Congress created Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) with bipartisan support in 2007 but still suffers from mismanagement that undermines its ability to fulfill its mission. The PSLF Coalition, a partner of Navigate, recently sent a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and ranking members of the U.S. Senate and House education committees calling for a number of fixes to the federal student loan repayment system, especially those that impact borrowers working toward loan forgiveness. Borrowers can join us by calling on their elected officials to contact members of these committees and demand action to protect borrowers who rely on avenues to forgiveness promised by the government. 

For nearly 20 years, PSLF has helped fill crucial workforce shortages in health, education, and public safety in communities across the country. The premise was simple: to encourage college graduates to work in the public service sector, federal student loan borrowers could get their loans forgiven after 10 years of repayment. Now, however, recent changes to the repayment system make it more difficult than ever to achieve forgiveness. Following updated regulations that took effect July 1st, borrowers who choose or are placed in the new Tiered Standard Repayment Plan cannot earn qualifying credit towards PSLF. Furthermore, public service workers who take out loans for their children’s educations as Parent PLUS loans are ineligible for the new income-driven Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), which is now the only plan that qualifies for PSLF with new federal loans. 

PSLF Should Be Simple

When Congress created PSLF, they outlined a number of eligible repayment options, which included the standard 10-year plan, IDR plans, or under “any one or combination” of the approved plans. It was meant to be widely available as long as borrowers were making good-faith payments. Recent regulatory changes, however, have restricted borrowers more and more. Now, borrowers with new loans have only one choice, and it’s not even the “standard” plan. Further, RAP—the only plan that now qualifies towards PSLF—doesn’t have a payment cap, which could leave borrowers with the possibility of infinitely ballooning payments. Congress could step in and fix this easily: ensure that any federal repayment plan authorized by Congress can qualify for PSLF. 

We hope that you’ll join us in calling for a commonsense resolution to end almost 20 years of borrowers’ confusion. Help us make PSLF simpler and stronger for future generations of public servants.

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