Thread by @StrikeDebt

Lots of people are reaching out asking for help with this. If we can't respond to you ASAP please understand. Here is a general 🧵 about the #PSLF waiver

https://twitter.com/bethbourdon/status/1493675662854561799

First the practical stuff. If you work for the government or a nonprofit you should absolutely apply under the PSLF waiver to get as many qualifying payments as you can. @theSBPC has the best resources here: protectborrowers.org/our-projects/p…

PSLF has been plagued with tons of problems, and although we are celebrating all of the people finally getting their debt cancelled, there are also tons of problems with the waiver. Fedloan and other servicers, and the Dept of Ed are screwing this up. So be ready for problems.

@bethbourdon is an awesome public defender and should have gotten cancellation years ago if PSLF worked as advertised. When she first applied for the waiver she initially got this bogus message from @MyFedLoan

This was scary, in part because before applying for the waiver Beth was one of the few people making payments on FFEL loans under the Income Based Repayment plan. In order to apply for the waiver it meant consolidating into direct loans. That felt risky...

...Because if the waiver didn't work, she would lose all progress towards IBR. She'd be starting over with 0 qualifying payments. So when Fedloan screwed this up, it was scary.

If you have applied for the PSLF waiver and got a message like this please DM us ASAP.

If you have applied for PSLF waiver and are told that your loans don't qualify because they are in forbearance please DM us ASAP.

That is another problem we have seen a lot.

When Beth first filled out the PSLF help tool the tool did not let her choose the option that said she had already made over 120 payments. It literally would not let her advance unless she said she had not made 120 payments yet.

So the work around was to choose the "wrong" answer, then after the PSLF help tool generated a PDF version of the application, open that PDF up in Adobe Acrobat Pro and edit the PDF so that the info was accurate. The PSLF help tool was...unhelpful 🤪

Look, the Debt Collective is full of people who live and breathe this stuff everyday, but even we are confused about the PSLF waiver. So we brought in the big guns and @theSBPC who know more about PSLF than anyone else in the world, including the Dept of Ed, took a look.

The key to navigating the student debt system is to know when the information services and the Dept of Ed are giving you is correct, and when it is BS. The trouble is that half the time the info is BS.

@theSBPC said yeah this is BS, @MyFedLoan fucked up, apply again.

It is good that this particular case had a happy ending.

This is what counts as a success story for PSFL. It also shows why PSLF is not a real solution to the student debt crisis.

There is no substitute for broad based student debt cancellation. Joe Biden can cancel 100% of federal student loans for everyone with a signature 🖊️

We know Biden has the legal authority to cancel student debt. Biden knows it to.

Flick that pen Mr. President