If you work for a school, a hospital, a city or a nonprofit and you have been refreshing StudentAid.gov waiting for your Public Service Loan Forgiveness count to move, stop refreshing: the Education Department has frozen it.
- Federal Student Aid now tells borrowers their counts “have been temporarily paused due to data issues causing count fluctuations,” that the numbers are “currently static,” and that updates will resume “once the issues are resolved.”
- The department has not said when the freeze started. Asked, a spokesperson said only that it “remains committed to ensuring that every qualifying payment is properly credited to a borrower’s account.”
- In August, the same department cut some borrowers’ counts, blamed “multiple PSLF counter code errors” from changes made in May 2024 under the Biden administration, and declared the matter closed: “FSA has resolved the issue.”
- It has never said how many borrowers lost credit.
- 88,000 applications to the PSLF Buyback program were still pending as of April 30.
Most of the coverage is calling this a delay. Put the August statement next to the October notice and it reads differently. Two months ago the department told you it had fixed the counter. Now it has switched the counter off because the numbers will not hold still. The repair is the part that broke, and the people running it will not tell you how many accounts it touched.
The Counter Is the Product
Here is the mechanism, because it explains why a frozen number hurts more than a slow one.
PSLF forgives the rest of your federal Direct Loans after 120 qualifying monthly payments made while you work full time for a government agency or a qualifying nonprofit. Ten years. The program has existed since 2007, and for most of that time it was famous mainly for rejecting people, which is why borrowers learned to treat the counter on their dashboard as the only thing worth trusting. You certify your employer. The servicer matches your payments. The counter ticks. When it hits 120, you apply, and the department runs a final review.
That counter is the whole user experience. There is no other progress bar. If it is wrong, you find out years late. If it is frozen, you cannot tell whether last month counted, whether a forbearance months ago was coded the way you were promised, or whether the August “correction” reached your account at all.
And the August correction mattered most to the people closest to the finish. When you are a few months from 120, every month taken off the counter moves your forgiveness date by the same month. The department described the cuts as fixing coding errors made by the previous administration. Maybe some of them were. A borrower has no way to check, because the department published no list of what changed, no count of who was affected and nothing per account beyond a reduction notice.
All of this landed on top of the July 1 student loan overhaul, which reshuffled repayment plans for millions of borrowers. Borrowers have since reported incorrect bills and delinquency notices they did not earn. A freeze on top of an overhaul on top of a correction is three moving parts in one quarter, and you are the one who has to reconcile them.
Where We Stand
Blaming the last administration is spin at this point. This one has run Federal Student Aid for nearly two years. It cut the Education Department’s workforce roughly in half in 2025, and an amended lawsuit the American Federation of Teachers filed that September documented what followed: between May and August 2025 the department took in roughly 9,900 Buyback applications a month and processed about 3,600, leaving nearly 75,000 waiting by the end of that summer.
We ran the numbers forward. From nearly 75,000 at the end of August 2025 to 88,000 at the end of April 2026 is about 13,000 more people in eight months. That is slower growth than the 2025 pace implied, so processing apparently improved, or fewer people applied. Either way the line got longer, not shorter, and every name in it is someone who has already put in ten years of public service and is waiting on paperwork.
Our view is simple. The department should publish two numbers: how many borrowers had their PSLF counts reduced in August, and the date this freeze began. Both exist inside FSA’s systems. Withholding them is a choice, and it is the wrong one for a program whose entire promise is that the government will keep accurate books on your behalf. Congress has oversight authority over this office and should ask for both in writing. A teacher whose dashboard says 94 deserves to know whether it is really 94.
Until that happens, protect yourself.
Is my count wrong, or just frozen?
From the dashboard alone, you cannot tell. The notice says counts are static, so a number that has not moved since summer may simply be paused. Take a screenshot of your current count and your payment history today, with the date visible, so you have a record of what the department showed you before the freeze lifts.
My count dropped in August. Can I challenge it?
Yes. StudentAid.gov accepts a PSLF reconsideration request, where you explain which months you believe were miscounted and attach evidence. Gather bank or servicer statements showing each payment and copies of every employment certification you have filed. Expect a long wait: the department does not give status updates on a reconsideration until it decides.
Should I keep certifying my employment and making payments?
Yes. The freeze affects what the department displays and processes, not what you owe. Keep paying on time, keep submitting PSLF employment forms, and save every confirmation. If the counter comes back wrong, your own records are the only evidence that will move it.
I applied for Buyback. Is there anything I can do?
Not much beyond waiting and documenting. Buyback lets you pay for months spent in deferment or forbearance so they count toward the 120, and 88,000 applications were pending at the end of April. If you have not applied and are close to 120, confirm with your servicer which months are actually missing before you do, since a corrected count could change the math.
Can my employer still be kicked out of PSLF under the new rule?
Not right now. The department’s rule letting it disqualify employers it decided had a “substantial illegal purpose” was set to take effect July 1, 2026, but federal courts in Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts vacated it on June 30. The administration could still pursue it on appeal, so watch for news, but a qualifying employer today remains a qualifying employer.
The department says the counts will return “once the issues are resolved.” In August it said the issue was resolved. The difference this time is that you have been told in advance, so screenshot the number now, while there is still a number to screenshot.