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ed a statement</a> clarifying the impact of the order.<blockquote id="a399">Non-payments by borrowers working full-time for qualifying employers will count toward the 120 payments required by the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and as payments that are required to receive forgiveness under an income-driven repayment plan.</blockquote>That’s some excellent news to get us through the end of 2020.On another note, transferring PSLF approved loans to FedLoan will start to ramp up soon. The <a href="https://gradfin.com/2020/05/20/the-impact-of-the-cares-act-on-pslf/">transfers were on hiatus</a> during the CARES Act period, as maintaining the suspended payments would have made the servicer switch that much more difficult.On another front, some of you may have submitted you Employer Certification Form (ECF) after the CARES Act was passed, but your loans are still with your old servicer.This is by design, as the servicers did not want to add the complexity of a unique forbearance to the already plagued transfer system.Those transfers were initially supposed to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/PSLF/comments/ihbo5k/loans_not_transferred_yet_to_fedloan_problems/">restart in September</a>, but the Executive Order extending the student loan payment suspension might delay that even more.<h1 id="1724">Student Loan Servicers</h1>Back in June, the DOE made some noise by announcing <a href="https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-educations-office-federal-student-aid-announces-new-contracts-five-companies-improve-customer-service-increase-accountability">five new student loan servicers</a> for their NextGen program. The problem was that they were new servicers, meaning existing loans would have to be transferred.Also notice, they didn’t include FedLoan in the announcement.After some digging, I found that FedLoan’s <a href="https://www.penncapital-star.com/criminal-justice/with-their-contract-extended-pheaa-officials-suggest-improvements-to-controversial-federal-student-loan-program/">contract had already been extended</a> back in December 2019 for two additional years, so they will still be a student loan servicer and the sole manager of the PSLF program until at least December 2021.For the other servicers, it seems that there was such an uproar about changing companies so quickly that the DOE decided to pump the brakes and <a href="https://blog.ed.gov/2020/08/taking-steps-improve-federal-loan-servicing/">extend the contracts for all student loan servicers</a>.<blockquote id="0b6d">To make sure there’s no interruption with your current loan servicer, we’ve made it possible to extend the servicing work for FedLoan Servicing (PHEAA), Great Lakes, Navient, and Nelnet through December 2021 and for CornerStone, Granite State — GSMR, HESC/Edfinancial, MOHELA, and OSLA Servicing through March 2022.</blockquote><blockquote id="cbf1">— Chief Operating Officer Mark Brown, Federal Student Aid</blockquote>That’s a huge relief to everyone student loan borrower, not just PSLF people!<h1 id="ec6a">Success Stories</h1>Every month I like to highlight a few PSLF success stories, showing just how big of an impact this program has on people.<ul><li><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/PSLF/comments/ikjff5/pslf_success/">Monster amount forgiven</a> ($247,000) for this lawyer. Here’s an entry in their timeline about how detailed you have to be on your forms. It’s difficult and tiresome, but totally worth it.</li></ul><blockquote id="d66e">7/2/20: PSLF denied (half our fault — didn’t check off full time box in application, BUT, We did answ

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er the question on the FLS website that then pre-populates the application, but there must be a glitch from the online application to the PDF creation. That said, if we had double checked the paper application before uploading, we could’ve caught this and fixed, so our fault for that).</blockquote><ul><li>Here’s a quote from someone who was part of the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/PSLF/comments/ihkhdn/pslf_success/">initial cohorts</a> gunning for PSLF.</li></ul><blockquote id="a041">It’s been a long ride on this crazy PSLF train. I graduated with a Master’s in Social Work in May of 2009 and had to commit to the program without a lot of information available. I’ve had two kids, four employers and my spouse has worked through two degrees of her own.</blockquote><ul><li>Even the TEPSLF program <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/PSLF/comments/ij041o/tepslf_granted_yesterday/">is working</a>.</li></ul><blockquote id="d829">After applying multiple times and getting denied I applied again for PSLF and TEPSLF on May 13. I received a “being considered” email on July 15. I was told that my loans were sent to DOE on August 25 and by August 28 my balance was ( $8,500). It went down to 0 today. I called FedLoan and was told I was getting the$ 8,500 refunded as overpayment. I’m so excited! It’s still hard to believe!! It also happened on my birthday which was totally odd but awesome! Good luck everyone!</blockquote>PSLF is the student loan forgiveness program that works. Sure, it had some trouble in the past, which I address in previous articles (see below), but those issues have been pretty much worked out.Also, if you are banking on the Democrats winning the presidential election this year and passing a massive student loan forgiveness program, please read another previous article about <a href="https://readmedium.com/the-false-promise-of-mass-student-loan-forgiveness-e0b86c3243f3">why that proposal is D.O.A</a>.PSLF is the proverbial bird in the hand, so I encourage anyone who is thinking about pursuing a qualifying career to not outright dismiss this already working forgiveness program.<h1 id="7378">Related Articles/Resources</h1><ul><li><a href="https://readmedium.com/pslf-update-august-2020-cce8a61006fd">PSLF Update — August 2020</a></li><li><a href="https://readmedium.com/pslf-update-july-2020-5c6d40eab7fa">PSLF Update — July 2020</a></li><li><a href="https://readmedium.com/the-basics-of-public-service-loan-forgiveness-4f8df6aa16b1">The Basics of Public Service Loan Forgiveness</a></li><li><a href="https://readmedium.com/pslf-actually-works-and-i-have-the-data-to-prove-it-ab551bc75293">The Truth About PSLF</a></li><li><a href="https://readmedium.com/is-plsf-right-for-me-e06412fbf678">Is PLSF Right for Me?</a></li><li><a href="https://readmedium.com/in-defense-of-public-service-loan-forgiveness-729612ddfbb7">In Defense of Public Service Loan Forgiveness</a></li><li><a href="https://readmedium.com/how-to-hack-the-secretly-successful-pslf-program-d889256fd2ef">How to Hack the Secretly Successful PSLF Program</a></li><li><a href="https://readmedium.com/after-21-years-i-have-135-000-in-student-loans-cb2dd728012b">How I Still Have $135,000 in Student Loan Debt (Even After 21 Years)</a></li></ul>If you are interested in actionable, up-to-date info about personal finance, click here to join my <a href="https://mailchi.mp/ff47c9d5c598/newlettersignup">e-mail list</a>.This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered Financial or Legal Advice. Not all information may be accurate. Consult a financial professional before making any major financial decisions.</article></body>

PSLF Update — September 2020

Student loan forgiveness, by the (real) numbers.

Here is the latest update on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. Since there is a lag in collecting and processing the data, the report released in September 2020 only has data through August 2020.

(Note 1: For explanations of the data and corresponding calculations, please see the original article about parsing the PSLF reports.)

(Note 2: The DOE published the data for both June and August simultaneously, so we are looking at both months in this review.)

Approval Rate

The overall unadjusted approval rates have been consistently above 2% the past three months, so you can disregard any articles you see about 99% rejection.

The adjusted rates came back to earth a bit (7.45% and 9.00%), but both months are significantly above the standard reported values.

**Adjusted rates came down a bit, but still higher than the widely reported numbers.**

**The yellow line is good news for current borrowers aiming for PSLF.**

Forgiveness Amount

If anyone ever says that PSLF is a failure, just point them to the $236 million in student loan forgiveness since inception, with more than half of that coming in the first eight months of 2020 alone.

Plus, the average loan balance forgiven has broken $90,000 the past two months, which is a staggering amount of debt to be erased for any one person. That’s basically half a mortgage if you live in the Midwest.

**The average borrower now receives more than $90,000 in loan forgiveness.**

**I expect the average forgiveness amount to keep climbing for the next few years.**

CARES Act and Executive Orders

September is the last month of suspended student loans (and interest rates) under the CARES Act. This has been a special type of providence for those of us enrolled in PSLF, as we basically got 5% of our forgiveness for free.

The good news is that President Trump signed an executive order to “continue the temporary cessation of payments and the waiver of all interest on student loans held by the Department of Education until December 31, 2020.”

While the executive order does not reference the specific section of the CARES Act that deals with PSLF, the Department of Education released a statement clarifying the impact of the order.

Non-payments by borrowers working full-time for qualifying employers will count toward the 120 payments required by the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and as payments that are required to receive forgiveness under an income-driven repayment plan.

That’s some excellent news to get us through the end of 2020.

On another note, transferring PSLF approved loans to FedLoan will start to ramp up soon. The transfers were on hiatus during the CARES Act period, as maintaining the suspended payments would have made the servicer switch that much more difficult.

On another front, some of you may have submitted you Employer Certification Form (ECF) after the CARES Act was passed, but your loans are still with your old servicer.

This is by design, as the servicers did not want to add the complexity of a unique forbearance to the already plagued transfer system.

Those transfers were initially supposed to restart in September, but the Executive Order extending the student loan payment suspension might delay that even more.

Student Loan Servicers

Back in June, the DOE made some noise by announcing five new student loan servicers for their NextGen program. The problem was that they were new servicers, meaning existing loans would have to be transferred.

Also notice, they didn’t include FedLoan in the announcement.

After some digging, I found that FedLoan’s contract had already been extended back in December 2019 for two additional years, so they will still be a student loan servicer and the sole manager of the PSLF program until at least December 2021.

For the other servicers, it seems that there was such an uproar about changing companies so quickly that the DOE decided to pump the brakes and extend the contracts for all student loan servicers.

To make sure there’s no interruption with your current loan servicer, we’ve made it possible to extend the servicing work for FedLoan Servicing (PHEAA), Great Lakes, Navient, and Nelnet through December 2021 and for CornerStone, Granite State — GSMR, HESC/Edfinancial, MOHELA, and OSLA Servicing through March 2022.

— Chief Operating Officer Mark Brown, Federal Student Aid

That’s a huge relief to everyone student loan borrower, not just PSLF people!

Success Stories

Every month I like to highlight a few PSLF success stories, showing just how big of an impact this program has on people.

Monster amount forgiven ($247,000) for this lawyer. Here’s an entry in their timeline about how detailed you have to be on your forms. It’s difficult and tiresome, but totally worth it.

7/2/20: PSLF denied (half our fault — didn’t check off full time box in application, BUT, We did answer the question on the FLS website that then pre-populates the application, but there must be a glitch from the online application to the PDF creation. That said, if we had double checked the paper application before uploading, we could’ve caught this and fixed, so our fault for that).

Here’s a quote from someone who was part of the initial cohorts gunning for PSLF.

It’s been a long ride on this crazy PSLF train. I graduated with a Master’s in Social Work in May of 2009 and had to commit to the program without a lot of information available. I’ve had two kids, four employers and my spouse has worked through two degrees of her own.

Even the TEPSLF program is working.

After applying multiple times and getting denied I applied again for PSLF and TEPSLF on May 13. I received a “being considered” email on July 15. I was told that my loans were sent to DOE on August 25 and by August 28 my balance was ($8,500). It went down to 0 today. I called FedLoan and was told I was getting the $8,500 refunded as overpayment. I’m so excited! It’s still hard to believe!! It also happened on my birthday which was totally odd but awesome! Good luck everyone!

PSLF is the student loan forgiveness program that works. Sure, it had some trouble in the past, which I address in previous articles (see below), but those issues have been pretty much worked out.

Also, if you are banking on the Democrats winning the presidential election this year and passing a massive student loan forgiveness program, please read another previous article about why that proposal is D.O.A.

PSLF is the proverbial bird in the hand, so I encourage anyone who is thinking about pursuing a qualifying career to not outright dismiss this already working forgiveness program.