One can only hope this is good news...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2026/10/21/doj-drops-fight-put-trumps-restrictions-public-service-loan-forgiveness/

For those who have been concerned about the Department of Education appealing the dismissals of the substantially illegal employer rules, it appears today that the government has decided not to move forward on this.

The appeals have been dropped in two of the three cases already, and word is that the finalized dismissal on the Massachusetts case will be coming shortly.

Here’s where each case stands:

• Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights v. McMahon, No. 26-5308 in the D.C. Circuit: appeal dropped.
• National Council of Nonprofits v. McMahon, No. 26-1972 in the First Circuit: appeal dropped. Nonprofits, unions, and cities brought this case.
• Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. U.S. Department of Education, No. 26-1973 in the First Circuit: appeal still pending. The government’s opening brief is due November 4.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-administration-drops-legal-fight-230916023.html

We’ve heard a few times that the servicers will be taking on the buybacks processing. Last time I called MOHELA I was told they had not heard any such thing. In writing I received a response from MOHELA confirming such. Of course, no timeline though…. Email:

Subject: Public Service Loan Forgiveness Received Date: 10/08/2026 Thank you for contacting MOHELA,

MOHELA has assumed responsibility for processing PSLF Buyback and Reconsideration requests for accounts serviced by MOHELA. Federal Student Aid (FSA) will send MOHELA PSLF Buyback and Reconsideration requests submitted on StudentAid.gov. Once we receive borrowers' requests from FSA, they will be processed, and borrowers will be notified. At this time, MOHELA does not have an estimated timeframe for receiving borrowers' requests from FSA or completing processing.

If you have any additional questions, contact us using the information below. Thank you, MOHELA

I was inspired by this subreddit to call to check on my PSLF buyback application (submitted July 2025), only to be told from EdFinancial that they received a notice yesterday that the applications are all paused and they’re not processing them

Fanstastic…and I don’t qualify for any sort of pause on payments

The FSA chat agents will now connect and drop your conversation if you ask when counts will be updated. Literally no one is doing their job related to PSLF.

I am at 122 qualifying payments for PSLF. After my payments updated I called my servicer Nelnet and requested forbearance while I wait for my loans to be forgiven. Nelnet put me in a 1 year forbearance. My payment counts are up to date.

As you know you can call Student Aide every 10 minutes and be told something different. 😒 Last month I was told I had to submit another ECF and check off the 120 payments box...then was told next day, that wasn't necessary. I called yesterday and was told to not expect forgiveness until November. Then she told me -" you should see the status of your forgiveness on your account, it should say "Forgiveness in process"....I told her my account has said that under each PSLF form I've submitted for the past year....😒 then I asked was PSLF on a pause etc...was it due to this "system glitch "....she acted as if she knew nothing about that, and said it generally takes 60-90 days to process forgiveness so for me it would be November. These customer service employees at FSA just do not care to tell you correct honest information . They just throw out anything to see what sticks to get you off the phone. At this point who knows when those of us at or over 120 for PSLF will see those golden letters. 😏

About one month ago, I manually recertified my IDR plan (I am on the PAYE plan and applied to stay on it) but was denied. The letter says I no longer have a partial financial hardship and my loans will be placed on an IBR/PAYE Permanent Standard repayment plan. My loans are serviced by MOHELA.

I just now noticed that my loans were placed under forbearance. Making my October monthly payment would not count toward PSLF, and it can take up to 120 days to apply for the administrative forbearance to be lifted.

What is the best course of action? Is it worth calling MOHELA to clarify what will happen? What should I do to keep making progress towards PSLF?

I just called the federal student aid number (888) 303-7818 and feel compelled to share what I learned.

1. I was told that they do not know a timeline when the Qualifying PSLF payment counter will be updated. (For anyone.)

2. Even on their end, they could only see my payments from June and July - they could not see my payments from August, September or October were even in a queue. So even if my employment certification (PSLF Form) gets processed, my count will only increase by 2 instead of 5.

3. They told me that technically this counter needs to be updated on their website before I am eligible to 'Buy back' any months in forbearance for SAVE litigation.

This feels very much like they are preventing anyone else from applying for buyback, then, if you technically can't apply until they update the counter and there is no concrete timeline to ever do so.

1. For my case, I did already submit an application for 'Buyback', because it would bring me to 120 eligible payments now. But they told me it will be rejected and I cannot apply again until it gets rejected, which I understand from the reddit community takes about 18-20 months.

So. What’s the litigation play here for those of us eligible for forgiveness and discharge?

How do I request forbearance while FSA figures this PSLF tracker out? What do I say to Mohela? I have never requested forbearance before.

I have 143 certified qualifying payments that I am waiting on forgiveness for, for over a month like many of us ( I certified old employment which is how I reached that number fyi) Who knows when that will happen. But I am looking for other jobs. What happens if I find something and leave my current qualifying job. Will my loan forgiveness not be processed?

Background: I just applied for PSLF buyback after my employer signed my ECF electronically last week for these last 11 months of employment. Yes, I applied even though my qualifying payment count has still not updated to 106 months and my ECF is still showing up as "in process." However, the employment certification section on the PSLF tracker has been updated correctly to show certified employment through 10/16/26 and my NSLDS data shows that all of my payments have been received through October. I was told that I should apply now, since they've basically stopped processing ECFs and updating payments on the tracker. When I applied for buyback via the reconsideration request on the FSA website, there was no section for me to enter the verbiage/terminology/text stating exactly which months I am requesting to buy back. I see several posts stating that it was removed a while ago.

Without the verbiage/terminology/text, how do they know which months I want to buy back? Do they just compare months that are eligible for buyback versus months that I already have certified PSLF-eligible employment? I want to buy back June 2024 through July 2025 (14 months) when I was in SAVE forbearance before beginning to make payments on the PAYE plan. I know that I likely will never see my buyback application processed which is why I plan to continue making payments for the next 14 months, but I figured that I'd apply just in case a miracle happens.

Subject: URGENT: Recurring Portal Glitches, Disappearing Payments, and Auto-Pay Failures (Account at 117/120)

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to formally document and address severe technical failures on my account. Over the past two years, my auto-pay settings have inexplicably de-enrolled themselves twice without my authorization or knowledge.

Most recently, a payment for my October 27th due date was submitted on the 19th and marked as "processing." However, by the next day, the transaction history completely vanished from the portal as if it never occurred, and bank records confirm no funds were drawn. I have had to re-initiate the payment manually, but this is entirely unacceptable.

With my account currently standing at 117 out of 120 qualifying payments, these recurring backend portal errors—which consistently threaten my progress toward completion—are causing severe undue stress and administrative burden. I have never missed a payment or paid late in my life, and I have had to repeatedly track down and force transactions through due to platform instability.

I require immediate written confirmation regarding the status of this billing cycle, verification that my account is current, and an explanation for why transaction queues and auto-pay settings are failing on your end.

I've heard this said a couple of times but I'm not sure if it's true or just bad information. I'm seeking PSLF and my repayment options are either old IBR or RAP. Eventually, in about 3 years, I will seek buyback for the save forbearance. If I choose to go into the RAP plan, will I still be able to seek a buyback request later on, for the previous years we were in save forbearance? It says you can't buy back the months while you were enrolled in RAP, which I'm not sure makes much sense to me, because why would you be buying back if you were enrolled...

I am 25 and a recently graduated from school. Grace period ends in about a month.

I have 72k in federal loans at 6% on average.

I have about 50k in cash. Plus a decent savings/emergency fund seperate from the 50k

Partner and I will make about 125k a year combined. I am in public sector and will make 50k of that. In all likelihood will remain in an eligible job long term.

Debating on the idea of paying 50k off the loans at once. Or pursuing pslf and keeping the 50k for investments, general savings or even a down payment for a house in the future. I hear that pslf isn’t always the easiest process and certainly is a commitment. Wondering what others thoughts on the situation are.

I submitted my form yesterday. Today, the status states “Your form has been received and is being processed for a final review. You can typically expect to receive a final decision in 3-5 weeks.” I haven’t seen this before. Usually, once my employer signs off, within 1-2 days, the form is processed.
Has anyone else seen this message? If so, how long did it take them to process the form?

My deadline to switch off SAVE is in 4 weeks. I hit 120 months in December 2025 and submitted my last ECF and Buyback Request in January. This covers 18 months of SAVE and 2 other forbearance months from years ago. My plan had been to switch to RAP and resume payments as late as possible, but keep paying once it resumed to either go against my buyback balance or just get it over with if Buyback ended up taking 3 years.

I’ve been more optimistic than many on here for a while that it’ll work out, however, based on the payment count fiasco, the lack of recent headway on buybacks, etc., it seems like there’s no short term desire to process anything PSLF. I’m beginning to think neither solution will happen until 2029 at best. I also have some personal things such as a $1200 monthly daycare bill (about what I will be paying monthly with RAP) that will put me in the red and require dipping into what I had put aside for my buyback just to make ends meet once payments resume. With that in mind, I’m now considering going into a 12 month forbearance after I switch and let things get sorted out. I so badly just want to be done with this asap, so I am conflicted. Is anyone else in a similar situation? Thankfully I love my job, I feel for those who are stuck.

I accidentally submitted an empty buyback request today. I don’t know how I did that, but it happened. I immediately submitted a feedback form referencing the mistake along with the buyback case number requesting the empty form be deleted.

If this were you, would you do anything else besides call FSA (and of course not make the mistake in the first place)? Will I have to wait 2+ years before I can resubmit?

I have 120 months of qualifying employment with 10 months needing to be bought back due to the save forbearance. My new monthly payment is over twice when it was on save. Applied for buyback April 2024. I am no longer at a qualifying employer, so I can’t just work towards PLSF otherwise. Forbearance was just denied and I absolutely cannot afford to make the new payment. Also, I do not want to pay it on principal! I stayed at the worst job way longer than I needed to just qualify and couldn’t stay another day 😭

I know I’m not the only one in this boat! So what are we doing? Anyone been able to finagle forbearance after meeting the maximum months?

Edit: Mohela-denial for having used max forbearance.

I'm hoping someone here has experienced something similar or can offer guidance because I've been going back and forth with Federal Student Aid (FSA) and EdFinancial for months without getting any clear answers.

I've worked in the nonprofit sector since July 2015, including several years serving homeless veterans. I've consistently pursued Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), and until recently, my account reflected significantly higher qualifying payment counts.

I have two consolidation loans, and there are three major issues I'm trying to resolve.

1. June 2024 — Forbearance I Never Requested

Both of my consolidation loans show June 2024 as "Forbearance on Due Date."
I never requested a forbearance, and I have repeatedly asked EdFinancial and FSA to explain why my loans were placed into this status.
Neither has provided a clear explanation of what triggered the forbearance, who authorized it, or whether the month can be corrected to count toward forgiveness.

2. July 2024 — Two Consolidation Loans, Two Different Eligibility Determinations

For July 2024, my loans have completely different eligibility statuses:
Loan 12: "Invalid Repayment Plan"

Loan 13: "Qualifying"

Both loans were consolidated and serviced by the same servicer, and to my knowledge, they were under the same repayment plan.
How can one loan qualify for July while the other doesn't?
I've specifically requested an explanation for this discrepancy, but I continue receiving generic responses that don't address the actual question.

3. My PSLF Counts Were Reduced

This is probably the most frustrating part.
Until approximately August 2026, my account reflected higher PSLF/TEPSLF payment counts. Then, seemingly without warning, my PSLF counts dropped.
My current counts show:
Loan 12: 85 PSLF / 108 TEPSLF

Loan 13: 86 PSLF / 109 TEPSLF

That's a difference of 23 payments on each loan!
FSA has referenced changes in servicer reporting, but nobody has provided a detailed accounting of which months were removed, why they were removed, or what changed to make previously eligible months no longer count.
I'm currently on a 25-year Standard Repayment Plan associated with my consolidation loans, and I understand that this may affect PSLF eligibility. However, I want an explanation of why my counts changed and whether my previously credited months remain eligible under TEPSLF.

What I've Done So Far

Filed a formal complaint with Federal Student Aid.

Filed a separate complaint with EdFinancial.

Requested a detailed review of the June 2024 forbearance and July 2024 discrepancy.

Submitted a congressional inquiry requesting assistance.

Followed up after receiving responses that failed to directly address my questions.

Despite all this, I still don't have a satisfactory explanation.

I've dedicated over a decade to nonprofit work, and it's incredibly frustrating to feel like I'm getting closer to forgiveness only to have my payment counts change without any meaningful explanation.
I'm not looking to make unnecessary additional payments or restart the process. I simply want the payments I've legitimately earned to be counted correctly.

My questions for everyone:

Has anyone successfully challenged an unexplained administrative forbearance and had the month credited toward PSLF or TEPSLF?

Has anyone had two consolidation loans show different eligibility determinations for the same month?

Has anyone experienced a sudden reduction in PSLF counts while their TEPSLF counts remained higher?

If you've filed a congressional inquiry, did it actually help resolve your payment count discrepancies?

Is there another escalation process I should consider when FSA and the servicer repeatedly fail to answer specific questions?

I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who's dealt with something similar, especially if you were able to get your counts corrected.
Thank you!

sorry in advance for likely a common question, asking for a friend who doesn’t use Reddit. friend is in SAVE forbearance, has 120 payments but some didn’t qualify, submitted a buyback request in 2024 and this has been in limbo since with recent update where she was told “there is NO timeline for when buyback request will be reviewed”.

her options are to try and continue forbearance while waiting on buyback request, or switching to a qualifying payment plan like RAP to finish up the 8 payments she would need. Any advice on which option is preferred or any other options would be greatly appreciated! thanks in advance PSLF community!

Hi,
I recently recertified my income and student aide said my next payment (increased by $2000) in November, but Mohela says the increase is due December.

Should I go ahead and pay the increased amount in November?

Thanks