Announcer:
This episode is brought to you by One Circle Foundation.
Cat McDonald:
I'm Cat 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 Savi. Savi 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.
Lindsay Clark:
Thank you, Cat. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
Cat McDonald:
So let's dive in. Why was PSLF created? What was the purpose?
Lindsay Clark:
Sure. So the Public Service Loan Forgiveness or PSLF program created back in 2007. It began actually October 1, 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 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. And I think what I'll talk about today is there was a far different result when the program really took effect. And many, many people, in fact, most borrowers who were public servants and eligible were denied as a result.
Cat McDonald:
Yeah. So the program failed to live up to the promise, which was really a great idea. But can you talk about some of the experiences that folks had when they tried to apply for loan forgiveness?
Lindsay Clark:
Sure. So, as I mentioned, the program started October 2007. And so 10 years later, 2017, was the first year that we saw borrowers becoming at least based on time, potentially eligible to apply for forgiveness. And over 100,000 borrowers applied in 2017 and less than 1 percent were accepted. And the reasons being they were rejected because of many technicalities and requirements of the program that they were completely unaware of. And I can go into detail here, if that would be helpful. I'm not sure, actually side note here, do you want me to or are you going to ask me to describe what the program, like the eligibility requirements, etc, because I can explain it now or I can do it if there's another question that you want to ask about it.
Cat McDonald:
Maybe the existing one so that people don't get confused, maybe whatever the new one is. But I think it's so heartbreaking because so many people based a lot of their life decisions, their career decisions, they took certain jobs based on the assumption that they would get these loans forgiven.
Lindsay Clark:
Absolutely. 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 zero and work another 10 years in order to become eligible for forgiveness.
Lindsay Clark:
So it was heartbreaking. It was also very demoralizing and frustrating for so many borrowers because just the idea of being told that you basically got to work another 10 years in public service because of something, like I said, so trivial seeming as the type of loan, these technicalities really is the best way to describe it. And so, from my perspective, here at Savi, 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 Savi and part of my initial work was going 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 no matter how frustrating they were, at least helping make people aware that they needed to have their loans in a certain state and do certain things in order to be eligible.
Lindsay Clark:
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 the department come out with this big announcement and overhaul that addressed those issues in an attempt to really live up to the promise of the program.
Cat McDonald:
Yeah, because 1 percent 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?
Lindsay Clark:
Sure. So to help frame how impactful these changes are, it might be helpful to first just start and lay out what the original requirements of the program were. And then I can 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, could be $5,000, 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 scot free.
Lindsay Clark:
However, what constitutes a qualifying payment is really where these technicalities came into play. So under the original program, the qualifying payment 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 501(c)(3). All right. So it's really based on your employer, not what capacity in which you are employed. So you could be administrative, it doesn't matter as long as your employer is qualifying by those standards.
Lindsay Clark:
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 the employment aspect of this. And that has relatively remained unchanged, even with these new overhauls to the program. So the employment is first and foremost.
Lindsay Clark:
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 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 afterwards and had a FFEL 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 starting over because of a loan type technicality.
Lindsay Clark:
So, again, direct loans are 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 the umbrella term. There are a couple different types of income driven repayment plans. 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've been rejected. All right. So you need all three of those things, your employment, your loan type and your repayment plan. You need to satisfy them simultaneously and make 120 payments in which you are satisfying all three.
Lindsay Clark:
Now, let's say, 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, it really comes down to that, but you've got to be making payments. All right. So you've had to have made a payment on that loan. And there's 120 payments. Does not need to be consecutive. All right. It can be cumulative. However, you can't double up on payments in a month and let's say, get two credits. You can only get a maximum of one credit per one month in a calendar year.
Lindsay Clark:
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 10 years. 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 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.
Lindsay Clark:
Most of them definitely qualified as far as their employment goes, but it was those other technicalities that they were simply unaware of. And unfortunately, were told 10 years into working for public service that they were basically going to have to start over. So that's where we can fast forward to October 2021. And I would say, 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 prove just how many borrowers were impacted in a negative way and unable to achieve forgiveness.
Lindsay Clark:
And so, in October of last year, the Department of Education came out with a huge sweeping announcement around Public Service Loan Forgiveness. And they're calling it this limited PSLF waiver. So if you hear the phrase, the term PSL waiver, 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 31, 2022, 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 past payments retroactively made eligible. All right.
Lindsay Clark:
These payments could have been rejected or denied initially, maybe they weren't even counted, but either way borrowers basically have until October 31 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 go into a little bit more detail, I guess, on what those exactly entail.
Cat McDonald:
But that's huge. It's huge.
Lindsay Clark:
Yeah, it's huge. So basically, what it really came down to was, again, you still need to be working for a qualifying employer. That hasn't really changed. However, now, if you had, let's say those FFEL loans and you are 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. That was a big part of the population of eligible borrowers who were facing that technicality.
Lindsay Clark:
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're 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 huge portion or chunk of payments eligible to count towards that 120.
Lindsay Clark:
And what we saw was in this first wave after the announcement was made, thousands of borrowers, I would say about 20,000 or so, they received automatic full forgiveness of their loan balance. And this was possible because the Department of Ed and FedLoan 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. Borrowers who thought that they were either completely out of luck or were starting over and think I've got eight years more of this, we're basically told, congrats, you're going to be wiping out your debt and that's going to happen automatically. And it really was very, very life changing for many borrowers.
Lindsay Clark:
And then there were second and third waves of this in which borrowers who would basically just need to certify a bit more of their employment. We just need to ensure that one form is submitted. And when they did that, they were going to be eligible to receive full forgiveness. So the addition of these retroactive credits put them pretty much at or very near that 120. And so with 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 put this in perspective, before October of last year, only about 16,000 people total had received forgiveness under the program. So-
Cat McDonald:
That's cuckoo.
Lindsay Clark:
Yeah. Exactly. So now, since this change has gone into effect, it's been tremendous. However, I think the most important thing to note here is that 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, whether they were rejected when they originally applied and then perhaps changed their loan status and then reapplied, but they have been tracking it and are aware of this and were receiving communication directly from-
Cat McDonald:
Right. Their documentation was already in the system.
Lindsay Clark:
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, etc, public servants. And so from my perspective, and this is exactly why 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 are under the belief that they are still ineligible because maybe they applied before and were rejected or denied.
Lindsay Clark:
We recently did a big survey with Student Debt Crisis Center of about 40,000 or so borrowers. And we found that over 25 percent of people, still had not heard about the PSLF waiver. That's significant. That means people are unaware of how this could potentially be benefiting them. And from my perspective, where we sit over here at Savi and helping borrowers, not only understand, but then apply and take the steps to cross that finish line, 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 here as well before October 31 in order to make sure they can access this benefit right. After October 31, they made it pretty clear that the requirements will revert back to the original. And yeah, it's-
Cat McDonald:
They were [crosstalk 00:19:27].
Lindsay Clark:
Yeah, I know. Yes. They basically have made it clear that they only have until October 31 to be able to take advantage of 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, regardless of whether you've applied before and been rejected or what you might think your eligibility is or what you've been told by your servicer, 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 self-select here, there's steps that you can take to just basically make sure that your status is being re-reviewed or you're going through that review process. And then you'll have a final determination of what you are eligible for or how far you are into the process.
Lindsay Clark:
But yeah, 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 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 every 12 months or on a recurring basis. That way they are certifying 12 credits after 12 credits inching their way closer to 120. That way we 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. So if you're trying to certify as you go along, that's a better way of making sure that we catch any problems that might happen.
Lindsay Clark:
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 FedLoan Servicing and that will initiate this review process of your status. And it gets signed off by you, the borrower, and then it needs to get signed off by your employer. And if you've had multiple employers over the period of eligibility from 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. And then, like I said, it gets submitted to FedLoan and they match up that employment certification with your payment history and say, "Okay, here's how many qualifying payments this person has made." That is the only way to be able to take advantage of this. So yeah, that's the 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.
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Cat McDonald:
It sounds a little crazy. I'm not sure I understand why in October 31, 2020, we're going to go back to something that didn't seem to be working.
Lindsay Clark:
Yeah. So the PSLF waiver and the announcement was part of, and if you read the press statements and the releases about this, was a first big step in what they hoped to be in general improvements and progress 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 potentially retroactively have past payments that were ineligible deemed eligible.
Lindsay Clark:
And so it's unclear what the program will look like two, three years from now if these improvements that they plan on trying to implement, go through, and there's a lot of different aspects of that. For example, there's attempts to help with the employer side of things to make it easier for employers to actually help initiate this for their employees, big nonprofits, etc. So there's a lot of different areas in which they go about this.
Lindsay Clark:
But I would say, 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 is rectified, anyone who could have received credits and should have, is able to, but then going forward, wanted be setting clear expectations around eligibility and making sure, because otherwise then it would be open and somewhat of a free for all. But again, I would say, 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. 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 makes me hopeful for what the future will look like under this program.
Cat McDonald:
Yeah. This is really good news for any social workers out there who have taken out student loans to get their degrees. It's going to be really good news for some folks.
Lindsay Clark:
Yeah. And I think at least the Department of Education and the regulatory and administrative powers that are very much aware of the issues with the program. And I think what I've seen at least from our end in the capacity that we work with these institutions is a real willingness and openness to continue to want to hear any feedback and stories escalating those, any issues that we're seeing and making sure that they do whatever they can to try to address and fix those. But I think that there likely to come a policy decision around forgiveness that might impact how this program persists going forward, something passed through Congress, because right now a lot of these changes are simply being done through regulation meeting. The Department of Education can do that and decide that without meeting congressional approval or anything like that.
Lindsay Clark:
So there might be something more permanent in the works that we see later on. But absolutely, I think I was just talking to my brother yesterday who has about $450,000 in medical school debt right now. And he has me beat. I've only got 200,000 from my undergrad and graduate. So we are a high debt family, you could say. Yeah. And student debt definitely runs in families. That's another other thing I've noticed is if you have student debt, there's a good chance that you know someone or are related to someone who has student debt. But anyway, for him, he's about to enter his residency, graduate from medical school, but I've assured him and told him, "Listen, don't worry about how big that balance gets, 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."
Lindsay Clark:
So you're not trying to pay it off quickly or you're not trying to make large payments and debts. That would be wasting that money. You're trying to just sure that you are on track to qualify doing what you need to do, being in the right repayment plan and everything, crossing those Ts and doting those eyes and then setting yourself up for success. So to the point of pursuing that degree, I think that, that is absolutely the mentality here. And making sure then that you are set up for success on forgiveness, it's a game changer just mentally and psychologically when are thinking about your future and having a very clear idea of even if you do have a lot of debt that there's a plan in place to ultimately have that forgiven is I think the first step towards freedom from student loan debt. It's in the couple of square inches above in your head where you can make the process and the struggle of student debt a lot easier just by being able to see that light ahead of the tunnel.
Cat McDonald:
Right. So Savi 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 Savi?
Lindsay Clark:
Sure. Yeah. It's been such a pleasure to partner with NASW. 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 Savi was born. And this technology mixed with the human expertise and insights that we have and have gained around the program is what we're able to provide to borrowers throughout this process.
Lindsay Clark:
And so this platform basically helps you to not only identify 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're about 150 plus forgiveness programs that we have built into our tool. But you can think of it like a TurboTax for your student loans, where you'll go through, we're going to be asking you some questions around your tax filing status, your income, your employment, most importantly. And from that information, we're able to basically show you what you're eligible for and what your options are. And that's again around repayment as well as forgiveness.
Lindsay Clark:
And then from there, we actually offer you the opportunity to have us take on all of the administrative burden around these programs. And so for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, that is basically taking on the employment certification forms and application paperwork. We manage that all for you front to end. And so we digitize those forms, we pre-fill them, and then we collect information about your employment, 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 FedLoan 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 program, that it is still persists. Even after this waiver has been announced is actually doing the steps and taking steps that are needed to be able to be eligible and submit this paperwork. It sounds trivial, and it sounds like it wouldn't be a big deal, but when you've got a track down, an HR signature on a form from-
Cat McDonald:
From 10 different employers for 10 different years. Yeah.
Lindsay Clark:
Oh my gosh! Yeah. Maybe they don't exist anymore. You can't get someone to answer you. We've had borrowers who've driven five plus hours to try to deliver this in-person and get it signed off in-person. And they will reject your application if it is digitally signed, like a type signature. So anyway, we basically manage that entire process for the borrower. They don't leave their home. We make it really easy through 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 if the HR contact doesn't use the correct format for the dates, let's say they just instead of writing May as 05, they write five, that will be rejected. For the slightest clerical error here.
Lindsay Clark:
And so that's why many people think that the program is almost set up for people to fail because they make it so hard for you to succeed. But all of that 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 the first part of what is a longer and bigger and harder 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, they never end up resubmitting it or it is reviewed incorrectly.
Lindsay Clark:
So this was a huge issue with the program and why FedLoan has actually been sued multiple times was mismanagement, borrowers having their payment credits, those qualifying credits not counted correctly. I would say about half of 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. 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 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 escalate your case through federal channels, like the ombudsman or the CFPB that have been very helpful actors in this space in holding the necessary entities accountable.
Lindsay Clark:
And I've escalated many, many cases to the ombudsman even to this day. And that's been responsible for getting them the forgiveness they deserve. So yeah. So that's from start to finish, you are not alone with Savi in this process. And we are there to, like I said, make not only the administrative burdens easier and take on those for you, but to actually then ensure that you cross that finish line. And for something around student debt, at least my perspective has been out of sight, out of mind, I procrastinate about it, I don't want to think about it, because that 200,000 is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Lindsay Clark:
And I think most borrowers are probably very similar in that it's not something we are actively trying to think about every day, but with a program like this and with applications like this, it's very easy to submit it and then forget about it 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 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 as a social worker and doing the great work that all the social workers do and leaving that to us.
Cat McDonald:
Right. So if something were to happen, Savi would ping me with, oh, this signature is missing or what communication would I be getting throughout the process from Savi?
Lindsay Clark:
Yeah. So when you have your Savi account, there's a dashboard that basically tracks where you are step by step in this process so that there's full transparency and visibility between the borrower and us, because Savi is not a servicer, meaning we're not managing your payments and your loans. So you're not never making a payment to Savi or through Savi. You can think of us more like a facilitator or an advocate on your behalf. And so we are right in the middle between the borrower and the servicer, and we'll do things like summit 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 setting up a process with the borrower where they're able to let us know and forward any communication they get from their servicer, we review and confirm and make sure everything appears to be correct.
Lindsay Clark:
And so that's how we really are able to help people through what is... There's no clear beginning, middle and end here. It's a series of touch points over 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 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.
Cat McDonald:
Right. Such a complicated system. That's so complicated.
Lindsay Clark:
Yeah. You should not need to be a student loan expert to be able to navigate this. 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 the system. FedLoan doesn't review your paperwork properly and tells you, you're either ineligible, and if you don't know any better, you think, well, they must be right.
Lindsay Clark:
And what happened early on with the PSLF program was this just widespread 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 FedLoan 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. 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, is it going to be managed by another servicer? Just one, maybe all of them. It was up in the air.
Lindsay Clark:
And it's been decided since that Mohela 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 31 of this year, where basically borrowers, they've seen a huge surge volume at FedLoan, of borrowers trying to submit these applications thinking that they could benefit. And so they've extended FedLoans 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. And so they think, well, should I be submitting this at FedLoan? That doesn't make sense because they're leaving. But the answer is yes, you should still be submitting all of that to FedLoan.
Lindsay Clark:
But again, 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 of borrowers are left wondering, is this okay? Well, I'm hoping I'm eligible. And wondering what if. And at this point in time after several years of experiencing the program failing them, many borrowers do not trust until they really see that $0 balance on their account that this is real. And that's totally understandable.
Cat McDonald:
That's understandable.
Lindsay Clark:
Yeah. It's self preservation. It's healthy, I think. But yeah, it's made it so that it is a very anxiety waiting time for many borrowers. 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 anxiety inducing. And I think that's where Savi at least we see our role is being able to just make that experience of being a borrower pursuing this program a lot better and help address those pain points throughout the process.
Cat McDonald:
All right. So tell us how people can get in touch with Savi? How can people find out more about the service that you provide?
Lindsay Clark:
Yeah. So I believe they can access the Savi service through their NASW member portal. There's a Savi page after they log into their NASW account, they're able to access the Savi tool and resources. And what's great about doing that through your NASW membership and Ed portal is that for NASW members, there is a very discounted price on what are our essential or premium services. And so you can create your Savi account and do most of it for free, but when it comes to upgrading and taking advantage of some of the premium offerings we have, then that's really where we're taking on all of that application work for you, one on one support, etc. 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.
Cat McDonald:
Great. Yes. I'll put a link to it in the show notes. I'll put a link to Savi and I'll put a link to all the information about the changes to PSLF program so that folks can be informed and decide how they want to proceed. Hopefully, this will help a lot of folks.
Lindsay Clark:
Yeah, absolutely. We work with many NASW members and social workers already and have over the years. And have seen the power of what this forgiveness can can do. And I would say, the biggest thing to keep in mind around this waiver and the change in the program is, again, trying not to self-select because you might have been told wrong information initially, whether you were rejected or not, wherever you might be coming to the program from. The most important thing investing you can do for yourself is to take the steps to have your status re-reviewed. And hopefully, then any of the credits that you should have been awarded are certified to your account, but that can only happen by submitting that form and doing so before October 31 of this year.
Cat McDonald:
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.
Lindsay Clark:
No problem. Thank you for having me.
Cat McDonald:
Until next time.
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