Student Loan Consolidation & Forgiveness: Trade Your Old Student Loans in for Better Ones
The IDR Account Adjustment looks at your oldest federal loan with qualifying payments and updates the payment count of all of your Direct Loans to match. For one client, that’s his Perkins Loan, which he started paying off in residency. FFELs and Perkins Loans, however, are ineligible for both PSLF and IDR forgiveness, normally. Suppose you consolidate them into a new Direct Consolidation Loan by the end of 2023. In that case, they become eligible and retain the highest existing payment count meaning not only got PSLF a year early on the loans he thought would be forgiven, he got ALL his loans forgiven!