Student-loan borrowers in public service are facing setbacks with debt relief

Student-loan borrowers are waiting for their final payments toward the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program to be processed.

Douglas Rissing/Getty Images Student-loan borrowers pursuing PSLF said they've waited months for their payment counts to be updated.

It pushes off relief for borrowers who said they've made their final payments.

Ongoing repayment challenges have prompted a push for increased congressional oversight.

Student-loan borrowers are facing delays in a major forgiveness program .

Borrowers pursuing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program have reported delays in seeing payments made over the past few months count toward their progress.

PSLF forgives student debt for government and nonprofit workers after 10 years of qualifying payments, Affected borrowers said they made their 120th payment and are waiting for their relief to be processed.

A notice one borrower received from Federal Student Aid, reviewed by Business Insider, said that payment counts on the dashboard "have been temporarily paused due to data issues causing count fluctuations." "Payment counts are currently static, and updates or correspondence related to these counts will resume once the issues are resolved," the notice said.

An Education Department spokesperson did not respond to questions about the accuracy of the notice.

The spokesperson previously said that the department "remains committed to ensuring that every qualifying payment is properly credited to a borrower's account." Borrowers can request a forbearance if they do not want to continue making payments, though interest will still accrue.

In addition to delayed payment counts, there's a continued backlog of applications for the PSLF Buyback program.

This allows borrowers to "buy back" any months spent in deferement or forbearance, if those months would put them at the relief threshold.

According to the Education Department's latest status report, there were 88,000 pending Buyback applications as of April 30, 2026.

The department wrote in the report that some borrowers have submitted multiple Buyback requests, "which inflates the number of pending requests." Beyond PSLF, many borrowers have struggled to navigate President Donald Trump's repayment overhaul , which took effect July 1.