Still, the program helped some borrowers inch toward forgiveness, including Hahn. The 2018 program brought her four years closer to debt cancellation.Hahn had spent years believing she was making progress in the program under the guidance of loan servicers, she said. It took three years and countless calls to learn the truth. Not only was she in the wrong plan but she also had to consolidate her loans from a defunct bank-based lending program. Years of progress were wiped away.
“We were all struggling with how to get through this process, and we were supposed to be information guides and information professionals,” Hahn said. “I’m sorry, but if we’re struggling, then there’s a problem with this program.”Public Service Loan Forgiveness has shaped so much of Hahn’s professional, and sometimes personal, life. When she was laid off last year at the height of the pandemic, Hahn scrambled to find another job that would qualify for the program.
She landed a position in her hometown of Denver that was slated to last two months. It was too risky. She had come too far. So when Hahn received a permanent job offer from a library six hours away in Kansas, she and her husband decided it would be the best choice, even if it meant they’d apart.“It’s been hard to be away from family,” Hahn said. “I’m out here on my own. I took the job because I wasn’t certain how long the loan forgiveness process would take.
submitted her application for forgiveness and was awaiting a response. FedLoan Servicing, the company administering the program for the government, was behind on processing applications and updating accounts.last month Hahn received a notice from the company that her payment count had increased as a result of the new program. Hahn said she found the notice puzzling and wondered whether it would disrupt her bid for forgiveness.
From the outset of the waiver, excited and anxious borrowers have bombarded loan servicers with questions, some of which the companies couldn’t answer as they