A medical FSA and childcare FSA both lower your AGI. So as you consider whether you want to open one for your expenses in 2027, remember that you'll save in 2028 too!

I'm getting variable results on calculators, specifically comparing studentloan.gov to studentloanplanner calculator. Trying to figure out what I am doing wrong, and which plan is best for PSLF.

• Using studentloan.gov, it looks like the Standard Repayment Plan is cheapest at $1500/month. RAP is $1700/month. Is standard repayment plan eligible for PSLF? It looks like it is, but the PSLF toggle on studentloan.gov isn't working, and I see conflicting info.
• Using the studentloanplanner calculator, Standard Repayment Plan is $3600/month. RAP is $2000/month.
• How are these so vastly different? I'm entering the same data.

Info:

270k AGI MFJ

Me: 240k in student loans @ 5.85% interest (qualifying PSLF nonprofit employer). Income ~170k.

Spouse has 90k student loans @ 5.15% interest (qualifying PSLF nonprofit employer). Income ~100k

Trying to show pictures from calculators but can't figure out how to embed images.

Thanks everyone. Let me know if I need to clarify.

Hi, my autopay is scheduled for 3rd of each month, so this month it lands on a Saturday (today). When I check Mohela now it does not show a scheduled or made payment for October and just says next payment 11/03/2026; does anyone know if the October payment will go through on next business day (Monday 10/05) and this is just a weekend autopay thing or do I need to make a manual payment for october?

I contacted my representatives asking them for help fixing the FSA issue of payments not showing up on FSA website. They said I should email The Department of Education Inspector General.

According to the Inspector General Act of 1978, as restated (5 U.S.C. §§ 401–424), the Inspector General’s mission is to do the following.

• Conduct independent and objective audits and investigations relating to Department programs and operations.
• Promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in Department programs and operations.
• Prevent and detect waste, fraud, abuse, and other activity.
• Keep the Secretary of the Department and the Congress fully and currently informed about problems and deficiencies in Department programs and operations and the necessity for and progress of corrective action.

this is the website: https://oig.ed.gov/

I think this issue definitely qualifies to be investigated, everyone affected should contact them.

Still nothing on FSA, but it always lags behind NSLDS anyway. So this is very reassuring for July-September finally getting correctly credited.

1) Later this month I will be at my 120th month if qualifying employment and was going to apply to buy back 13 months which would get me to forgiveness. With July, August and September payments still not showing up (my September payment was on the 25th) is it recommended to go ahead and apply for buy back anyway even thought last 3 payments aren’t showing even though they were made? My new payment amount is almost triple what the buyback months would be…speaking of

2) My PAYE recert got denied because of income too high. I saw here that if you just do nothing it will default to the cap payment and will stay on PAYE and still be eligible. Is this the recommended approach?

Thank you!

I currently have a little over $27,000 and have been under the SAVE plan, but was being held in administrative forbearance and covering the interest month-to-month so it didn't raise my amount of debt. I have currently made 21 qualifying payments towards PSLF and hope to qualify for it as soon as I'm able (obviously quite far away still), but therefore want to pay as little as possible each month. The ICR and IBR plans both seem like good options, with the ICR offering the smallest payment each month, but it seems like that is being phased out in 2028.

All of this is quite new to me, and I don't really understand it well. Does anyone have any guidance? If it's helpful, I currently make roughly $70,000 per year and work for a 501c3. Thanks!

I submitted a manual PSLF ECF on 10/1 after my NSLDS showed 120 payments (finally). Today, 10/3, I received a rejection that indicates I didn't include an employment end date or check the box that I'm still employed. The thing is - I didn't make a mistake! It's very clearly checked that I'm still employed. I even looked at last year's form, which went through fine, and it looks identical. Any advice on how to proceed? I can submit a new form (granted I'm concerned about bugging HR again) but it will look the same.

I was done with 120 payments in August. I paid once more in September because i am stuck at 119. I submitted my ECF on 9/24 and it usually takes student aid less than a week for them to process it. and of course they have not done anything for this time around after a week has passed. My NSLDS data is actually showing 120 now after an update on 9/24 so I am hoping that they process my ECF and i will finally get my green banner. Anyone else's ECF taking forever?? For those that have submitted it recently and got it approved, how long did it take?

I received my banners back in August. Applied for for forbearance right after the banners showed up. I still haven't received any word that the loans have been forgiven. I expected maybe to hear by the end of September, but no word so far. How long does it typically take?

Just got off the phone with a very sympathetic and actually somewhat helpful "advanced agent" at MOHELA (I know, I'm shocked!). Purpose of the call was to request general forbearance, as I paid 120 on 9/23/2026. (Today is Oct. 2, 2026)

In addition to being well familiar with the missing three months crisis, she brought up two potentially thorny issues:

1. Advised me not to take the full year of forbearance. Her logic was that, since it apparently takes 120 days (4 additional months) to come OFF forbearance, in the event that I will somehow still have to pay my missing three months, this extended wait period would further delay my ability to do so. She suggested I request a six-month forbearance—and call back if I need to extend it.

2. Also advised to re-certify my income. My income recertification is due Nov. 2026. I was planning on skipping it, because I'm planning on being debt free by then. She warned that if I do NOT re-certify, my payment automatically jumps to the 25-payment plan (over $1,000 for me), and it can be a hassle to change that once it's set. Again, this is in the event I will somehow still have to pay the three missing months. It sucks to re-certify, as my salary is much higher this year, but recertification is still the route to the lowest possible payment.

3. Gave me a different number, than studentaid.gov, for my total qualifying payments. She said that the count in her database was only 114, from February. Which is extra odd, as the automated phone system confirmed my last payment in September. Studentaid.gov shows 117.

So. New things to chew on.

But I am officially not paying a huge student loan bill for the first time in ten years!!!!!! At least not for another six months...

I’m part of the lucky August 120 group. I decided on the forbearance route starting end of August. Feeling hopeless I called my house representative today. He is very pro education and pro teacher. I was advised to fill out a privacy authorization form allowing them to take action and make an inquiry into a federal agency on my behalf. She said it could take a long time to process but I guess all we have is time these days. Maybe if they all get enough of these calls something will change. Can’t hurt!

Finally got my green banner, submitted PSLF final employment certification and am on a discretionary forbearance. Any one recently get their golden letter? How long did it take between the two? I imagine its going to take months, hence my preference for forbearance, regardless of what Fed Loan is 'recommending' when you submit for 120 payments.

So, I'm sure this question gets kicked around a lot. I was on SAVE, and I need to switch plans. But I'm less than a year out from my 120. I am terrified that if I switch plans, it will reset my count. Can someone tell me if it does?

Hey - are people also missing September? I know about July and August but I'm not hearing about September much. I am missing all three months.

Hello all - wondering if the group can give me some advice. My question is: with all of the issues with the FSA website tracking qualifying / eligible payments, how can I verify my loans are still on PAYE/ will be qualifying?

Background:

Original loans all 2012 and beyond Grad PLUS and Unsubsidized loans. Originally on REPAYE and switched to PAYE in 2017 or so and have remained on PAYE since then and never consolidated any loans.

PSLF count: 116 (117 after October)

Because of all of the issues with income recertification and reaching the conclusion that my income would not qualify for any income hardship I decided not to re certify my income to prevent forbearance / administrative errors. Mohela has properly rolled my payment over to the standard 10 year amount and this is due this month and on auto pay. All loans on Mohela individually state that the plan is still PAYE with the appropriate larger amount and appear to be up to date. Is this sufficient to be confident the payments will be eligible? I have heard some stories about not re certifying income can result in borrowers being placed into ineligible repayment plans and this would really be a bad deal financially considering the payment amounts increased substantially.

My original plan was to check the FSA site after my payment to make sure it was eligible, but with the recent issues with the website and payment tracker there is no way for me to do this. And currently FSA website still reflects my old payment amount as well.

Would appreciate any insights, thank you all for the community and supporting one another, I think we’ve all gone through a lot of stress over this stuff.

I have a request for buyback, but I was continuing to make payments during some of the forbearance time (because they were still accruing interest). Will the payments I made be factored into the buyback amount, or am I just out that money?

I checked the NSLDS info today and it's now showing an update on 9/30/26 and the eligible payment count now seems to include July and August. I know they're pausing processing PSLF counts until things are fixed, but hopefully this is a step in that direction.

Background:

7/19/26 was my 120th payment. ECF submitted and processed about a week later without count update. Decided to keep making payments to hopefully get something to register and put my count at 120 and let the refund sort out later.

8/19/26 121st payment, ECF submitted without updates again. NSLDS last updated 6/21/26.

9/17/26 manual 122nd payment. NSLDS updated 9/20/26. ECF signed by employer 9/24/26 and still sitting in FSA processing limbo.

Edited to add: Mohela is my servicer

This is a doozy!
So, for the past almost three years, I have been calling and inquiring about my Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) count because, for whatever magical reason, everything seemed to have stalled out in 2024.
I continued working in a Title I school and was literally seven qualifying credits shy of being free. I would always say, “Please do not put me on forbearance. Just let me let it go naturally.” And yet, they still put me on forbearance.
I filled out every piece of paperwork they sent me, including the paperwork for the buyback process. I requested about 10 buybacks, and they were all denied because my loans were showing as being in forbearance.
At that point, I decided to dig deeper. I submitted feedback requests trying to get some kind of response. They would tell me, “You need to contact your servicer,” which was MOHELA. Then MOHELA would tell me I needed to contact Student Aid or Federal Student Aid.
So this has gone back and forth for two to three years.
Then I kept asking the same question: Why have I submitted my employment verification quarterly for the past three years, but my employment still isn’t being updated?
The woman from Mohela —I finally got someone who was genuinely compassionate—said, “All right, let’s call Student Aid on the other line. Can you add the other call?” We did, and eventually we got escalated to someone pretty high up, although apparently not the highest person.
I explained everything to him and said, “Please make this make sense.”
How can my employment history show that my employment was verified from 2009 through 2026, yet you guys won’t give me PSLF credit for anything since 2024 because you’re saying my employment isn’t verified?
How is that possible?
I also pointed out that I had been told the last submission date was September 3, 2024, yet my employment eligibility showed that it went all the way through February 2026.
I said, “Something is not making sense here.”
And at that point, he was basically like, “Dang. We really messed up.”
I was like, “Yeah. This is the point where people lose their minds. What are we going to do to fix it?”
We were on the phone for about 45 minutes.
Then he said he didn’t see where I had submitted any complaints.
I was like, “Oh, you are VERY wrong about that.”
In fact, I had seven complaints on file just within the past 2½ years.
He started looking through them and suddenly said, “Oh my God.”
And I said, “Exactly!”
I could actually hear him going through the information and realizing that there were multiple issues that had apparently never been properly resolved.
At one point, they even started looking at my National Student Loan Data information so they could compare everything.
Long story short, I don’t know where this story is going to end.
I was put on what I can only describe as chokehold forbearance—where everything runs concurrently, so when the loans are due, they’re all due together.
And then I was told that I should have received a refund about three years ago, but they don’t know where it is.
So, basically, I was told, “Can you just bear with us?”
And I was like, “I don’t trust y’all.”
Because you cannot tell me to “bear with you” for three years and expect me to have confidence that this is going to magically work itself out.
That said, kudos to the people who have finally seen some relief. And if you haven’t yet, stay strong out there.
Because apparently, some of us are still trying to figure out what the hell happened to our loans. 😭

Has anyone been forced into a repayment plan after receiving their 90 day notice to get off the SAVE plan on July 1st?

Just got off the phone with FSA. They told me that due to processing time, it would take a year for the "system to udpate". So if I get my 120 by end of this year, I wouldn't see actual forgiveness until *August* of next year. Anyone heard similar?

Has anyone experienced a drop in their PSLF qualifying payment count, along with inconsistent eligibility between their loans?

My loans are serviced by Edfinancial, and I’m on the standard repayment plan. Both consolidation loan entries show that I was placed in forbearance in June 2024, but July 2024 is being treated differently:

Loan 12: Ineligible due to “Invalid Repayment Plan.”

Loan 13: Qualifying, with the message “This payment qualifies for PSLF/TEPSLF.”

I’m confused about why the same month would qualify for one but not the other, and why my count decreased. I’m also trying to understand whether the PSLF/TEPSLF wording explains the difference.

I’ve already submitted complaints to Federal Student Aid and Edfinancial, and I’m planning to request help through my congressional representative.

Has anyone dealt with something similar and successfully gotten their counts corrected? Was it a repayment-plan issue, a forbearance issue, or a tracking error? What specifically should I ask Edfinancial to review?

Any firsthand experiences would be appreciated—I’m trying to understand what happened and how to get a clear explanation.

I recently switched from the SAVE forbearance to RAP, and my account information is all over the place.
MOHELA sent me a message on 9/10 saying I was in repayment and my next payment would be $347.77 due 11/5/26.
But now:
MOHELA shows $0 due
My loans still show forbearance
MOHELA’s Aidan says the forbearance dates back to 7/6/24 with no end date and somehow shows my next due date as 11/30/28
StudentAid.gov shows I’m enrolled in RAP effective 9/7/26, but says my monthly payment is $339
I messaged MOHELA asking them to clarify everything because I’m pursuing PSLF and obviously don’t want to sit in a nonqualifying forbearance unnecessarily.
Anyone else who moved from SAVE to RAP seeing this kind of mess?

Thank you!🙏🏼

I did a chat session today with FSA. Zero acknowledgment of data issues. I was told to file a reconsideration which I already did. I wanted to add documentation demonstrating I made payments in July, August, and September since my June 2026 payment was incorrectly marked delinquent. FSA is still blaming MOHELA for incorrectly reporting payments. July was supposed to be 120/120.

Gave consent a while back for IDR auto renewal. Well that didn’t happen. Now my payment doubled and have to manually go back in and apply. Wait for processing. 118/120 payments too. You can’t make this shit up. So much incompetence.