How Does Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Work?

Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) is a program the government started in 2007 to encourage people to work in public service jobs. These include most government and nonprofit jobs. If you stick with public service and make qualifying payments for 10 years, the rest of your federal student loans can be forgiven.

Here’s the simple version:

1. Work for a qualifying employer.
Government or nonprofit employers usually count. Your job role doesn’t matter — just who you work for.

2. Make 120 qualifying payments.
That’s 120 months (10 years) of payments under a qualifying repayment plan, usually an Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plan.
Only one payment per month counts, and the months do not have to be in a row.

3. You can’t pay ahead to finish faster — kind of.
You can’t rack up extra qualifying months by overpaying.
But if your IDR payment is $100 and you pay $1,200 at once, it can count as 12 months — but only once you verify that you worked for a qualifying employer during those 12 months.

4. Your loans must be Direct Loans.
If you have older loans (like FFEL or Perkins), you may need to consolidate them first.

5. Certify your employment.
Send in a PSLF Employer Certification Form each year so the Department of Education can track your progress.

6. After 120 qualifying months, any remaining loan balance is forgiven.
Right now, PSLF forgiveness is not taxed.

Helpful Links

• PSLF overview: StudentAid.gov/publicservice
  
• PSLF Q&A: StudentAid.gov / public-service / questions
  
• Employer Search Tool: studentaid.gov/pslf/employer-search/search-tool