrong repayment plan so a lot of their months did not count. Many of that latter group count as a disapproval but subsequently have or will be forgiven.

After that first 18 months of chaos (October 2017 to April 2019) things seem to have calmed down. The servicers know to push folks directly to Fed Loan Servicing (Department of Ed) and how to advise folks better since then.

[badger]

Jun 11, 2021 9:52:09 GMT -5 intothewild said:

Jun 11, 2021 6:31:23 GMT -5 icemaster said:

Good morning.  Has anyone ever received a public service loan forgiveness for their student loans?   I have a long way to go to qualify (10 years) but I’m curious to know if anyone has successfully done this.  If you don’t feel comfortable responding, you can message me privately.  

Feels like a huge scam. Most applicants are denied and I’m not even sure why. They really could have made the program easier.

No exaggeration when people say 99% of people are denied.

Congrats to the lucky few who slipped through.

I'm posting in hopes of being somewhat helpful to my fellow federal employees. I'm currently in year 7 of my journey to PSLF. I've spent a significant amount of time reading forums and articles on these issues. It's shocking how little time people spend educating themselves on a program that will save them 10s to 100s of thousands of dollars. The DoE is not entirely blameless and a lot of the issues stem back to sloppy implementation of the program in 08, but people don't seem to do basic research on the program and are shocked when they are denied because they didn't make an effort to follow the regulations or make sure they were on track for 10 years.

If you are pursuing PSLF: 1) educate yourself 2) make sure you have the correct loans 3) have them transferred to My FedLoan 4) certify your payments every year. (SSA has an HR contact for this) 5) keep a record of your own payments.

As another poster pointed out, there is a wonderful subreddit with great resources on PSLF.

[Thomas fka Lance]

Interesting reading, as when I started at SSA (more than 10 years ago, but after 2008), I specifically asked about student loan forgiveness and was told it did not apply to SSA as we "made too much money".

I am feeling very foolish at this point for simply taking the statement at face value.