Major Rulemaking Concludes, Borrowers Brace for 2026 Changes
July 2025 arrived with a major milestone in the multi-year overhaul of federal student loan forgiveness programs. On July 2, 2025, the Department of Education officially concluded its negotiated rulemaking process, publishing a final summary on ed.gov/news/july2025-pslf-final-session that detailed new…
Draft Rules Released Ahead of Final Comments
On May 30, 2025, the DOE published the first full draft of new PSLF regulations emerging from months of negotiated rulemaking and the March executive order. These drafts, uploaded to the official ed.gov/rulemaking portal, included detailed language on defining “substantial…
Servicers Face Pressure to Resolve PSLF Errors
By May 2025, the wave of retroactive credits and growing scrutiny of employer definitions placed huge administrative strain on servicers. The DOE announced on May 14, 2025 that it had issued new compliance directives, requiring faster resolution times for PSLF…
More PSLF Borrowers Cross the Finish Line
As IDR account adjustments continued processing through spring, many public service workers saw their qualifying PSLF counts leap forward. By April 27, 2025, the DOE highlighted in a press release that over 400,000 borrowers had already hit the 120-payment mark…
DOE Sets New Public Meetings and PSLF Clarifications
By April 10, 2025, the Department of Education published a detailed notice in the Federal Register, announcing additional public meetings for the negotiated rulemaking process set to finalize language around PSLF employer standards. These sessions were planned to run through…
Executive Order Sparks Worries Over PSLF Employer Reviews
March 2025 brought a seismic moment for public service workers pursuing PSLF. On March 7, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Education to tighten oversight of organizations receiving indirect federal loan forgiveness, specifically mandating a…
Early Negotiated Rulemaking Highlights Potential Employer Changes
February brought the first official sessions of the negotiated rulemaking process that the DOE previewed a month earlier. Held on February 10 and 22, 2025, these sessions focused heavily on proposed employer eligibility standards for PSLF, directly tied to directives…
DOE Previews New PSLF Rule Proposals
As 2025 began, attention turned to future regulations. On January 14, 2025, the Department of Education previewed a new slate of proposed rules in a pre-negotiation notice, which included potential clarifications to PSLF employer eligibility and documentation requirements. This advance…
Year-End IDR & PSLF Checklist Grows More Urgent
December is always a prime month for financial housekeeping, and December 2024 saw record numbers of borrowers taking stock of their PSLF journeys. The DOE’s December 4, 2024 announcement urged borrowers to pull annual payment summaries from both their servicers…
Holiday Budget Relief Thanks to SAVE and PSLF Progress
By November 2024, many public service workers were seeing the combined benefits of SAVE and retroactive IDR credits directly in their household budgets. According to data shared in a November 12, 2024 press briefing, average payments for borrowers on SAVE…