Summary
The U.S. Department of Education is dealing with a large number of unprocessed applications for student loan forgiveness and repayment plans. Over a million applications for income-driven repayment (IDR) plans are still pending, along with many for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). Efforts to reduce this backlog continue but are facing legal challenges.
Key Facts
- Over a million IDR applications remain unprocessed by the Department of Education.
- The backlog affects more than 42 million Americans with student loan debt totaling $1.7 trillion.
- Initially, there were around 2 million unprocessed applications, which has been reduced to about 1,076,266.
- More than 400,000 IDR applications may be rejected due to ongoing legal challenges.
- The number of PSLF applications has increased from less than 50,000 in April to 74,510.
- Processing the entire backlog at the current rate would take more than 13 months.
- The backlog began when the Trump administration paused IDR applications due to system updates amidst ongoing court challenges.
