NASW Social Work Talks - EP83: Limited Public Service Loan Forgiveness Waiver

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

The limited Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) waiver, which is a short-term opportunity for borrowers to seek student loan forgiveness through Oct. 31, 2022. Our guest is Lindsay Clark, Director of External Affairs at Savi, a company that helps student loan borrowers discover and understand repayment and loan forgiveness options. Read the show notes to learn more.

This episode is brought to you by One Circle Foundation. I'm Kat McDonald, and this is NASW Social Work Talks. Public Service Loan Forgiveness, or PSLF, is a program of the Department of Education that was created to attract and retain skilled professionals to certain lower-paying public service jobs, including social work. Unfortunately, PSLF did not live up to its promise, but recently, the Department of Education gave the program a major overhaul. That's really good news for many social workers who took out student loans to earn their degrees. Today, I'm speaking with Lindsay Clark, Director of External Affairs at Savvy. Savvy helps student loan borrowers discover

and understand loan payment and loan forgiveness options. We're going to talk about the recent changes to PSLF and what action steps student loan borrowers can take today to take advantage of these changes. Welcome, Lindsay. Thank you, Kat. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. So let's dive in. Why was PSLF created? What was the purpose? Sure. So the Public Service Loan Forgiveness, or PSLF, program was created back in 2007. It began actually October 1st, 2007. And the intention of the program and the promise of the program was really to help serve public servants, those who had been working in a public service capacity, to be able to sort of pay off that student debt via forgiveness. And so really the promise was if you work for 10 or more years as a public servant, you are able to have the remainder of your loan balance forgiven tax free. So you walk away with no implications. And so that was the original intent and promise of that program. Right. And I think what I will talk about today is that there was a far different sort of result when the program really took effect.

And many, many people, in fact, most borrowers who, you know, were public servants and eligible were denied as a result. Yeah. So the program failed to live up to the promise, which was really, you know, a great idea. But can you talk about some of the experiences that folks had when they tried to apply for loan forgiveness? Sure. So, you know, as I mentioned, the program started October of 2007. And so 10 years later, 2017, was the first year that we saw borrowers, you know, becoming sort of at least, you know, based on time, potentially eligible to apply for forgiveness. And over 100,000 borrowers applied in 2017, and less than 1% were accepted. And the reasons being, you know, they were rejected because of many technicalities and requirements of the program that they were completely unaware of. and I can go into sort of, you know, into detail here if that would be helpful.

I'm not sure actually sort of side note here. Do you want me to, are you going to ask me sort of to describe what the program, like it, like the eligibility requirements, et cetera, because I can explain it now or I can kind of do it if it's, if there's another question that you want to ask about it. Maybe the, maybe the existing one, so that people don't get confused, maybe like totally whatever the new one is. But I think it's so heartbreaking because so many people based a lot of their sort of life decisions, their career decisions. They took certain jobs based on the assumption that they would get these loans forgiven. Absolutely. I mean, it was heartbreaking is the perfect word to describe it. Basically,

what happened was an entire generation of public servants with student debt who had, as you said, banked on being able to have that debt forgiven after 10 years of public service. And when they went to apply and were rejected, found out that because of these technicalities, things like their loan type or their repayment plan, that they were ineligible for the program. And in fact, in order to become eligible, would essentially have to start over back at sort of zero and work another 10 years in order to become eligible for forgiveness. So it was heartbreaking. It was also very uh demoralizing and frustrating for so many borrowers um because you know just the the idea of being told that you basically got to work another 10 years in public service um because

of something like i said so you know uh trivial seeming as uh you know the type of loan these technicalities really is the best way to describe it um and so you know from my perspective here at Savvy, we were founded in 2017. So as a result of what we saw happening with the public service loan forgiveness program, and I was the first employee here at Savvy, and part of my initial work was going around across the country with many of our partners, including NASW, and giving workshops to borrowers about the program in an attempt to help better inform people about these technicalities, you know, no matter how frustrating they were, at least, you know, helping make people aware that they needed to have their loans in a certain state and do certain things in order to

be eligible. And unfortunately, I was definitely the bearer of bad news for many, many people during that period of time. And really up until this past October, when we saw finally sort of the department come out with this big announcement and overhaul that sort of addressed those issues in an attempt to really live up to the promise of the program. Yeah, because 1% of people getting accepted, it's unacceptable, obviously. It's just not working. So can you talk about the changes that were put into place as of last year? Sure.

So to help sort of frame how impactful these changes are, it might be helpful to first just sort of start and lay out what the original requirements of the program were. And then I can sort of talk through what these changes look like. So with PSLF, you need to make 120 qualifying payments. And I say that in air quotes because the devil's really in the details here. But you need to make 120 qualifying payments in order to achieve full forgiveness on the remainder of your loan balance. Whatever that may be. It could be $5,000. It could be $500,000. It doesn't matter. And you're able to receive that forgiveness tax-free. So it's not considered taxable income. Like I said, you walk away scotch-free. However, what constitutes a qualifying payment is really

where these technicalities came into play. So under the original program, the qualifying payment you know, really came down to three things. First, you needed to be working for a qualifying employer. And a qualifying employer is any government organization at any level, federal, state, local, or tribal, or any non-for-profit 501c3. All right, so it's really based on your employer, not what capacity in which you are employed. So you could be administrative, you know, doesn't matter as long as your employer is, you know, qualifying by those standards. The only stipulation there was that you just needed to work a minimum of 30 hours or more a week. So you could actually combine part-time employment.

Let's say you were employed part-time at one qualifying institution and then employed part-time at another qualifying institution. So long as both employers were qualifying and you worked a minimum of 30 hours or more, you could combine part-time employment. So you don't need to simply be full-time employed at one institution in order to qualify. So that's sort of the employment sort of aspect of this. And that has relatively remained unchanged, even with these new overhauls to the program. So the employment is sort of first and foremost. The second is you need to have a qualifying loan type. And under the original program, the only qualifying loan type was a direct federal loan.

The problem was the direct federal loan program started in 2010, so most borrowers who have loans from 2010 to present likely have direct loans. However, if you had an older loan type, what's called FFEL loans, F-F-E-L loans, which stands for Federal Family Education Loans, this was the loan program in existence prior to 2010. If you had one of those loans, those loan types were ineligible, and so if you went to apply for PSLF in 2017, or, you know, afterwards, and had a fell loan, you were rejected and told you need to consolidate that loan into a direct loan to make it eligible. And then from

that point forward, you can start accumulating eligible credits towards that 120 qualifying payments. So that's what I mean by sort of starting over because of a loan type technicality. So again, direct loans sort of the only type that qualified. So you've got your employment, you've got your loan type, and then the third one is your repayment plan. You needed to be on a qualifying repayment plan. And the only types of repayment plans that qualified are what are called income-driven repayment plans, or IDR. And IDR is sort of the umbrella term. There are a couple different types of income-driven

repayment plans. It doesn't matter which type you were on, but you needed to be making your payment on that plan. If you applied for the program and weren't on an income-driven repayment plan, you would have been rejected, all right? So you need all three of those things, you know, your employment, your loan type, and your repayment plan. You need to satisfy them simultaneously, right, and make 120 payments in which you are satisfying all three. Now let's say, you know, you were employed at a qualifying employer and you had direct loans, but you weren't making a payment, that wouldn't count. PSLF is a payment-based forgiveness program, meaning it's not really based on how many years you've served or worked in public service, right? It really comes

down to that, but you've got to be making payments, all right? So you've had to admit a payment on that loan. And this 120 payments does not need to be consecutive, all right? It can be cumulative, right? However, you can't double up on payments in a month and let's say get two credits, right? you can only get a maximum of one credit per one month in a calendar year. So the maximum amount of credits you can get from a given calendar year, 12 months, is 12 credits. So 12 credits, that's one year. 120 you need, right? 10 years, right? That's why people can have that 10 years in their mind. 10 years would be the earliest that you could achieve forgiveness. So those were sort of the original rules of the program. And what we saw, again, was that the majority

of borrowers were rejected or denied because they had the wrong loan type. They didn't have direct loans. They weren't repaying those loans on an income-driven repayment plan. Maybe they were in forbearances or deferments for periods of time. Those don't count as well. You know, most of them definitely qualified as far as their employment goes, right? But it was sort of those other technicalities that they were simply unaware of. And unfortunately, you know, we're told 10 years into working for public service, right, that they were basically going to have to start over. So that's where we sort of, we can fast forward to 2021, October of 2021. And I would say, you know, it's credit to a lot of the advocacy organizations and unions out there who really

pushed hard around trying to have the Department of Education improve this program, sharing stories and testimonials of users and things like that to sort of prove just how many borrowers were impacted in a negative way, right, and unable to achieve forgiveness. And so in October of last year, the Department of Education came out with a sort of huge sweeping announcement around public service loan forgiveness. And they're sort of calling it this limited PSLF waiver. All right. So if you hear the phrase, the term PSLF waiver, okay, that's what this is referring to. And this waiver is not a physical thing. It's representative of a period of time, basically between when the announcement was made last

October and this coming October 31st, 2022, right, so about a year, during which borrowers have the opportunity to take advantage of what I would say are expanded eligibility requirements and have potentially passed payments retroactively made eligible. These payments could have been rejected or denied initially. Maybe they weren't even counted. But either way, borrowers basically have until October 31st of this year to take certain action and steps in order to essentially rectify this situation when it comes to these technicalities and obtain their maximum benefit and amount of credits towards that 120 and eventually full forgiveness. Now, I'll sort of go into a little bit more detail, I guess, on sort of what those exactly

entail. But that's huge. I mean, it's huge. Yeah, it's huge. So basically, what it really came down to was, again, you still need to be working for a qualifying employer, right? That That hasn't really changed. However, now if you had, let's say, those fell loans, right, and you were making payments on those loans, those are now able to count and become eligible qualifying payment credits. Even if you still need to consolidate that loan into a direct loan, but now you're no longer starting back at zero, you're able to have all of those past payments counted. So that's huge. I mean, that was a big sort of part of the population of eligible borrowers who were facing sort of that technicality. And then the second is around

repayment plan. It basically doesn't matter what repayment plan you were on during this period. So when the program went into effect from October 2007 to present day, if you made a payment on your student loan while working for a qualifying employer, that is now eligible to count regardless of what repayment plan you were on. And in fact, if you made that payment slightly late, or maybe it wasn't for the full on-time amount, they are able to count those as well. So they're being very lenient as far as what can count as a qualifying payment. So what that resulted in was now you had borrowers who had either previously been rejected or thought that they were ineligible because they had a certain loan type or what have you, who based on this

change now had a huge portion or chunk of payments eligible to count towards that 120. And what we saw was sort of in this first wave after the announcement was made, thousands of borrowers, I would say about 20,000 or so, that received automatic full forgiveness of their loan balance. And this was possible because the Department of Ed and Fed Loan Servicing specifically, that's the servicer that manages the PSLF program, had already a record of those borrowers in their system and were able to basically apply those past payments automatically. And so this was life-changing, right? And borrowers who thought that they were either, you know, completely out

of luck or were, you know, starting over and thinking, I've got eight years more of this, were basically told, you know, congrats, you're going to be wiping out your debt and that's going to happen automatically. And then there were, yeah, I mean, it really like very, very life-changing for many borrowers. And then there were sort of second and third waves of this in which borrowers who would basically just need to certify a bit more of their employment, right? We, you know, just need to ensure that, you know, one form is submitted. And when they did that, they were going to be eligible to receive full forgiveness. So, you know, the addition of these, you know, retroactive credits put them pretty much at or very near that 120. And so with sort of one more

step taken, they were going to be able to get full forgiveness. And so I would say it's probably at this point close to 100,000 borrowers or more that since this waiver have now received forgiveness. And to just sort of put this in perspective, before October of last year, only about 16,000 people total had received forgiveness under the program. So, yeah, exactly. So now, I mean, since this, you know, this change has gone into effect, I mean, it's just been, it's been tremendous. However, I think the most important thing to really, you know, to note here is that, you know, the people that have been able to receive forgiveness thus far are really those who had taken some type of action around the program before, right? Whether they were rejected

when they originally applied and then perhaps took, you know, changed their loan status and then reapplied, but they have been tracking it and are aware of this and we're receiving communication directly from FedLoan. The documentation was already in the system. Exactly. However, the majority of potentially eligible borrowers who could be benefiting from this change are still out there. And the Department of Ed or FedLoan doesn't have any direct communication of them because they're simply just not aware of their status in the system. And that is the majority of the pool of eligible nonprofit, government, et cetera, public servants. And so from my perspective, and this is exactly why I'm coming here to talk to

you today, the awareness factor is huge because you have people out there who are sitting on potentially full forgiveness of their loans right now, but either are completely unaware of the waiver or, you know, are under the belief that they are still, you know, ineligible because maybe they applied before and were rejected or denied. We recently did a big survey with Student Debt Crisis Center, about 40,000 or so borrowers. And we found that over 25% of people, right, still had not heard about the PSLF waiver. I mean, that's significant. That means, you know, people are unaware of how this could potentially be benefiting them. And from, you know, my perspective, you know, where we sit over here at Savvy and helping borrowers, you know, not only

understand, but then apply it and, you know, take the steps to cross that finish line. You know, this is something where borrowers need to take a certain action. And it's very clear and simple what that needs to be. And I can talk about that, you know, here as well, before October 31st, in order to make sure they can, you know, access this benefit, right? After October 31st, you know, it's pretty clear, they've made it pretty clear that the requirements will revert back to the original. And yeah, I mean, there's, it's, I know, wait, what? Yes. They basically have made it clear that they only have until October 31st, to be able to take advantage of this sort of, you know, this extended and relaxed eligibility. So it's very important

for everyone who I think has ever worked in a public service capacity and who has made payments on their loans, you know, regardless of whether you've applied before and been rejected or, you know, what you might think your eligibility is or what you've been told by your servicer. I mean, this is half the battle. People have just been told inaccurate information and there's been so much misinformation about this program from the start that I would say to anyone out there, do not sort of self-select here. There's, there are steps that you can take to just basically make sure that, you know, you are, your, your status is being re-reviewed or, you know, you're going through that review process. And then you'll have sort of a final determination, you know,

of what you are eligible for, how far you are into the, into the process. But yeah, without a doubt, but it's when in doubt, I should say, submit this form. And that form is the employment certification form. This is the one and only form for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. It's the same form that you submit when you are trying to sort of initiate tracking your progress with FedLoan. It's the same form that you submit when you've reached 120 payments. And it's the same form that the Department of Ed recommends borrowers submit sort of every 12 months or on recurring basis that way they are certifying you know sort of 12 credits after 12 credits right inching their way closer to 120 that way we sort of avoid the problem that we had in 2017 where

borrowers basically the first time they were submitting anything was when they went to apply right after 10 years and that's when they were told there's an issue right so if you're trying to sort of certify as you go along that's a better way of making sure that you know we catch any any problems that might happen um but that form basically if you've never submitted it before or maybe you've submitted it and it was rejected that form needs to be submitted to fed loan servicing and that will initiate sort of this review process of your status and it it gets signed off by you the borrower and then it needs to get signed off by your employer and if you've had you know multiple employers over you know the period of eligibility from you know october 2007

to present you would need to get each of those employers to sign off and certify the period of time during which you were employed uh and then like i said it gets submitted to fedlum and they sort of match up that that employment certification with your payment history right and say okay here's how many qualifying payments this person has made and that is the only way to be able to sort of you know take advantage of of this um so yeah so that that's sort of a very clear step for any borrower who, I would say, is remotely, maybe you're curious, maybe you think you qualify, you're not sure, when in doubt, submit that application. One Circle Foundation makes it easy for service providers to facilitate evidence-based, gender-responsive support

groups for youth, teens, and adults. Choose from curricula themes such as healthy relationships, intersectionality and allyship, mother-daughter bonds, pride for LGBTQ plus youth, and more. Attend a OneCircle Foundation facilitator training and receive continuing education credits from NASW. Social Work Talks podcast listeners get 15% off your curricula order by visiting OneCircleFoundation.org slash Social Work Talks. It sounds a little crazy. I'm not sure I understand why on October 31st, 2020, we're going to like go back to something that didn't seem to be working. Yeah, I think, you know, so the PSLF waiver and the sort of announcement was part of,

and if you read the sort of press statements and the releases about this, was sort of a a first big step in what, you know, they hope to be general improvements and progress, right, with the program on a variety of different fronts and trying to make it more accessible and easier for borrowers to actually achieve success. And so I think it's less so trying to revert back to the old requirements and more so that they are trying to create a deadline by which borrowers are able to uh potentially retroactively have uh you know past payments that were you know ineligible deemed eligible um and so you know it's it's um it's unclear what the program will look like you know two three years from now right if these sort of improvements um that they they plan on you know

trying to uh implement go through and and there's a lot of different you know um there's a lot of different aspects of that. For example, there's, you know, attempts to help with the employer side of things, right, to make it easier for employers to actually help initiate this for their employees, you know, big nonprofits, etc. So there's a lot of sort of different areas in which they could go about this. But I would say, you know, thinking of it less as a reverting back to the old and more so that they are trying to create a period of time during which they are able to really make sure everything, you know, is rectified. Anyone who, you know, could have received credits and should have, you know, is able to, but then going forward, you know, want to be setting clear

expectations around, you know, eligibility and making sure, because otherwise then it would sort of be, it would sort of be open and somewhat of a free for all. But again, I would say, you know, the promise of the program is 10 years in public service and you have your loans forgiven. And so at the end of the day, these technicalities still stand in the way of that. So we'll see what happens. And, you know, they're trying to, like I said, I think the administration in the White House right now and the Department of Education is full of people who are really passionate about this issue and wanting to help borrowers. And so that to me is, it makes me hopeful for what the future will look like under this program. Yeah, this is really good news for any social

workers out there who have taken out student loans to get their degrees it's really you know yeah yeah it could be really good news for some folks yeah you know and i think um it's uh at least the department of education and you know sort of the regulatory and administrative powers that be are you know very much aware of the issues with the program right and i think they're what i've seen at least from from our end in the capacity that we work with these institutions is a real willingness and openness to continue to, you know, want to hear any feedback and stories, right? Escalating those, any issues that we're seeing, you know, and making sure that they do whatever they can to try to address and fix those. But I think that there's, you know, likely to come

a policy, you know, decision around forgiveness that, you know, might impact how this program, persists going forward, something passed through Congress, right? Because right now, a lot of these changes are simply being done through regulation, meaning the Department of Education can do that and decide that without needing congressional approval or anything like that. So there might be something more permanent in the works that we see later on, but absolutely. I mean, I think I was just talking to my brother yesterday who has about $450,000 in medical school debt right now, um and he has me beat i've only got 200 000 from my undergrad and graduate so we're a high debt family you could say and uh yeah and and debt student debt definitely runs in families that's

the thing i've noticed is if you have student debt you know there's a good chance that you know someone or are related to someone who has student debt um and um but anyway he you know for for him right he's about to enter his residency right graduate from medical school But I've assured him and told him, listen, don't worry about how big that balance gets. You know, the goal will be to set you up for public service loan forgiveness. And so with that in mind, we want to try to minimize your monthly payment to maximize that forgiveness, right? So, you know, you're not trying to pay it off quickly or, you know, you're not trying

to make large payments and dents. That would be wasting that money, right? You're trying to just make sure that you are on track to qualify, doing what you need to do, being in the right repayment plan, right, and everything, you know, crossing those, tease and dotting those I's, and then setting yourself up for success. So to the point of, you know, pursuing that degree, you know, I think that that is absolutely the mentality here, right? You know, and making sure then that you are set up for success on forgiveness is, it's a whole sort of, it's a game changer, just mentally and psychologically, when you,

you know, are thinking about your future, right? And having a very clear idea of, you know, even if you do have a lot of debt, right, that there's a plan in place to ultimately, you know, have that forgiven is, I think, the first step towards sort of freedom from student loan debt, right? It's sort of like in the couple of square inches above your, you know, in your head, right, where you can, you know, make yourself, make the process and the struggle of student debt a lot easier just by, you know, being able to see that light ahead of the tunnel. Right. So Savvy is partnering with NASW to help folks who have student loan qualify for repayments, loan forgiveness. So can you talk about some of the benefits that our members can get through Savvy? Sure. Yeah, we are. I mean, it's been such a pleasure to partner with NASW. It was actually one of our first partners ever back in late 2017, early 2018, when we had just been founded.

But we basically created a technology platform and a service that was designed to help with these specific pain points of applying for and achieving public service loan forgiveness. We were founded by policy experts and advocates who had been fighting on behalf of borrowers for almost a decade. And in 2017, when they saw what was happening with the PSLF program, decided to do something about it. And so that's how Savvy was born. And this sort of technology mixed with sort of the human expertise and insights that we have and have gained around the program is what sort of, you know, we're able to provide to borrowers throughout this process. And so this platform basically helps you to not only identify, you know, what the optimal repayment and forgiveness plan would be, because there's more forgiveness plans out there than just

PSLF. There's things like teacher loan forgiveness, there are state-based forgiveness programs. And so there are about 150 plus forgiveness programs that we have sort of built into our tool. But you can kind of think of it like a turbo tax for your student loans where you'll go through. We're going to be asking you some questions around your tax filing status, you know, your income, your employment, you know, most importantly. And from that information, we're able to to basically show you what you're eligible for and what your options are. And that's, again, around repayment as well as forgiveness. And then from there, we actually, you know, offer you the opportunity to have us take on all of the administrative burden around these programs. And so for public service loan forgiveness, you know, that is basically taking on the employment certification forms and application paperwork.

We manage that all for you sort of, you know, front to end. and so we digitize those forms we pre-fill them and then we collect you know information about your your employment you know current and previous and then we send those off to the various HRs that need to sign off then they come back to us and we submit them to FedLint on your behalf and so we manage that entire process because I will tell you one of the biggest pain points for borrowers around this in this program that it still persists even after this waiver has been announced is, you know, actually doing the steps and taking the steps that are needed to be able to be eligible and submit this paperwork. It sounds, you know, trivial and it sounds like it wouldn't

be a big deal, but when you've got to track down an HR signature on a form, right? From 10 different employers, from 10 different years. Yeah. Maybe they don't exist anymore. You know, you can't get someone to answer you. um i we've had borrowers who've driven you know five plus hours to try to you know deliver this in person and get it signed off in person um so and they will reject your application uh if it is digitally signed like a type signature um so anyway we uh we basically manage that entire process for the borrower they don't leave their home um we make it really easy uh through sort of a docusign integration for both the borrower and the hr employer to sign off and it reduces any

human error in that process. Because another example here is, you know, if the HR contact doesn't use the correct format for the dates, let's say they, you know, just instead of writing May as, you know, 05, they write 5, that will be rejected. I mean, for the slightest clerical error here. And that's why many people think, you know, that the program is almost set up for people to fail because they make it so hard for you to succeed, right? But we sort of, all of that, you know, is avoided. And then when we submit those applications, we then monitor them and track the progress with you as the borrower to make sure that you are actually achieving success and crossing that finish line. Because I would say submitting the application is just sort of

the first part of what is a longer and bigger and harder sort of hurdle to overcome, which is this period between when you've submitted it and actually crossing the finish line and being successful. It's been called application abyss, where for one reason or another, borrowers are never able to really see that finish line because either it's rejected for a technicality and they're not sure why, you know, they never end up resubmitting it, or it is reviewed incorrectly. So this was a huge issue with the program and why FedLoan has actually been sued multiple times was mismanagement. Borrowers having their sort of payment credits, those qualifying credits, not counted correctly. I would say about half of everybody, you know, all borrowers that I've

worked with personally have had issues with FedLoan basically coming back and saying, you've got 50 credits when they thought they were going to have over 100. And then it becomes an issue of, well, how do I correct this? I have proof I made those payments, right? That whole process, which takes months, upwards of years. And so really making sure that these applications are processed in a timely and accurate manner is our priority. And so that's where we help and almost become your advocate during that process to be able to make sure that it's happening as it should. And if it's not, that we are able to sort of escalate your case through federal channels like the ombudsman or the CFPB that have been very sort of helpful actors in this space in

you know, holding the necessary entities accountable. And, you know, I've escalated many, many cases with the ombudsman, even to this day. And that's been responsible for getting them the forgiveness they deserve. So, so yeah, so that's sort of a, you know, from start to finish, you are not alone with savvy in this process. And we are there to, you know, like I said, make not only the administrative burdens, you know, easier and take on those for you, but to actually then ensure that you cross that finish line. And, you know, for something like student debt, I mean, at least my perspective has been out of sight, out of mind. You know, I procrastinate about it. I don't want to think about it, right?

Because that $200,000 is not going anywhere anytime soon. And I think most borrowers are probably, you know, very similar in that it's not something we are actively trying to think about every day. But, you know, with a program like this and with applications like this, right, it's very easy to submit it and then forget about it, right? Or if it takes months to process, or it gets rejected and think, well, I guess I'm not eligible and then never follow up. Not that, you know, the owner should be on the borrower, but that's where we come in and it's our full-time job to make sure that we're monitoring it for you so that you can focus on your full-time job, you know, as a social worker and doing the great work that, you know, all the social workers do

and leaving that to us. Right. So if something were to happen, the savvy would sort of ping me with, oh, you know, this signature is missing or, you know, what kind of communication would I be getting throughout the process? Yeah. So we basically have a, when you have your savvy account, there's a dashboard that basically tracks, you know, where you are step-by-step in this process so that there's full transparency and visibility between, you know, the borrower and us. Because Savvy is not a servicer, meaning we don't, we're not managing your payments and your loans. So you're not never making a payment, you know, to Savvy or through Savvy. You can kind of think of us more like a

facilitator or an advocate on your behalf. And so we sort of are right in the middle between the borrower and the servicer. And we'll do things like submit applications on the borrower's behalf and things like that. But ultimately, then the servicer is reviewing and then communicating back to the borrower. So really, it's about, you know, setting up a process with the borrower where they're able to let us know, you know, and forward any communication they get from their servicer, we review and confirm and make sure everything, you know, appears to be correct. And so that's how we really, you know, are able to help people through what is if there's no sort of clear beginning, middle and end here, right? It's a series of touch points over, you know, days,

months, years that we are working with these borrowers. And yes, absolutely. Whether it's via email or borrowers can schedule one-on-one sort of consultations and sessions with our student loan experts to talk through what's going on. We work very closely and actively with borrowers throughout that whole process. Right. Such a complicated system. And so, yeah, you should not need to be a student loan expert to be able to navigate this. Right. And unfortunately, it is. And what I think we've seen and is interesting to me is even if you are an expert, you are still and could still be impacted or negatively impacted, I should say, by, you know, sort of the system. Right. Like FedLoan doesn't review your paperwork properly and, you know, tells you you're either ineligible or and if you don't know any better, right, you think, oh, well, they must be right. And what happened early on with the PSLF program was this just widespread sort of mismanagement, misinformation on behalf of all of the servicers. So I mentioned FedLoan is the sole servicer that manages PSLF.

And just as a heads up to your audience, last year, Fed Loan Servicing announced that they are not renewing their federal contract. They are basically saying we're getting out of the student loan servicing game. I wonder why. Right. So but for those of us who work with public service loan forgiveness, that was a huge. Well, what's going to happen to the program as you know, is it going to be managed by another servicer? You know, just one, maybe all of them was sort of up in the air. And it's been decided since that Mojila is going to be the servicer that will manage public service loan forgiveness after FedLoan. However, you still have this waiver period right until October 31st of this year, where basically borrowers, they've seen a huge surge in volume at FedLoan, right, of borrowers trying to submit these applications, you know, thinking that they could benefit. And so they've extended FedLoan's contract, I believe, through the end of this year, if not a little bit longer, so that FedLoan can have time to process all of this.

But it's confusing to borrowers because they've heard in the news that FedLoan is leaving and no longer going to be a servicer, right? And so they think, well, should I be submitting this to FedLoan? You know, that doesn't make sense because they're leaving. But the answer is yes, you should still be submitting all of that to FedLoan. But again, I mean, the wait times, whether you're trying to call and find out, I waited on the phone two hours the other night with the borrower on hold with FedLoan. And the processing times are far longer than they were, I would say, before the waiver even went into effect. We're talking three months or more to process these employment certification forms. And during that period of time, I know borrowers are left sort of wondering, you know, is this okay? Well, I'm hoping, you know, I'm hoping I'm eligible, you know, and wondering sort of what if. And at this point in time, after, you know, several years of experiencing, you know, the program failing them, right? Many borrowers do not trust until they really see that $0 balance on their account, right? That this is real.

And that's totally understandable. Yeah. I mean, it's self-preservation. It's healthy, I think. But yeah, it's made it so that it is a very anxiety-ridden time for many borrowers. I mean, I was working with one the other day who said, I check my FedLoan account every morning to see if it's been updated because we're waiting to hear back. She should be eligible for immediate full forgiveness and hasn't heard back from her form. So it's definitely, you know, anxiety inducing. And I think that's where at Savvy, at least, you know, we see our role as being able to just make that experience of being a borrower pursuing this program a lot better, you know, and help address those pain points throughout, you know, throughout the process. All right. So tell us how people can get in touch with Savvy. How can people find out more about the service that you provide? Yeah, so I believe they can access the Savvy service through their NASW member portal. There's a Savvy page. They'll be able to, after they log into their NASW account, they're able to access the Savvy tool and resources. And what's great about doing that through your NASW membership and portal is that for

NASW members, there is a sort of a very discounted price on what are our essential or premium services. And so you can create your Savvy account and do most of it for free. But when it comes to sort of upgrading and taking advantage of some of the premium offerings we have, and that's really where we're taking on, you know, all of that application work for you, you know, one-on-one support, et cetera. The NASW membership allows you to access that at probably the most heavily discounted rate we can offer on a yearly basis. And like I said, it's totally up to borrowers how they'd want to enlist our help, but that's all accessible through their NASW portal, I believe. Great. Yes. I'll put a link to it in the show notes. I'll put a link to Savvy and I'll put a

to all the information about the changes to PSLF program, so that folks can, you know, be informed and decide how they want to proceed. Hopefully, this will help a lot of folks. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, you know, we work with many NASW members and social workers already and have over the years, and, you know, have seen the power of what this forgiveness can do. And I would say, you know, the biggest thing to keep in mind around this waiver and the changes in the program is, you know, again, trying not to self-select because you might've been told wrong information initially, you know, whether you were rejected or not, wherever you might be coming to the program from, right? The, you know, most important thing and best thing you can do

for yourself is to take the steps to sort of have your status, you know, re-reviewed and hopefully, you know, then any of the credits that you should have been, you know, awarded are, you know, certified to your account. But that can only happen, you know, by submitting that form and doing so before October 31st of this year. Great. Thank you so much, Lindsay. I really appreciate you sharing this information that could be life-changing for some of our members and some of our listeners. So thanks so much for this. No problem. Thank you for having me. Until next time. NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association of Social Workers.

We encourage you to visit NASW's website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies. You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. Don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. thanks again for joining us we look forward to seeing you next episode this podcast was produced by HeartCast Media