Hello!  This is my first post and I’m on a mission to find if others have experienced this same thing and if there is anything that can be done to change it.  Here is my dilemma:  I recently found out about the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program (where have I been for the past 4 years, I don’t know!).  I have been working at a Not-for-Profit (NFP) agency for the past 10 years and have made on-time loan payments since I graduated from undergraduate school in 2002.  When I contacted both my loan provider and the Department of Education (DOE), I was given conflicting information re: my eligibility for this program; my loan provider telling me I wasn’t eligible, and some departments at the DOE telling me that “as long as I have a federally consolidated loan,” that the effort I have put in for the past 10 years to pay my loans while working for a NFP agency would qualify me for the forgiveness.  I was then told, by a different department at the DOE, that because my loan was consolidated commercially, and not with the DOE back in 2002 (when apparently people had the option to choose who they consolidated their loans with), all I had to do was consolidate with the DOE, giving my loan the title of a “direct loan,” and I would be eligible for the program….but wait….the last 10 years of my on-time payments while working for a NFP do not count, I would essentially be starting from scratch. 

My problem, (and point I guess I’m trying to make) is that I feel that I am being treated unfairly because 11 years ago, before the DOE had control over all student loans, people could make a choice, and now that choice is coming back to bite me in the you know what!!!  Their reason or rationale for why my federally consolidated loan, and struggle to meet my obligations to pay back this loan does not qualify me for help because it has one title vs another.

Has anyone faced this same dilemma and is there anything I can do about it?  Please help!!!!   

I’m sorry to say that I’ve heard from loads in folks in a similarly frustrating position.  It stinks.  A couple of thoughts: the federal government only wants to write off debt owed directly to it, rather than pay back loans owed to a commercial bank.  That’s why Congress included this requirement (and because that fact makes the law cost WAY less and so helped make it politically viable).  Folks do have the opportunity to reconsolidate into Federal Direct in order to begin making payments that count towards forgiveness, but that has not been made clear and it is tricky.  I stay up at night worrying about people in public service who don’t have this information, and I talk about it till I’m blue in the face, but the government and the loan servicers don’t advertise it.