I have a serious issue with my student loans. I graduated in 2011 with $163,000 in Federal loans (Stafford Loans – Subsidized and Unsubsidized - and Grad Plus Loans) that were consolidated into Direct Loans through Fedloan in December 2012 as I began working at a non-profit hospital as a Physical Therapist in October 2012. I have no private loans. This qualified me for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. Also, I am in the IBR plan.

Yesterday, I called Fedloan to ask about adjusting my monthly payments as my income had significantly changed since 2014. I received a large sign on bonus when beginning my new job that was disbursed in 3 installments over 2013 and 2014. As I will no longer be receiving these large sums ($5,000, $10,000 and $10,000), my income for 2015 will be significantly lower.

When I called, the representative informed me that 6 out of my 23 loans were never consolidated into Direct Loans and therefore have not been counting towards my PSLF for the past 2 years and 4 months that I have qualified. I called back to speak with a supervisor and during a conversation that lasted over an hour, she confirmed that these 6 loans were in fact never consolidated. I received no notifications in the form of letters, emails, monthly statements or verbally over the past 2 year and 4 months. I have had several other issues with my loans, one in particular in which I spoke to a supervisor at Fedloan 18 times over a period of 6 months in 2014 and this issue was never brought to my attention.

The supervisor I spoke to yesterday could not find any documentation stating that I failed to include these 6 loans in my consolidation paperwork, nor any other error on my part. She did refuse to admit that this issue was their fault.  The only option she gave me is to consolidate now, which will capitalize all the interest from the past 2+ years to a loan amount of approximately $28,000 and then start the PSLF from scratch for those loans, effectively wasting 2 years and 4 months of working and payments for these. She did state that I would still qualify for forgiveness on the remaining 17 loans at the original time.

I am wondering if there is any way that these 6 loans can be backdated to be included in the PSLF that I have been a part of since December 2012 since she was unable to find any documentation that this was my error and since I have been making payments on these loans the entire time. Any advice at this point would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much.

I had the opposite issue, where they actually added loans to my consolidation that I did not want. 8 months later and it still isn’t 100% fixed. Ridiculous… have you contacted the Ombudsman? They might be able to help and would know the right people to talk to. If you can prove it was their fault, I don’t see why they can’t just add your loans to the consolidation that you already have, even though they usually give a 180 day window to make changes…,but contact the Ombudsman first.

I have the exact same problem as the original poster (jtrippany), except I’ve been making payments for about 3 1/2 years. Did you ever end up finding a solution? Does anyone else have any suggestions?

I’m concerned that if I do end up having to consolidate the ineligible loans that the clock is ticking because I will need to get that done before the 2015 budget proposal potentially goes into effect, capping the forgiveness on those loans.

I also have been unable to find an answer to this question: If I consolidate the ineligible loans now, can I get forgiveness on my other loans in 6.5 years (after 10 years of payments), and then 3.5 years after that again apply for forgiveness on the remaining (about-to-be-consolidated) loans (after making 10 years of payments on them)? Or can I only get PSLF forgiveness once in a lifetime?