Student Loan Forgiveness Tracker Will Return For Millions Of Borrowers, Says Top Official
A critical tool that allowed millions of Americans to track their student loan forgiveness progress will soon be restored after the Trump administration's abrupt removal earlier this year. The announcement was made by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) last week, who said that U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon confirmed the details to her during a meeting.
The move would be welcome news for millions of borrowers who have been left in the dark about where they stand on student loan forgiveness under income-driven repayment plans. And it comes as uncertainty continues to grip much of the federal student loan repayment system following efforts by Republicans lawmakers in Congress and the Department of Education to potentially make substantial changes to affordable repayment programs and student loan forgiveness options. Here are the details.
Until this year, millions of borrowers enrolled in income-driven repayment (or IDR) plans had no easy way to determine where they stood on their repayment term. IDR plans such as Income-Based Repayment, Income-Contingent Repayment, and Pay As You Earn offer borrowers affordable monthly payments tied to their income and family size, with the possibility of student loan forgiveness for any remaining balance after 2o or 25 years in repayment. But unlike other programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness, borrowers enrolled in IDR plans could not ascertain how close they were to the student loan forgiveness threshold.
In January, the Biden administration finally released a long-awaited IDR payment tracker for borrowers in IDR plans, displayed via their StudentAid.gov accounts. The tracker provided a 'counter' graphic detailing how many months and years a borrower had remaining until qualifying for IDR student loan forgiveness, as well as a more detailed month-by-month breakdown showing which months were counting and which were not (similar to the PSLF tracker, also displayed through StudentAid.gov). This helped borrowers determine how much more time they had left in repayment, and when to expect that they would receive loan forgiveness – critical information for budgeting and tax planning, particularly since IDR student loan forgiveness can be a taxable event.
But in April, the Department of Education abruptly removed the IDR student loan forgiveness tracker. The department provided little in the way of explanation, but suggested this was done so that the data underlying the tracker could be improved. Some borrowers did report that there were problems with the IDR tracker, resulting in some trackers displaying incorrect or incomplete information on student loan forgiveness progress, or didn't appear at all. Other observers noted that due to legal challenges, student loan forgiveness has been blocked under the ICR, PAYE, and SAVE plans, but this was not reflected in the IDR tracker.
Last week, Senator Warren reported back on a meeting she held with Education Secretary Linda McMahon. Warren indicated that McMahon confirmed that the IDR tracker would be returning soon.
'Secretary McMahon stated that she intends to soon restore the income-driven repayment (IDR) payment count tracker to studentaid.gov, allowing borrowers to track their progress towards receiving debt relief, after taking down the tracker earlier in the Trump administration,' said Senator Warren in a statement last week.
'My job as a U.S. Senator is to conduct oversight and hold officials' feet to the fire when they are actively harming the American people," she said. 'I was able to secure important commitments from Education Secretary McMahon, which will make a real difference for people with student loans.'
In addition to assurances that the IDR tracker would return, Senator Warren also outlined additional commitments from Secretary McMahon, including:
'At a time when President Trump and Republicans in Congress are trying to make it more expensive for students from working-class families to get ahead, I will not stop fighting to ensure that every student has access to affordable, quality education in America,' said Warren.
While the assurance that the IDR student loan forgiveness tracker will return soon is welcome news for many borrowers, the announcement comes amid growing doubts about the future of several IDR plans. The SAVE plan, which has been blocked by a federal appeals court since last summer, appears increasingly likely to not return as a repayment option. SAVE was created by the Biden administration to be the most affordable federal student loan repayment plan. The Department of Education has also suspended student loan forgiveness under the ICR and PAYE plans, which were created under the same legal authority as the SAVE plan, following the appeals court's most recent ruling in February.
'Forgiveness as a feature of the SAVE, PAYE, and ICR Plans is currently paused, because those plans were not created by Congress,' said the department in an update in April. 'ED can and will still process loan forgiveness for the IBR Plan, which was separately enacted by Congress. Payments on PAYE, SAVE, and ICR are counted toward IBR Plan forgiveness if the borrower enrolls in IBR.'
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in Congress have taken significant steps to enact legislative changes that would fundamentally change the IDR system. Under separate bills in the House and the Senate, most current IDR options including SAVE, ICR, and PAYE would be repealed if the legislation is enacted. IBR would be preserved for current federal student loan borrowers, although this plan may be significantly more expensive than the repealed programs, resulting in higher monthly payments for many Americans. The bill would also create a new IDR option called the Repayment Assistance Plan, or RAP. But RAP would increase the monthly payments for the lowest-income borrowers, and would extend the repayment term to 30 years (rather than 20 or 25) before borrowers could qualify for student loan forgiveness. The House passed its version of the bill last month, while a companion bill introduced in the Senate last week is still pending.
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