From the Hill…..
Over nine million Americans may qualify for federal student loan forgiveness under a program that’s already in place, according to a new estimate.
The Student Borrower Protection Center released a new report on Thursday that reviewed governmental data and found millions of public service workers likely qualify for debt cancellation through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, but have yet to file the paperwork to start the process.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, or PSLF, was created in 2007 with the intention of helping employees with nonprofit and government agencies have their student loans forgiven after ten years of payments (120 total payments). The overall approval rate among applicants has been low – just 1 in 5 of the 1.3 million borrowers pursuing debt discharge through PSLF were on track to see relief by 2026, according to a September 2021 report from The Washington Post.
In 2021, the U.S. Department of Education announced a change that temporarily waives certain PSLF requirements to grant borrowers credit toward loan cancellation regardless of their federal loan type or if they had been enrolled in a specific payment plan. This waiver is currently set to expire after October 31, 2022.
As of early May 2022, the Federal Student Aid office reports only about 127,000 borrowers have qualified for forgiveness under the PSLF limited waiver.
Of the nine million public service workers SBPC believes are eligible for forgiveness under PSLF, fewer than 15% have even filed paperwork to track their progress toward debt cancellation. California, Texas, Florida, and New York have the most public service workers with student loan debt, according to SBPC.
The Department of Education has not yet responded to Nexstar’s request for comment regarding SBPC’s report….