Hi Heather,

Thank you for existing, I’ve seen several of your trainings and you really are a godsend to those of us in terrible student loan situations.

My husband and I are interested in switching from married filing separately to married filing jointly. We’ve determined this is most advantageous for us; we understand how payments under IBR will be calculated; we did all our research. But there is one really important issue that we’ve been totally unable to find the answer to and it’s keeping us from being confident in this decision:

In 5-1/2 years, when I’ve completed my 120 payments of PSLF (assuming it still exists, of course), how will the government determine how much will be forgiven?

Only my loans are eligible for PSLF; my husband is in the private sector. We want to make sure we don’t screw everything up for PSLF by filing jointly. Is the answer to this question known at this time?

Thank you!!

Each loan has its own clock, so to speak. Only those loans which have reached 120 payments will qualify. So, let’s say you had 2 loans that qualified for PSLF, and then you had 3 loans that did not qualify because they were not direct loans. After 5 years of making payments on all your loans, you suddenly realize the loans that did not qualify for PSLF could be consolidated into a direct loan in order for them to qualify. After proceeding to consolidate, you now have a consolidated loan with 0 payments, and 2 direct loans with around 60 payments. After another 5 years, your 2 direct loans will be eligible for forgiveness, and then in another 5 years your consolidated loan will be eligible. 

The one thing I’m not 100% certain is how many times you can claim forgiveness. I have not seen anything that says you cannot have loans forgiven more than once, but being the skeptic that I am, I’m always uncertain of these things. It’s my understanding that you can apply for each loan as it passes the 120 payment threshold. I’d feel better if it were laid out somewhere.