US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon speaks at the White House in Washington, DC, on November 20, 2025. The Education Department has stopped reporting data on PSLF Buyback processing, but borrowers are saying they are getting their student loans forgiven under the program. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
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Thousands of borrowers trying to get their student loans forgiven through a relatively new buyback process have been forced to wait in a massive backlog of applications. In some cases, borrowers have had to wait for two years or longer as the Education Department slowly works through a huge queue of student loan forgiveness requests. But there are some indications that the process, and the wait, are improving.
PSLF Buyback offers borrowers the opportunity to make up for lost time for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. PSLF allows borrowers to discharge their student loans in as little as 10 years, or after making 120 qualifying payments, while working full time for eligible nonprofit or government organizations. Those payments, to be considered “qualifying,” must be made while a borrower is in repayment under specific repayment plans (in most cases, income-driven repayment plans). Most periods of deferment and forbearance don’t count. PSLF Buyback gives borrowers the chance to get retroactive PSLF credit for certain past periods of deferment or forbearance by making a lump sum payment covering what they would have paid if they had been in repayment during that time.
Here’s what we know about the PSLF Buyback backlog, and whether people are actually getting their student loans forgiven.
How Student Loans Can Be Forgiven Through PSLF Buyback
Borrowers can apply to get their student loans forgiven through PSLF Buyback once they have 120 months of certified, qualifying employment, and the bought back period (if approved) must allow them to qualify for student loan forgiveness.
“The buyback opportunity is only available to you if you already have 120 months of qualifying employment under PSLF,” says online Education Department guidance on the program.
While many types of deferment and forbearance periods are potentially eligible for PSLF Buyback, the program has a number of limitations and restrictions.
“You can’t buy back months during which your loan was in any of the following statuses: In-school or In-origination, In-grace, Default, Bankruptcy, Total and permanent disability monitoring,” says the department’s guidance.
Borrowers also cannot buy back periods prior to consolidating their federal student loans. And under new rules that went into effect in July, borrowers cannot buy back periods while in repayment under the new Repayment Assistance Plan (or RAP) or the Tiered Standard repayment plan, both of which launched last month. The forced administrative forbearance period associated with the SAVE plan injunction, which has been in effect since the summer of 2024, generally qualifies for PSLF Buyback, provided borrowers meet the program’s other eligibility criteria.
How The PSLF Buyback Amount Is Calculated To Get Student Loans Forgiven
The buyback amount is generally calculated based on what a borrower would have paid under an income-driven repayment plan during the period covered by the PSLF buyback request.
“If you were on an IDR plan immediately before or after the months you’re buying back: If the deferment or forbearance was less than a year in length, we’ll use the lower of the two monthly IDR payments for the months before or after the time in deferment or forbearance,” says Education Department guidance. The department may need to request the borrower’s income information for periods when a borrower was not enrolled in an IDR plan before or after the applicable deferment or forbearance.
The Education Department recently updated its PSLF Buyback guidance to indicate that for borrowers with student loans in the SAVE plan who are looking for buy back the 2024 to 2026 administrative forbearance period, the buyback amount will not be based on the SAVE plan formula. Instead, the department will base the buyback calculation on a different IDR plan, which may result in a higher buyback amount than expected.
“If you were enrolled in the SAVE Plan on or after July 18, 2024, then the IDR plan you were in immediately before you enrolled in the SAVE Plan is used to inform the payment amount,” says the updated guidance.
Some Signs That More Student Loans Are Being Forgiven Through PSLF Buyback
While the PSLF Buyback program is fully operational, it has suffered from significant application backlogs that has resulted in long delays for borrowers trying to get their student loans forgiven. According to data released by the Education Department for a roughly a one-year period between the spring of 2025 and the spring of 2026, the backlog nearly doubled, reaching a peak of around 90,000 applications. The department and Education Secretary Linda McMahon released the data as part of an interim agreement in a lawsuit brought by a labor union over student loan program processing delays.
But there are signs that processing may be improving for the program, and that more borrowers are getting their student loans forgiven. In the department’s last status report released in May, the department reported reviewing nearly 7,000 PSLF Buyback applications during the previous month, a jump in processing from the usual figures of 2,000 to 4,000 per month as indicated in prior monthly data dumps. The vast majority of these requests (around 6,600) were approved, according to the department’s report, a meaningfully higher amount compared to prior status reports. And for the first time, the PSLF Buyback backlog decreased from a high of around 90,000 the previous month to around 88,000.
The Education Department has also taken steps to try to streamline PSLF Buyback processing. The department said in recent court filings it is working to eliminate duplicate applications, which is inflating the application backlog and might be slowing down processing. The department has also simplified the online PSLF Reconsideration system, which is the portal for borrowers to apply to have their student loans forgiven through PSLF Buyback, by allowing borrowers to select buyback from a drop-down menu of options (rather than being required to use specific language requesting student loan forgiveness, which had been the case before). And the system now prevents borrowers from submitting a duplicate PSLF Buyback request if one is still pending.
Anecdotal reports suggest that more borrowers are getting their student loans forgiven through PSLF Buyback, in some cases sooner than the two-year wait times that had seemed to be becoming standard. Borrowers on public forums like the PSLF subreddit are reporting more buyback approvals in recent weeks, with many borrowers getting their student loans forgiven anywhere from six to 18 months after submitting their buyback requests. That suggests there is still a backlog, but it may be improving.
New Barriers For Getting Student Loans Forgiven Through PSLF
While the recent updates about PSLF Buyback are promising, and borrowers are getting their student loans forgiven under the program, there is little in the way of concrete, up-to-date information, leaving borrowers somewhat in the dark. The interim litigation agreement requiring the Education Department to file monthly status reports on student loan forgiveness processing has expired, although it could potentially be renewed. The department has not voluntarily released any new statistics. There are some indications that the department may be outsourcing PSLF Buyback processing to its contracted student loan servicers to help reduce the backlog, although there has been no official public announcement on that.
In the meantime, borrowers pursuing student loan forgiveness through PSLF are encountering new problems. Borrowers trying to transition out of the SAVE plan forbearance are facing loan servicing problems and irregularities with monthly payment calculations for income-driven repayment plans, delaying their ability to get back on track for PSLF. And last week, the Education Department began rescinding some qualifying PSLF payments for some borrowers, leaving them further away from being able to get their student loans forgiven. While some of the drops in qualifying PSLF payments are due to system fixes, according to the department, other borrowers with legitimately earned PSLF credit appear to be getting swept up in the chaos. The department has provided scant details on the scope of the issue or whether a solution is coming.
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