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public service

Both of the long-horizon programmes work by counting qualifying monthly payments. Borrowers routinely discover, years in, that a stretch of payments did not count because the loan type was wrong, the plan was wrong, the servicer misapplied a forbearance, or a certification form was never processed. Because the count is the entire mechanism, an error early in the sequence is worth more than any interest rate difference. Requesting and checking a formal payment count is the highest-value action most borrowers can take, and it is free.

  • Income-driven repayment forgiveness, where a remaining balance is discharged after a long qualifying repayment period — reliable but slow, and dependent on unbroken annual income recertification.
  • Public service forgiveness for borrowers employed by government or qualifying non-profit organisations, which turns entirely on employment certification filed consistently over years.
  • Discharge on specific grounds: total and permanent disability, school closure, and borrower defence where an institution misrepresented its programmes.

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