Congress Promised Student Borrowers A Break — Then Ed Dept. Rejected 99% Of Them

[SaysWho?]

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/05/754656294/congress-promised-student-borrowers-a-break-then-ed-dept-rejected-99-of-them

 

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Every Monday night, Matthew sits down at his desk in the Connecticut home he shares with his wife, Heather, to pay the family's bills. He clearly remembers opening a letter in the summer of 2018 from the company that manages Heather's federal student loans.

 

She had spent more than a decade in public service, as a teacher. The couple was looking forward to the day when, under the original PSLF program, the Education Department would forgive her student loans. But the letter did not say 'congratulations.'

 

"My jaw just kind of dropped," Matthew says. (Heather did not want to talk about what has been a long, painful odyssey for them both.) The letter instead informed the Austins that, much to their surprise, none of the loan payments they had made over the previous decade had counted toward the 120 monthly payments required to receive loan forgiveness. Not one.

 

"I saw zero," Matthew says. "And I started seeing red."

 

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"It just infuriates me," Matthew says. "I remember sitting there when we found out that Heather was pregnant with our first child. And looking at the spreadsheet that we had made up for our long-term plan of the budget. And saying, 'Okay, well, when he's 10, we can take a vacation."

 

Then came good news: A few months before Matthew opened that letter, Congress created the emergency expansion of the PSLF program, in response to an outcry from borrowers like the Austins. Lawmakers set aside $700 million to help people who, like Heather, had fulfilled their public service but were, unbeknownst to them, in the wrong repayment plan. Naturally, the Austins applied. But the nightmare continued.

 

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Congress created the expansion program last year, in response to a growing outcry. Thousands of borrowers — nurses, teachers and other public servants — complained that the requirements for the original program were so rigid and poorly communicated that lawmakers needed to step in. But, documents show, even this expansion of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program isn't working.

 

Ninety-nine percent of loan-forgiveness requests under that new Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness (TEPSLF) were rejected during the program's first year, from May 2018 to May 2019. According to the review, conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the U.S. Department of Education processed roughly 54,000 requests and approved just 661. It spent only $27 million of the $700 million Congress set aside for the expansion.

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Makes sense. Though I think it may be a little misleading but not terribly so. The only way you can check your status and how many qualified payments you've made is by applying for forgiveness. So if you're nowhere close and apply, you will be rejected.

 

That said, my wife has been teaching for 8 years and aside from her time not working on maternity leave (with no pay mind you) she's been making monthly payments, then applied a few months ago only to find out she has only made something like 13 qualifying payments so we're not counting on this forgiveness.

[Commodore D]

31 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Makes sense. Though I think it may be a little misleading but not terribly so. The only way you can check your status and how many qualified payments you've made is by applying for forgiveness. So if you're nowhere close and apply, you will be rejected.

 

That said, my wife has been teaching for 8 years and aside from her time not working on maternity leave (with no pay mind you) she's been making monthly payments, then applied a few months ago only to find out she has only made something like 13 qualifying payments so we're not counting on this forgiveness.

Same happen to my wife whenever it was that she should have been eligible for forgiveness (2015 or 2016 I believe), she had been “counting on it;” and I reminded her I told her I’ll believe it when I see it happen. We both just shrugged our shoulders at the situation. 

 

I believe the issue was that one of her years at a charter school didn’t qualify because the school came off the qualified employer list.

 

Edit: Just asked my wife about it, she did get the $5000 forgiveness from the TLF though.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

My wife got some forgiveness, but that was for being a math teacher at a Title 1 school, and that only required working there for five years and being in good standing payment wise.

[Commodore D]

3 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

My wife got some forgiveness, but that was for being a math teacher at a Title 1 school, and that only required working there for five years and being in good standing payment wise.

Yup, that’s the one my wife got as well, except for elementary school.

[brucoe]

I'm part of a program that is supposed to lead directly to forgiveness after ten years. I'm expecting absolutely nothing from our government. They'll go back on their word and then have a bunch of people armed with think tanks blame me for taking so much debt and wasting my life working in crappy education when I should have been out doing something productive, like making lots of money.