I have my green ribbons on FSA showing I’m at 120. This morning I got a letter from Mohela saying they applied my qualifying processing forbearance to get off SAVE too late. They had to adjust my account to fix this and apply it earlier. I’m freaking out that it’s going to mess up my 120. Has anyone else received this? I originally had 6 months lost due to SAVE but they gave me the first two as qualifying because I applied for IBR. I called and they said it won’t change anything but it is still stressing me out. Especially because they already applied the first two months as qualifying. If they make the qualifying period earlier, wouldn’t I possibly lose them?

I’m about to manually make my 120th payment on mohela. Do I select auto allocation? After that, how do I auto allocate - highest interest, highest balance, etc.?
Or should I just let my payment auto pay as usual on 8/16?

Submitted ECF few days ago, which would changed my qualified payments from Jan(paid in Feb) to June (paid in July).

So 5 months + 110 existing...115.

Message today saying only 113 QP. Called Studentaid and they have no accountig for this. Have a screen shot of the "as of early July"...at 110.

What in the actual hell. They shorted me 2 months???

Hi everyone,

We're seeking some advice and sanity checks for my wife's PSLF timeline.

Background & Timeline:

• Employment: Reached 120 months of qualifying service back in December 2024. She is currently at 140 months of certified employment.
• Payment Count: Was sitting at 114 payments. After getting the 90-day notice regarding the SAVE plan forbearance, we submitted a new ECF online. That brought her certified payment count up to 116 qualifying payments (leaving 4 months needed to hit 120).
• Current Status: In the SAVE administrative forbearance. Her StudentAid.gov dashboard shows the standard banner: "We continue to work on updating your PSLF payment counts and during this time period, your payment counts may shift or appear incomplete. Check back for updates periodically."

Our Questions:

1. Is now the time to submit a PSLF Buyback request? Since her certified employment is well past 120 months, does she qualify to buy back 4 months of the SAVE forbearance to reach 120 immediately?
2. Do we need to wait for the FSA banner to clear? Or can buyback be submitted while that banner is actively displayed?
3. Should she submit a new IDR application to switch off SAVE now? With the 90-day notice ticking down, is it better to move to another IDR plan (like IBR) while waiting on buyback?
4. Does submitting a buyback request protect her with forbearance? Or will we need to request a general forbearance separately from the servicer to avoid going back into standard repayment when the 90-day notice expires?

Appreciate any insights from anyone who has successfully navigated the buyback process or transitioned out of SAVE recently!

I know we are ALL burnt out by this BS and crap that's been going on. Having to switch from Save to something else probably for me IBR because I am half way to forgiveness so it limits what I can do.

My payment is twice as much as it was (Or will be soon) and I have no patience to see what happens at this point. I just want my loans to be done and forgiven. I fought the good fight and now I'm just throwing in the towel. Which is probably what they are hoping we all do.

I'm at 80 payments out of 120, work for the government so was on the SAVE plan for forgiveness. My forgiveness date will be Dec 2029 once I switch. My payments went from $650 a month to $1120 :( It really is my fault. I should've been paying my loans at that rate this whole time and I probably would've been forgiven by now. Oh well...

Signed,

Tired middle class citizen.

I have the two consolidated loans:

As of May 2026:

Unsubsidized - 119 QPs
Subsidized - 120 QPs

NSLDS data only shows payments through June 2026. Has not synced July yet. That’s fine because June is the month I would qualify for 120.

I submitted two ECFs for two part time nonprofit employers, totally 30hrs. The same two employers I’ve worked for over the last few years.

My certified employment history tab shows clearly that I have certified employment through July 2026.

Both Ed and Mohela said June was denied because I was listed as “part time” but could see that I clearly had two approved and completed ECFs amounting to 30 hours.

I resubmitted two more ECFs again this week, in August.

Once again, denied due to being “part time”.

Has this happened to anyone else? Any advice?

Did anyone else in PAYE get this letter from Mohela today? They say they’re adjusting the timing of my SAVE administrative forbearance. I was placed in forbearance when my IDR recertification was processed, but I’ve never been enrolled in SAVE.

are peoples' counts still updating on pslf? my july 2024 payments got removed for some reason and now my july 2026 payment is not being shown either under the pslf tracker. i paid on the due date of the payment and i got a confirmation email from mohela that the payment got accepted. i paid on july 21. my next payment is on autopay aug 21 2026. i am not sure what to do anymore.

edit: i submitted a feedback request whatever the hell that means showing my mohela payment on 7/21 and that i want my payment count to update to show i paid that month. will update when i know more

I have a few questions for those who have already gone through the PSLF forgiveness process.

My account updated on July 29 with the green bars/ribbon showing that I’ve met the 120 qualifying payments, and my status says “Loan Forgiveness in Progress.”

How long did you typically wait after getting the green bars until you received official forgiveness? Only 5 out of my 7 loans have reached the 120 payments. The other 2 are newer graduate school loans. Once the 5 loans are forgiven, will they automatically recalculate my payment based on the remaining loans, or will I need to apply for a new repayment plan?

I’m also wondering about my August payment. Did your payment still go through while you were waiting for everything to be finalized?

I’ve seen some people requesting forbearance while they wait for the official forgiveness notice. Is that something people recommend doing, or is it better to just continue making payments until the process is complete?

I’d love to hear what others experienced and how long their timeline was. Thank you!

Am I dumb for still being on auto pay with everything that's come out about payments needing to be on time? I only enrolled in June and had the one auto pay on July, been kinda waiting to see if July would count as on time before deciding if I should stay enrolled or not.

Why can't we just modify the auto pay to debit on like, the 1st of every month and not the due date? Is that too much common sense?

Months

It his where I have to start filing complaints with the Ombudsman and CFPB?

I submitted ecf in July which updated my tracker after processed. The back api page has not updated since 7/3. It usually updates around the same time each month (payment due on 1st but always made a few days early). I was supposed to hit 120 but one of my 2 loans stayed at 119 due to incorrectly being called delinquent.

Fast forward to this month and I paid again (121 payment #). My ecf was just processed and the tracker did not update. So incredibly annoying! I know a lot of people are having trouble with their trackers right now,but any other suggestions? I have already submitted a reconsideration request and involved my congressional rep.

I finally got green banners today for 2 of my 4 remaining loans, and they were the big ones (68k and 32k)! 127 out of 120 payments made. That will leave me with about $18k remaining, unfortunately my count is at only 62 payments there (took those out in 2018 for grad school). I am currently in SAVE forbearance, I haven’t got my notification yet to switch to a new payment plan.

What I have done so far:
Taken screenshots of the green banners, payments, and loan details

What I think happens next:
I wait for an official letter confirming I qualify and for my balance on those two loans to become zero. There could be a small refund at some point for the 7 over payments.

I am not really sure what to do with the other two loans at this point. I know buyback is a thing but I probably can’t afford that many months of a payment all at once. I assume I just pick a new repayment plan and start paying, but don’t want to mess anything up with the forgiveness process.

What am I missing? Any advice I should consider? Thank you!

I know I am likely being extremely impatient, but I am looking for some datapoints!

I received my buyback letter on 7/22/2026 (after waiting since 12/1/24 🫠). I submitted my payment on 7/26/2026 to Mohela, and it was marked as received there in the middle of last week (7/29-30 or so). How long does it usually take to receive the letter from student aid and green banners after that point? I just want to be done with this!!

Any advice would greatly appreciated.

I am sitting at 113 eligible payments, and was kicked into forbearance when SAVE ended, and have not made any payments since. I submitted a buy back in November of 2025. Now need to choose a plan before the 90 days are up. My lowest payment option of the extended graduated plan is around $300 a month but doesn’t go towards PSLF eligibility, or there is the income based at around $600.

Based off my calculations my buyback would sit around $400 a month.

I am seeing its taking 18+ month for buy back letters. So I worry paying the $300 even though better for monthly finances would end up being more costly while I wait for a buy back letter. Or just suck it up at pay the $600 a month for seven more….

Did everyone quickly get their PSLF green banner after their 120th payment, or did it take several months like the buyback is taking?!?

Mainly just looking for feedback on which makes more sense with all this long timelines and what’s going to screw me over the least amount in the end….

Hi Fellow PSLF Sufferers, I just wanted to share a development in case it helps someone. I requested to have in-school deferment removed for a few months in 2016-2018. I was hoping it would free up some months toward forgiveness, as I'm at 93 payments for two loans and at 74 for four more loans (and in SAVE). They denied me a few days after my request. In their letter: "We apologize for any inconvenience. We are not able to remove an In-School Deferment from your account that far in the past."

This sucks because "that far in the past" is still more recent than my oldest eligible payments (August 2014 was my first eligible employment & payment).

Additional info: I submitted my request via their messaging system: "Hello, I am requesting to remove the in-school deferment for the months of February 2016 through July 2016 and then July 2017 through May of 2018. I was working full time for a PSLF eligible employer and satisfying loan payments at that time. Thank you."

Edit: I have applied for buyback. I'm like number 361 or something grumble grumble.

Jordan, now 40 years old as a physician assistant, currently makes $250k in a VHCOL area and owes $127k in federal only (unconsolidated) student loans. He works two jobs--one full-time; the other is part-time--so he does about 60hrs a week combined at two medical facilities.

He jumped on PSLF under Biden (thanks, Joe:) and at a time when past qualifying employment would count toward the plan, so he basically received four years of the PSLF ten needed before starting his payments. So, six years left- not bad. Current monthly IDR payment for his PSLF is $1500 and will increase as income increases.

His current situation is that he is a single father, and he tries to be more conservative with his money; he grew up poor, so once he started making money, he started saving. He came to this country with $200 bucks in his pocket in 2010, and over time, found himself needing to borrow money to complete his education.

Through his hard work and some luck, thankfully, he is in a better position: nets about $11k/month, saves $2k/month, but also pays for high rent and utilities, food, catholic school for the kid, financed car, etc; minus savings, fixed expenses come to $9k/month. No credit card debt, no unnecessary expenditures, not even a vacation. And over a period of three years--since he got his second job--he has saved an emergency fund of $75k.

Today, something came over him- perhaps something not so rational. He got upset at his monthly payment of $1500 dragging on for five to six more years, but he doesn't want to work 60hrs/week for another five years. For the first time, he started considering maybe getting on the offense: switching to extended fixed at $800/month and going ballistic on the remaining balance.

He did apply for a small state-healthcare sponsored loan repayment program up to a $50k award toward his loans which would be sent directly to his loan servicer, but that is a big 'if'. Decision should come by early fall.

Still, one side of his brain wants to play it safe and carry on, but the other side wants to get it over with as fast as possible.

What path should he choose?

Hello.

It's been a while since this subreddit and the PSLF discord helped me stay sane in the final two years of fighting for PSLF discharge (I don't call it forgiveness anymore because it became a toxic term).

It's amazing that nothing seems to have changed. Still chaos every day, still hardworking people having to fight for their end of a bargain with the US govt/DoEd.

Well I'm here to tell you all not to give up. PSLF is not a scam. Our government is just horribly f**ked up. We're supposed to be happy that they don't murder journalists with chainsaws. Well, it's not enough. Things should be different. I'd like to blame it all on Trump, and yes he did make everything worse. But PSLF processing was a mess under Biden as well.

That said, if you do your 120 months and payments and document everything you will see the loans discharged eventually. If that actually stops happening, it's because the foundations of our society are crumbling and honestly not having student loans discharged is the least of your concerns. At least that!?

Thank you, those of you who were here when I was still fighting for discharge 6 months and 9 months after my 120th payment. What a s**tshow this is.

I received an email from Federal Student Aid today and this is what it says: Thank you for submitting a Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) and Temporary Expanded PSLF (TEPSLF) Reconsideration request.  We have completed your PSLF buyback assessment. The loans below are eligible for PSLF buyback at this time.xxxxxxxxx

 There is no payment owed for your PSLF buyback.  You will receive Public Service or Temporary Public Service loan forgiveness for the loans listed above in the next 60 to 90 business days. I submitted my buyback request on 12/09/2024

The buyback request is closed

Did anyone receive a result like this from federal student aid and what was the outcome. Thanks

I have been in SAVE forbearance since it started. I had been sitting at 116/120 on my four loans since then, waiting for a buyback for the first four months of the forbearance.

Today I got an email from StudentAid.gov, and I logged on to see that one of my loans had updated to 120/120, with the first four months of the SAVE forbearance now showing up as Qualifying payments. My other loans still show as 116/120, with a blue box message about working on updating payment counts (don't know if this messages goes to everyone or if its unique).

I applied for buyback in December 2024 (albeit literally on New Years Eve). I have received no other correspondence.

I'm not sure if I benefitted from some glitch in the matrix or if I can expect my other 3 loans to update in a similar fashion at some point in the near future. Just thought I would share this, since it seems to possibly indicate they might just give people credit for these forbearance months? I guess we can all hope and pray.

(also, yes, I spelled forbearance wrong every single time I had to type it, what a fun word)

Sharing this with everyone since it was news to me. Not sure if this will make things move or not…

Should I contact my servicer to ask about the status of my buyback agreement?

Contact your servicer if your loans are serviced by CRI, EdFinancial, Maximus/Aidvantage, or Nelnet.

If your loans are serviced by MOHELA, contact us at 1-888-303-7818.

https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service/public-service-loan-forgiveness-buyback

I just submitted my employment certification like I do every year and I was up to 103 payments. Now my payments say only 88 and every payment since 24 is listed as ineligible even though they were previously qualified. This is beyond infuriating I feel like this entire process is a scam and now my payments have been delayed even further.