That deadline has moved a couple of times, so it is certianly possible you are looking at an outdated article.

You should get credit for the highest count rather than the weighted average.

Thanks for your response, yes this is for PSLF…If I consolidate before 12/31/23, how will the payment counts on the new consolidation loan be treated? Do they count as a blended average (50+98+98) / 3 or will they give me credit for the highest count (98) for the entire consolidated loan? I saw a lot of articles online that show there was a deadline of last year 10/31/22 to have the higher payment count credited, so did I miss out?

I’ve got a couple of thoughts on your situaiton.

Overall, it looks like you are in a pretty good situation. By combining everything before the 12/31/23 deadline, you will be very close to getting forgiveness (I’m assuming you are planning on PSLF based on the fact that you are measuring progress toward 120 payments). If PSLF is your strategy, be sure not to leave your job to soon.

Second, the 12 consecutive months or 36 cumulative months only applies to the forbearances, not the deferments. As long as the deferments were not in school deferments, you should get credit for that time as well under the IDR count update.

ParentPlus: 50/120 (71 deferment/forbearance not yet counted broken down as follows…1 forbearance, 10 deferments, 7 forbearance all in a row. then 53 deferments in a row)

DL Subsidized: 98/120 (22 deferment/forbearance not yet counted broken down as follows…7 forbearance, 10 deferments, 7 forbearance all in a row.)

DL Unsubsidized: 98/120 (22 deferment/forbearance not yet counted broken down as follows…7 forbearance, 10 deferments, 7 forbearance all in a row.)

The deferment times for the 2 DL’s are not for in-school. they are hardship periods so I am not sure why they are flip flopped back & forth between forbearance & deferment. The Parent Plus deferments are a combination of my son being in school, plus hardships. Of course there is not a 12 month consecutive forbearance period nor is there a 36 month cumulative forbearance period so am I just out of luck on all 3?

Great questions. In my opinion, there are better options than making extra payments on SAVE, especially if you qualify for the subsidy. However, everyone has different financial goals and the strategy that works best for one person may not be best for someone else.

The SAVE payment is caclulated almost entirely based on your income. However, your balance matters because undergraduate debt gets charged 5% of discretionary income and graduate debt gets 10%. So the composition of your balance is a key factor in caclulating payments.

Why would you make an extra payments if you are on the SAVE plan? Your monthly payment has nothing to do with your balance. Regardless of your balance your monthly payment depends only on your income. Isn’t that correct?

You are correct about how the minimum payments are allocated on SAVE.

However, once the minimum payment has been made on all of the loans, an extra payments can be directed entirely toward your highest interest loan. Just be sure to notify your serivcer how you want the extra payments allocated.

Some of that time may count toward PSLF under the one-time IDR adjustment schedule for 2024. If you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to get all of that time certified for PSLF.

My concern is that if you are not currently employed by a PSLF employer, even if your prior work did count, your loans still couldn’t be discharged.

This is also a situation where a call to your servicer could be time well spent. The servicer will have full loan details in front of them and I’m working on limited information and answering some complicated questions.

PSLF payments on Direct loans through fedloan servicing. 130 total months on active duty. 64 actual payments made between deferment years and covid-19 forbearance years.