An estimated 176,906 active-duty service members have federal student loans that are already eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, or that could be consolidated into eligible loans, according to a 2021 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. To date, just 124 service members have actually had their loans forgiven. The PSLF program was established in 2007 to encourage graduates to go into public service. In addition to military personnel, teachers, lawyers, nurses, and other Americans working in the public service sector qualify for the program. Though hundreds of thousands of workers should qualify for forgiveness by this point in the program’s history—eligible forgiveness recipients need to make 10 years of on-time payments—very few have, largely due to administrative errors and the confusing rules governing the program. About 94% of PSLF applications made by military members were denied—slightly better than the 99% of all applicants who were rejected, according to the Government Accountability Office report. To make amends, the Biden administration has introduced a bevy of changes to the program, including a limited waiver to ensure qualifying applicants can actually get their debt forgiven. The waiver retroactively includes FFEL, or Federal Family Education Loans, as part of the PSFL program, as long as the loan is consolidated into the Direct Loan program.
