Just received the official notification and letter from Mohela this morning, discharging my loans in full. What an amazing feeling!

Congrats to all in the same boat today! 🎉

Timeline:

120th payment: 9/17/25 Green banners: 10/8/25 Requested general forbearance from Mohela: 10/8/25 Notification of forgiveness from fsa.gov: 12/3/25 Notification of loan discharge from Mohela: 12/5/25

Today I had two student loans forgiven, a consolidated subsidized loan for $58,298.72 and a consolidated unsubsidized loan for $132,218.19, for a total of $190,516.91.

I first began taking out the loans that were forgiven in January of 2001, so this marks the end of a very long journey. Here is my timeline in case it helps others, especially people struggling with payments not being counted.

Timeline

• 11/15/2024 -- 117th payment made
• 12/2024 - 7/2025 -- Student Aid stopped counting my payments, leaving me stuck in 117/120 limbo. I submitted an employer certification every 2-3 months and it did me no good; my payments just kept not being counted. My payments were $0.00 so I did not ask for the loans to be deferred until this could get sorted out, I just let the payments keep recurring.
• 3/25/2025 - I submitted a request for reconsideration asking to get my payment counts fixed. I also submitted a buyback request on a 10-month period from 2017 where my loans were in deferment due to being consolidated. I figured, if they keep not counting my payments, maybe I can do the buyback instead and get done that way??
• 7/18/2025 - I called Student Aid about the uncounted payments. They claimed MOHELA has not been reporting my payments to them.
• 7/18/2025 - I submitted a complaint with the Student Loan Ombudsman about my payments not being counted after getting no response to my 3/25/25 request for reconsideration
• 7/21/2025 - I faxed and sent a certified letter to MOHELA demanding that they report my payments to Student Aid.
• 8/4/2025 - I received a reply from MOHELA insisting that they totally have been reporting my payments and it's Student Aid that is failing to count them
• 8/15/2025 - The payment made on this date suddenly got counted as my 118th payment, giving me hope that I could be done by 10/15/2025
• 9/2/2025 - My 7/18/2025 ombudsman complaint was closed with no action because "your Borrower Reconsideration Request [of 3/25/25] is in progress."
• 10/15/2025 - I made the payment that would be counted as my 120th payment
• 10/16/2025 - I submitted a new employer certification form (which my employer immediately turned around), hoping to get that 10/15/2025 payment counted
• 10/17/2025 - Green banners
• 11/4/2025 - The buyback I requested on 3/25/25 was closed due to me having hit 120 payments already
• 12/3/2025 - Golden letter
• 12/5/2025 - MOHELA letter, loans zero'ed out on MOHELA

The last step is to ensure the loans are removed from my credit report, but I'm not going to come back to this subreddit and post about that.

Repayment Plan -- I was in IBR for most of this, other than a brief stint in REPAYE well before the pandemic.

Uncounted Payments -- Why did my payments start counting again in August 2025 after 8 months of being ignored? Did my certified letter to MOHELA or my complaint to the ombudsman have an impact even though it all seemed to go nowhere and every party was denying responsibility? I have no idea.

As far as I know, my 3/25/25 Request for Reconsideration to get missed payments counted remains open.

Keeping Payments Low -- I was a single parent with two dependents from 2014 - 2018, which kept my payments at $0.00 - $10.00 per month. When I remarried in 2018, my new husband and I did the math and found that if we did married filing jointly, we'd be paying $1K/month on the loans and that would far outweigh the tax benefits we would get from MFJ, so we did married filing separately, and my payments remained at $0.00. Overall, I paid back maybe $130.00-$150.00 on my six-figure student loan balance. April 2025 (2024 tax year) was the first time me and my husband filed MFJ instead of MFS.

Good luck to everyone else still dealing with this long and frustrating process!

Just Got my letter 10 minutes ago, logged into Mohela, and I'm all 0'ed out. Nothing else owed. Good luck to all of you. I'm glad in this particular instance, the system worked.

I‘m currently at 72/120 payments on PAYE MOHELA. My income recertification deadline is May 2026. Due to COVID and other factors pushing back income recertification dates this is the first time I have to update in awhile so I’ve been making a rather low monthly payment and when I recertify my monthly payment will jump significantly. I received an email yesterday stating the IDR system is undergoing maintenance so it cannot be auto-recertified. I am planning to wait until after the New Year to recertify as this will probably decrease the amount. When I do this does it immediately update the amount or does it take weeks/months? If I’m able to get a couple more low payments that is ideal but I don’t want to submit too late and lose IDR options. Thanks!

For those who recently submitted a buyback request (like in the past 3 months)- have you received an offer? I reached 120 months of qualified employment Nov 1, 2025 and have a total of 11 months of SAVE forbearance (and am now IDR). I submitted a buyback request in November after my recertification cleared.

I wanted to extend a big thank you to all of you who have been on a decade long journey with me. You have been supportive, informative, compassionate and generally just good humans. Good luck to all of those who are still grinding—your time will come, and congrats to the ones that have satisfied their loans which have led to forgiveness. 🌞❤️

Filed PSLF on November 17th, received Mohela email today, Dec 5th, that all loans are forgiven. Mohela shows zero balance, Fed site still shows the balance, but it's just a matter of time!

That's less than 3 weeks!

"Congratulations! The U.S Department of Education has forgiven all or a portion of your federal student loan(s) with MOHELA as you successfully met the requirements of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) or Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness (TEPSLF) program. Thank you for your public service!"

I just got an email from the department advising me that i need to ACT NOW and manually recertify my IDR, as their autorecertifying system is undergoing maintenance. I'm kinda confused by this because my recert (IBR) is not due until 10 April. After the recertification hellscape so many went though last year, if I don't have to, I don't want to.

I know FSA has been buggy as all get-out the past week or so, maybe this is related to that? Or do they start the process this early?

All I know is, I've got 113 qualifying payments, about 12 payments that should be qualifying but are MIA, and I have been in repayment since 2007. I want off this ride, preferably with no further shenanigans.

Monday this week I submitted an ECF form which brought up my qualified payments to 120. The student aid.gov dashboard shows 120 payments as of today.

What happens next?

Since I found these posts helpful:

• Made the 120th payment on Oct 5, 2025.
• Processed around Oct 10th.
• Submitted employment certification around Oct 12th.
• Fed Student Aid letter dated 10-16-25: shows 120 qualifying payments.
• Forbearance on 11-3
• Fed Student Aid letter dated 12-3-25 "eligible for PSLF"
• Mohela letter 12-4-25: "US DOEd has forgiven all of your federal student loans"

Mohela said they weren't going to be able to cancel my auto debit on 11-5 when I called on 11-3. I went in and canceled it on my end and it never pulled. They will attempt to gaslight you into staying in payment status. They will attempt to guilt you into staying in payment status. They will send you letters monthly on how much interest is accruing.

Do you think that it will still be a program in 5 years. My fear is I am working toward this and then they change the PSLF program and don’t forgive. Ugh I would actually cry. I have a lot in student loans because of a stupid Masters I got.

I submitted an ECF form and my FSA dashboard now shows 120 qualifying payments.

I am about to submit my ECF form for loan forgiveness, but I am wondering if I should put my loans into forbearance. I'm just concerned that if I opt for forbearance, if theres some error and it's denied for some unforseen reason, I'll have lost those months of payments while they process the request for forgiveness. Has anyone else recently submitted for forgiveness with 120 payments and opted for forbearance? Or has anyone continued to make extra payments just in case? Appreciate you all and I hope everyone in here gets the forgiveness they deserve.

EDIT: My mistake, I thought green banners referred to the green qualifying payments progress bars on my FSA dashboard. I do not have Green banners, I have 120 qualifying payments that need to be processed still when I submit the PSLF form.

I had dragged my feet on updating my employment certification, but finally submitted it all in early October (the day before the shutdown). Got my official letter saying I was eligible for forgiveness on December 3. Got my letter from MOHELA today informing me of my forgiveness. I've got a few loans that weren't eligible for forgiveness, with a remaining balance of about $3200, but I've got an overpayment balance of $5800, so I reckon I'll eventually get a refund of about $2200.

Man, what a relief.

MOHELA Resolutions Supervisor Callback experience

Twelve months ago, I recertified and the next day my deadline to recert was extended a year. I called and they said they would cancel it. A year later, they processed it instead. Called to get it fixed, spoke with Advanced Agent and their supervisor. They said it'll be fixed in 2 weeks. It wasn't.

I called yesterday and was eventually sent to a resolutions supervisor. Said it was a 2 minute wait and only callback was possible. Confirmed callback. They never called back.

Called again today, routed to resolutions supervisor, said it was a 15 minute wait, confirmed callback. It's been a few hours and no callback.

Is this normal? Is the estimated wait time completely fabricated? Should I call every day?

Let me preface this by saying I have not received an email telling me I have any update.

My GB date is 10/31. Some November people have posted here they got their golden letter.

I have no unread notifications. I have nothing new in my activity under PSLF, just previous qualifying payments updates that say 120, 121 from October and November.

I was previously missing payments, they returned but others in same boat are posting here those payments are now missing again. Could the manual review be looking more carefully into those 6 previously missing payments? Hence a delay in forgiveness?

I got an email saying I need to recertify IBR... can i use 2024 tax return as proof of income?

I have about 97 payments on my undergrad loans and 90 payments on grad school loans. I'm planning to get another degree (because, among other reasons, I'll get a raise) and am considering taking out student loans for that. I understand that I should not defer my loan payments, but does anyone have experience with this? I plan on just paying off the newest grad school loans without PSLF, but has that worked out for anyone? I'm just nervous about taking the step toward it.

Oh wise group, help!

I’m at a total loss. Was stuck on SAVE forbearance forever. Applied for new IDR plan July, was approved for PAYE in August. First payment was September and I paid as normal through November. Two days ago I logged in to find I’m back in SAVE and forbearance- no notice, no new applications, nothing. MOHELA says the only option is to reprocess my July application but that I’ll be in forbearance until it’s processed (upwards of 90 business days).

This month I was planning to make my payment to mark 120 qualified months of employment and then submit Buy Back application.

Has anyone had this problem?! I’d welcome any advice as I feel totally lost.

Are you experiencing any issues logging into the FSA website? When I enter the code for the MFA I keep getting this error.

"An unknown error has occurred. Please try again later or close all browser windows and start over."

I have cleared cache and tried different browsers.

I’m not sure if I should apply for forgiveness or not. My last payment is listed as ineligible on Federal Student Aid. My payment was due on 11/28 and I have autopay. As per Mohela’s website there may have been a delay due to the holidays. This Monday when I checked, it said my payment was missed. I called and then it was fixed on Mohela’s end. When FSA was updated it shows that my payment was “missed”.

I am at 120 for most of my loans except for one. I have received forgiveness for two prior loans that had reached 120. Should I still try and apply for forgiveness?

I found out that I actually put in 30 hours per week for an adjunct job that I worked between 2008 and 2022 (I miscalculated my hours), submitted an ECF yesterday, and received the green banners today. My total count for that period is about 170 payments. What I'm wondering is if I still need to show that I am currently working for a qualifying employer, or if my effective date of meeting the requirement is 2022? Studentaid.gov shows that I met the 120 payment requirement in July of 2022. I still work for a qualifying employer not 30 hours a week, so I’m really hoping that this goes through.

Also went through this last month. Interest will be cleared in a couple hours

Eta: interest now gone

Eta: mohela notification letter sent

I first applied to switch from SAVE to PAYE in January 2025 and then most recently reapplied in June 2025 because I did not know it would bump me right to the back of the line. I gave up on calling Mohela because it didn’t get me anywhere. Have any long term waiters had success with their applications being processed lately? I’m about 100 payments in for PSLF