PSLF Payment Counts Drop as Education Department Corrects IDR Adjustment Errors

Borrowers chasing Public Service Loan Forgiveness have spent the past two weeks watching their qualifying payment counts move in the wrong direction. Some lost six months. Some lost more.

The fear running through borrower forums is that the Trump administration is quietly unwinding PSLF, or reversing the one-time income-driven repayment account adjustment that brought millions of borrowers years closer to forgiveness. Based on the accounts we’ve reviewed and what the Department has confirmed on the record, that is not what’s happening.

What is happening is narrower, more technical, and because the Department has explained almost none of it publicly, considerably more damaging to borrower trust than it needed to be. A banner on StudentAid.gov has told borrowers only that their counts are wrong and that a fix is coming. And here’s what were seeing analyzing dozens of reports and borrower accounts.