Finding Income-Driven Forgiveness Counts

Prior to the SAVE lawsuit, there was a forgiveness tracker for income-driven forgiveness briefly displayed on borrowers’ studentaid.gov accounts. As a side effect of the lawsuit, the tracker was removed because it was unclear how certain months would or would not count toward forgiveness. The Department of Education announced recently that the tracker will not be restored. However, there is still an unofficial way to see your forgiveness counts.

1. Open a browser and log into your studentaid.gov account

These instructions must be completed on a computer browser; they will not work on phones or tablets.

2. Open a new browser tab

You must keep the other tab where you are logged into studentaid.gov open while you do these next steps

3. Paste the link into the address bar of the new tab

Here is the address of the site to paste into the address bar: https://studentaid.gov/app/api/nslds/payment-counter/summary

You must paste the link; you cannot click it or go to the page directly. After you have pasted the address, hit enter.

4. You will see a jumbled mess of text

Within the mess, look for your IBR or ICR qualifying payment count. If you need assistance, you can send a screenshot or text document to TISLA@freestudentloanadvice.org

5. You can make the text more readable

Most browsers have a “pretty print” function. On Chrome it displays at the top of the page, but for other browsers, you may need to search the settings. Click the box to transform the text.

6. Check your counts

Again, you are looking for your qualifying payment count; that is the number of payments you have made that count toward forgiveness. The count may not sync with the number of months it has been since you entered repayment. Months in default, deferment, or forbearance generally don’t count toward forgiveness. However, certain periods of those statuses may have been made qualifying by the one-time adjustment. Additionally, the months of March 2020 to August 2023 are all qualifying, even if you made no payment, due to the CARES Act.

Also note that this is an “unofficial” count. While what we’ve seen has usually been pretty close to accurate, it often will show counts for plans you aren’t eligible for and no counts for plans you are eligible for. Know that all the income driven plans “cross-pollinate” with each other. So if it shows that you have a count of say 140 for IBR2014, but you know that you aren’t eligible for that plan, and meanwhile it shows a count of zero for “old” IBR, which you know you are eligible for, you can be pretty confident that you have a count of 140 on old IBR.

Note sure which plans you’re eligible for? See here