Key facts
- Over 1.2 million borrowers have received $90.6 billion in student loan forgiveness through the PSLF program.
- The Education Department's Federal Student Aid office saw its staff nearly halved between January and December 2025.
- Staffing shortages led to the cessation of assessing call accuracy between borrowers and servicers in February 2025.
- The American Federation of Teachers is considering legal options to ensure borrowers receive proper credit for forgiveness.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, designed to forgive federal student loans for public service workers after 10 years of payments, is facing significant hurdles. Data inaccuracies and a drastic reduction in staff at the Education Department's Federal Student Aid (FSA) office have complicated the path to forgiveness for millions of borrowers.
According to Education Department data, over 2 million borrowers had applied for PSLF as of April, with more than 1.2 million receiving approximately $90.6 billion in forgiveness as of January. An analysis by the Brookings Institute indicated average relief of nearly $75,000 per borrower. However, these efforts are occurring amidst a broader initiative by the Trump administration to address what it considers flawed data. This comes after substantial cuts to the FSA office, including teams responsible for vetting student loan servicers and their data.
A Government Accountability Office report highlighted that the FSA office stopped assessing the accuracy and quality of calls between borrowers and servicers in February 2025 due to insufficient staff capacity. While the department disagreed with the GAO's recommendation, citing other performance assessment methods, former FSA officials have detailed in court documents that staff crucial for ensuring accurate data reporting and borrower credit toward forgiveness were laid off during a government-wide workforce reduction. Staffing at FSA reportedly dropped from 1,433 to 777 between January and December 2025.
These challenges have drawn the attention of the American Federation of Teachers, a major union representing educators, who are among the highest recipients of the program. Randi Weingarten, president of the union, stated that losing credit toward forgiveness is more than a technical issue, forcing borrowers to defer dreams and pay more. She emphasized the Department of Education's responsibility to prevent public service workers from bearing the cost of mistakes and indicated the union would explore all legal options, including litigation, to ensure members are made whole.