If you have multiple federal student loans with different payment histories you could maximize your credit toward loan forgiveness programs like Income Driven Repayment Forgiveness (IDRF) or Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), thanks to the IDR Account Adjustment.
For a limited time only, you can take your longest payment credit, based on your oldest loan, and apply it across all of your loans, earning you the maximum credit towards forgiveness. And to be clear it’s not on a weighted average. It is simply your longest payment count applied to all of your loans.
So who can really benefit and how do you do it?
If you took out multiple federal loans for different degrees or had loans enter repayment at different time periods, you can get the older loan’s credit applied to all of your loans.
But to get your highest payment count applied, you must consolidate via studentaid.gov before June 30, 2024. Learn more about how to consolidate.
If you’re pursuing PSLF:
Watch this short video to make sure you’re earning the highest payment count possible.
If you’re unsure if your loans can benefit from consolidation contact EDCAP or follow these instructions:
1. Go to your studentaid.gov account dashboard and click on “view details”.
2. Click “View Breakdown”.
3. Click “View Loans”.
4. Click “View Loan Details” on one of your loans.
5. Scroll down to the “Repayment Details” and check the date under “Entered Repayment”.
6. Repeat this process for all of your loans.
If any of your loans have a different “Entered Repayment” date, that means you would probably benefit from a direct consolidation loan via studentaid.gov.
Important Note:
If all your loans entered repayment at the same time and are Direct, they should already have the highest credit toward forgiveness and don’t need to be consolidated. If you still have non-Direct loans, like FFEL or Perkins, you must still consolidate to make them eligible for forgiveness and get retroactive credit.