Friends Don’t Let Friends Miss Out on PSLF

Missing Out on PSLF

Public Service Loan Forgiveness—a free program that allows borrowers to wipe out their student loan debt—has been around for well over a decade and, yet, there are some who have still never heard of it, and don’t know that they are eligible for it, or that it’s actually a real thing.

According to recent data from the Student Borrower Protection Center, just 2% of those eligible for PSLF have received forgiveness, even with the host of recent changes offered by the Limited Waiver Opportunity.

One of the biggest contributing factors, they say, is that just 15% of the 9 million borrowers who are eligible for PSLF have filed any of the necessary paperwork. To some, that might come as a shock, but we encounter folks all the time who are uninformed, ill-informed or have been convinced that it’s a codswallop.

Offer a PSLF Lifeline to a Friend

One of our Navigate team members recently told me a story:

“I still find out that my friends don’t have the facts about PSLF and I never miss an opportunity to share the good news.

Recently, I was talking to a friend of mine who was offered a chance to study abroad at a prestigious school in the UK. She’s been dying to go there and applied for several years; this time it really paid off and she was offered a full tuition waiver!

She worried, however, that she wouldn’t be able to afford living expenses while studying. I asked if she had any money saved up, and she told me that she had tens of thousands in the bank—I was flabbergasted! She explained that it was almost the same amount as her remaining student loan balance, which she planned to pay off before moving abroad.

She teaches at a university, so I asked why she would pay those loans off when they could be forgiven and she could save her money for school.

She had heard of PSLF but thought you had to work for the government or something to qualify if it was even a real thing at all.

I assured her that it was real and that Navigate has seen many clients through the PSLF application process to success!

Her worry evaporated, and she’s keeping that money for years ahead in the UK—crisis averted!”

There’s a lot of bad info out there and a lot of mistrust, and you can help us make sure people get the right facts and find their own way to student loan forgiveness.

If you have a friend who’s ready to start their PSLF journey, send them our way! If you’re already a client of Navigate, you can receive a gift by referring a friend to us.

Don’t keep PSLF to yourself: it pays to share!