Does the COVID Student Loan Pause Count Towards PSLF?
Clarify how the COVID-19 student loan payment pause affects your Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) eligibility and tracking.
Clarify how the COVID-19 student loan payment pause affects your Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) eligibility and tracking.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program offers a path to loan forgiveness for individuals employed in public service. This article clarifies whether the COVID-19 student loan payment pause counts towards the required 120 qualifying payments for loan forgiveness.
The months during the COVID-19 student loan payment pause generally count towards Public Service Loan Forgiveness. This benefit was implemented as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which suspended payments and set interest rates to 0% for eligible federal student loans. This period of administrative forbearance was treated as if borrowers made qualifying payments of $0. The payment pause was in effect from March 13, 2020, through August 31, 2023. Throughout this time, eligible borrowers automatically received credit for these months towards PSLF, provided they met other program requirements.
For the COVID-19 pause months to count towards PSLF, specific conditions had to be met concerning loan types and employment.
Only Direct Loans qualify for PSLF. If a borrower had Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program loans or Perkins Loans, they generally needed to consolidate them into a Direct Consolidation Loan. For the paused months to count, this consolidation typically needed to occur before the payment pause ended or under specific waiver rules.
Borrowers also needed to be employed full-time by a qualifying employer during the pause. A qualifying employer includes U.S. federal, state, local, or tribal government organizations, including the U.S. military, and not-for-profit organizations that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3). Full-time employment for PSLF purposes means working an average of 30 hours or more per week for one or more qualifying employers.
To ensure your PSLF progress is accurately tracked, submitting the PSLF Employment Certification Form (ECF) is important. This form certifies periods of qualifying employment and updates your payment count. While not mandatory annually, regular submission, such as yearly or when changing employers, helps keep your progress current and prevent discrepancies. Borrowers can monitor their official PSLF payment count by logging into their StudentAid.gov account, where the platform provides a PSLF payment tracker showing qualifying payments made and those remaining. If the payment count appears inaccurate, borrowers can contact their loan servicer to request a manual payment review or submit a PSLF Reconsideration Request through StudentAid.gov.