Under the Trump administration, more than 72,000 student loan borrowers who are likely eligible for debt forgiveness are stuck in a backlog of applications waiting for the relief.
Some of them, like 46-year-old April Osteen, owe just a single payment. Others, like Dan Carrigg of Rhode Island, have been waiting a year for the government to respond to their application.
“There are no updates,” Carrigg said. “They tell you nothing.”
The program experiencing the challenges is known as Public Service Loan Forgiveness Buyback.
That opportunity, first offered by the Biden administration, allows borrowers who qualify to have their debt excused under PSLF to retroactively pay the U.S. Department of Education — or “buy back” — any months they missed because they were enrolled in a forbearance or deferment. (Those are different periods during which borrowers’ loan payments are on hold.)
