Borrowers Can Still Get Student Loan Forgiveness. Here's How

Many student loan borrowers counting on debt forgiveness are growing increasingly anxious about how the Trump administration might revise existing repayment programs.

While borrowers eager to have their loans wiped out knew they were losing an ally when former President Joe Biden — whose administration erased billions in student debt — left office, borrowers still had access to existing pathways to debt cancellation.

To be clear: Borrowers continue to have access to those pathways, namely income-driven repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness, or PSLF. However, the administration’s actions over the past few months have many borrowers on edge.

Millions of borrowers are waiting to find out whether the Saving for a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan will survive — and what their payments and forgiveness options would be in the likely scenario that it doesn’t. Borrowers in non-profit jobs are worried about the future of PSLF following an executive order focused on limiting the jobs that qualify. And staffing at the Education Department, which is responsible for overseeing any changes to student loan repayment, was slashed earlier this year — though the layoffs are the subject of an ongoing court case.

What are borrowers to do amid so much uncertainty about how they’ll be able to repay their education debt? “Don’t make any panicked decisions based on a headline,” says Betsy Mayotte, president of The Institute for Student Loan Advisors. That’s “the No. 1 piece of advice I can give.”

Any changes would take a long time to implement, and borrowers should have time to make a thoughtful decision about their options, she says.

That’s because Public Service Loan Forgiveness and income-driven repayment are written into statute. And while student loan experts and consumer advocates say borrowers would be smart to expect some changes down the road, it’s important to remember that it would take congressional approval to end either program and a lengthy regulation-making process to introduce substantial changes.

Here’s what to know about your current options for loan forgiveness and how they could change.

Borrowers on income-driven plans could see higher payments, longer forgiveness timeline in the future

Roughly 8 million borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan have been in forbearance since last summer, when a court injunction stopped the Biden administration from fully implementing its marquee repayment plan.

As background, all current income-driven repayment plans set your monthly bills based on what you earn, as well as your family size, and offer loan forgiveness after a certain number of qualifying payments — typically 20 or 25 years’ worth. But SAVE was significantly more generous than previous iterations: It promised to lower monthly payments and offered faster loan forgiveness for borrowers with smaller balances.

While the court case that paused the plan is still unresolved, most experts agree that borrowers shouldn’t expect SAVE to survive.

"SAVE is sunk. It’s just about who actually puts the headstone up, whether it’s the courts or Congress," Mayotte says.

When SAVE is officially ended, the millions of borrowers who are in that plan would be moved to a different repayment plan. What that different plan will look like — and whether it’s a new plan passed into law by Congress or an updated version of an existing plan introduced via regulatory changes — is still unclear.

Republicans in the House of Representatives are pushing for a major overhaul of the repayment system that they say would encourage borrowers to repay their loans and ultimately reduce the cost to taxpayers. It would offer just one income-driven option that sets monthly bills according to a borrower’s adjusted gross income.

Compared to the SAVE plan, most borrowers would see higher monthly payments under the GOP’s current model. But compared to some older income-driven models, some borrowers could see similar, or even lower, payments. The plan also calls for extending the forgiveness timeline, requiring 30 years of payments before any remaining balance is erased. House Republicans included the repayment overhaul in the ‘big, beautiful’ budget bill, which could still change significantly in the Senate. Lawmakers are hoping to pass a final bill by July.

At the same time, the Education Department is focusing on two specific existing plans — Income-Contingent Repayment and Pay as You Earn — for regulatory changes through a process called negotiated rulemaking, although officials haven’t released concrete details about potential changes. Any changes introduced after the negotiating sessions likely wouldn’t take effect until next summer at the earliest.

The upshot: There are a lot of moving pieces that could affect what income-driven plans are available and what forgiveness options exist within them for both current and future borrowers. But there aren’t any immediate changes, and the existence of some kind of income-driven plan with a built-in forgiveness clock seems to be safe.

What borrowers on IDR plans can do now

Last month, loan servicers resumed processing income-driven applications after a nearly three-month pause. There is still a backlog of some 2 million income-driven applications, per data from the Education Department. But the resumption of applications means you should be able to get into a more affordable plan in the near future if you’re struggling with your bill.

You can use the loan simulator at studentaid.gov to see what your payments would look like under different plans. Keep in mind that income-driven plans aren’t your only option if you can't afford your bill: For shorter-term challenges, you can ask for a forbearance or a deferment. You can also look at whether another payment plan, such as the extended option, would lower your monthly bill enough to make it affordable.

Borrowers who are currently in income-driven plans — particularly those who are nearing the payment count needed for forgiveness — should know that the government has paused forgiveness processing under three IDR plans. (They are: SAVE, Pay as Your Earn and Income-Contingent Repayment.) But forgiveness under Income-Based Repayment (IBR) is still open, and payments made on the other plans will count toward forgiveness if you enroll in IBR.

Regardless of what plan you’re on, it’s always a good idea to keep track of your repayment progress so you have a record of what plan you’re on, how much you’re paying and how far you are on the timeline to forgiveness. That’s especially prudent right now, given the likely repayment plan changes that are coming down the pipeline.

Otherwise, there’s not much borrowers can do while they wait to see how things shake out other than stay informed about their options.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness is safe for now

Despite Trump’s March executive order aimed at limiting eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, the program remains intact and the jobs that qualify are unchanged.

PSLF, which offers student loan forgiveness to people who work in government and non-profit jobs and make 10 years’ worth of payments, is clearly outlined in statute. All 501(c)(3) organizations are eligible employers. So even though Trump has said he’d like to restrict some organizations’ eligibility, and the Education Department has named PSLF as an area of focus for regulatory changes in its upcoming rulemaking session, there's not much wiggle room in the law. In Congress, the only change that's been floated is no longer allowing periods during medical residency to count as employment for forgiveness.

Connor Pierce, who advises borrowers as a certified student loan professional with Student Loan Planner, says that borrowers who are somewhere on the 10-year path through PSLF shouldn’t make any drastic decisions based on Trump’s actions so far.

“If you had a plan and it made a lot of sense before, just stay the course until the dust settles,” he says.

That said, he notes that there are ways the Trump administration could make it harder to access PSLF (and income-driven plans) without any legal or regulatory action. Staffing reductions could trickle down into delays for all kinds of services, including processing applications for repayment plans and approving employment certification forms for PSLF.

What borrowers working toward PSLF can do now

Borrowers who are currently enrolled in SAVE should know that these months in the forced forbearance do not count toward the 120 payments they’ll need to qualify for PSLF. Assuming you can afford payments right now, you may want to consider moving to a different income-driven plan. You’ll have to resume monthly payments, but you’ll be actively working toward forgiveness rather than sitting in limbo.

Consumer advocates are also pushing borrowers to download their payment history so they have an up-to-date record of where they are in the PSLF timeline. As with the income-driven plans, borrowers need to prepare to be their own advocate when navigating the system and be persistent when dealing with loan servicers.

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