Part 4 of 4 Part Series
Part 2: What are the new changes to PSLF?
Part 3: How do these changes affect me?
Now that you’ve learned how awesome the new PSLF waiver is, you may be wondering, “How do I sign up for this?”
There’s been a lot of confusion around this part, because at first it’s like, “Who the hell is studentaid.gov and why do I need to open an account?”, followed by, “Oh… they’re the FAFSA people. Wait, why am I signing up for FAFSA? I don’t need FAFSA!” Followed by a bunch of flashbacks to when you took out thousands of dollars of loans to go to college & med school, followed by the shocking realization that you don’t remember anything about that process and you know nothing about your loans.
Ask me how I know.
Anyhoo, this all boils down to either a 1- or 2-step process, depending on your situation. Here’s a video that walks you through the process, as simply as possible. It’s not a money byte— it’s 39 min long— but I’ve sectioned it up with timestamps, so you can jump right to the parts that are relevant to you. Plus, the last 3 minutes is an appendix anyway.
In the video, you’ll get an overview of the whole process, you’ll learn how to sign up, whether or not you need to consolidate your current student loans, and how to do that, and then you’ll take a step back and think through whether the PSLF waiver is a good fit for you.
To make it easy, I’ve organized folks into 4 groups:
Group 1, You’ve made greater than or equal to 120 payments, and your loans are direct loans, you’ll complete 1 step, the PSLF application. You can expect to receive total loan forgiveness, and a refund for payments made over 120.
Group 2, You’ve made greater than or equal to 120 payments, and your loans are not direct loans. You’ll complete 2 steps: consolidating your loans, and applying for PSLF. You can expect to receive total loan forgiveness.
Group 3, You’ve made less than 120 payments, and your loans are direct loans. You’ll do one step— apply for PSLF. You can expect that past ineligible payments will now be counted towards 120 payments in PSLF
Group 4, You’ve made less than 120 payments, and your loans are not direct loans. You’ll do the 2 steps— consolidate your loans, and apply for PSLF. As with group 3, You can expect that past ineligible payments will now be counted towards 120 payments in PSLF.
This information is nicely summarized in this handy-dandy table I made:
No matter which group you’re in, everyone has to start by opening an account at studentaid.gov . Yep, the FAFSA people. AKA the US Department of Education.
Ok, see you over on YouTube.
BTW I’m thrilled to announce that the Money Med School YouTube channel has crossed the subscriber threshold to get a vanity link!
You can now find the Money Med School YouTube Channel at: YouTube.com/c/MoneyMedSchool
Woo-hoo!
Most Helpful Post on the Federal Student Aid website: https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/pslf-limited-waiver This one is up to date and has the most accurate info. Don’t get confused and read the one about the TEPSLF.
PSLF Explained 4-Part Series:
