Can anyone confirm what I heard from the Department of Education? My student loans date back to the early 1990s. I paid off some undergraduate loans but not all before consolidating in 2003 with a graduate school loan. The representative said payments made before 2003 don’t count toward my payment total because they were included in the consolidation. Then in 2015, I went back to grad school and took out a small loan. She says, since I took out another loan in 2015, I qualify for New IBR forgiveness (20 years) instead of Old IBR (25 years). Does this sound correct?
Student Loan Forgiveness Old Vs New after over 36+ yrs of payments
byu/gs-ks inStudentLoans
Posted by gs-ks
3 Comments
No. If you had an existing loan as of 7/1/2014 then you are not eligible for new IBR. See 34 CFR 685.209 definition of a new borrower:
>For the purposes of the IBR plan, an individual who has no outstanding balance on a Direct Loan or FFEL Program loan on July 1, 2014, or who has no outstanding balance on such a loan on the date the borrower obtains a loan after July 1, 2014.
If your 2003 consolidation was an FFELP loan, then it is correct that the pre-consolidation payments will not count since it very likely did not get the one-time adjustment. It it happens to be a Direct Consolidation, then the pre-consolidation payments will count.
You can always press the issue with congressional casework/legal action and see if they can push an equity argument. You’re disadvantaged at every turn by this formula. A ‘reasonable person’ might conclude that you did your time.
Thanks for this. After 29+ years, I can finally hope that they’ve put me back into Old IBR like I should’ve been all along and that I can now resume making PSLF progress.