How Many Student Loans Have Been Forgiven

Student loans have been a hot topic in recent years. The federal government currently has over 44 million people in debt, and more than 1 million of those are in default.

But just how many student loans have been forgiven?

According to the Department of Education, about 1.2 million borrowers had their loans forgiven between 1993 and 2018. That number has increased each year since 2012.

In addition, the average amount that was forgiven was $26,967.

How Many Student Loans Have Been Forgiven

In early January, Pennsylvania’s Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced that Navient, one of the country’s largest education loan management companies, would cancel $1.7 billion in private student loan debt to resolve allegations of deceptive servicing practices. That latest move brings the total amount of student loan debt forgiven in the past year (both federal and private) to about $13 billion.

Hundreds of thousands of borrowers have benefitted thus far from student loan forgiveness, but there still are approximately 43 million borrowers who remain in debt. That’s because the forgiveness that’s been granted thus far has gone to targeted groups as opposed to the more wide-sweeping debt cancellation that many top Democrats want.

“The Biden administration has a real track record now that we can look to and know how it thinks about awarding student loan relief,” Andrew Pentis, a certified student loan counselor with Student Loan Hero, previously told Fortune. “It’s been a track record of targeted relief to specific borrowers—not the mass forgiveness proposals that many progressives have called for.”

If you’re wondering whether you might qualify for one of the rounds of student loan forgiveness this year, Fortune has rounded up the main borrower groups who are currently eligible.

Borrowers who attended now-defunct schools
More than 188,000 borrowers will benefit from $2.6 billion in forgiveness targeted at helping those students who attended schools that are now deemed as having taken part in deceptive or illegal practices.

This group includes students who attended Corinthian Colleges, ITT Technical Institute, American Career Institute, Court Reporting Institute, Westwood College, or Marinello Schools of Beauty. These schools have been deemed as having misled students. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona first announced the cancellations in March 2021.

Before these loans were canceled, borrowers had to submit a loan discharge application form, which asks questions about the student’s previous enrollment. The Federal Student Aid (FSA) office then decided whether to grant no, partial, or full forgiveness if the applicant’s school had deceived them. Borrowers started having their loans automatically discharged beginning in September 2021.

Borrowers with total and permanent disabilities
In August 2021, the Education Department announced a $5.8 billion round of forgiveness to wipe out student loan debt for 323,000 borrowers who have total and permanent disabilities that prevent them from being able to work.

Eligible borrowers must be registered as having a “total and permanent” disability (TPD) by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to have debt automatically discharged. Borrowers no longer have to fill out a separate application to receive relief.

The Education Department previously monitored borrowers’ income for three years after receiving TPD status, and if a borrower’s income met a certain threshold, then the loans could be reinstated. The department announced in August 2021, however, that it would stop sending these automatic income information requests, and is proposing eliminating the monitoring period for the long haul.

Borrowers who are public servants
In October 2021, the Education Department unveiled sweeping changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, which was developed to relieve public servants—including teachers, firefighters, social workers, and other government or nonprofit employees—of federal student loan debt. This round of forgiveness accounted for about $1.7 billion in federal student loan debt cancellation.

Public servants who were seeking full debt cancellation had to be enrolled in a repayment plan and make 120 on-time student loan payments—but 98% of PSLF borrowers who had applied for forgiveness since the program’s 2007 inception were denied by the program due to a number of hurdles with the approval process.

Changes to the application and approval process immediately helped 22,000 borrowers, and another 27,000 borrowers are eligible for a collective $2.8 billion in forgiveness if they “certify additional periods of employment,” according to the Education Department.

More than one-half-million borrowers could benefit from long-term changes to the PSLF program if they consolidate their non-qualifying loans under the federal Direct Loan program. Fortune previously detailed how PSLF borrowers can have their debt erased.

Borrowers with private loans from Navient
Nearly 66,000 private student loan borrowers across the U.S. will benefit from Navient’s cancellations, which came as a result of a probe by 39 state attorneys general for “allegations of widespread unfair, deceptive, and abusive student loan servicing practices and abuses in originating predatory student loans,” according to a statement released by Shapiro’s office.

According to Navient, the company will cancel the debt of borrowers who originated loans “largely between 2002 and 2010 and later defaulted and charged off.” These borrowers were either issued subprime private loans and couldn’t pay them back or Navient had driven them into forbearance, preventing borrowers from being able to pay down their principal amount.

The company will notify borrowers by July 2022 regarding who will have their private debt canceled. Eligible borrowers who made any payments after June 30, 2021 on private loans that were canceled will be refunded. Borrowers don’t need to do anything additional to have their private debt canceled.

public service loan forgiveness

If you are employed by a U.S. federal, state, local, or tribal government or not-for-profit organization, you might be eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. Keep reading to see whether you might qualify.

To ensure you’re on the right track, you should submit a Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) & Temporary Expanded PSLF (TEPSLF) Certification & Application (PSLF Form) annually or when you change employers. We’ll use the information you provide on the form to let you know if you are making qualifying PSLF payments. This will help you determine if you’re on the right track as early as possible.

*This provision will be waived through October 31, 2022 as part of the limited PSLF waiver. Learn more.

Suspended Payments Count Toward PSLF and TEPSLF During the COVID-19 Administrative Forbearance

If you have a Direct Loan and work full-time for a qualifying employer during the payment suspension (administrative forbearance), then you will receive credit toward PSLF or TEPSLF for the period of suspension as though you made on-time monthly payments in the correct amount while on a qualifying repayment plan.

To see these qualifying payments reflected in your account, you must submit a PSLF form certifying your employment for the same period of time as the suspension. Your count of qualifying payments toward PSLF is officially updated only when you update your employment certifications.

Digital signatures from you or your employer must be hand-drawn (from a signature pad, mouse, finger, or by taking a picture of a signature drawn on a piece of paper that you then scan and embed on the signature line of the PSLF form) to be accepted. Typed signatures, even if made to mimic a hand-drawn signature, or security certificate-based signatures are not accepted.

Note: In-grace, in-school, and certain deferment, forbearance, and bankruptcy statuses are not eligible for credit toward PSLF.

Have questions? Find out what loans qualify and get additional information about student loan flexibilities due to the COVID-19 emergency.

Qualifying Employer

Qualifying employment for the PSLF Program isn’t about the specific job that you do for your employer. Instead, it’s about who your employer is. Employment with the following types of organizations qualifies for PSLF:

• Government organizations at any level (U.S. federal, state, local, or tribal) – this includes the U.S. military
• Not-for-profit organizations that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code

Serving as a full-time AmeriCorps or Peace Corps volunteer also counts as qualifying employment for the PSLF Program.

The following types of employers don’t qualify for PSLF:

• Labor unions
• Partisan political organizations
• For-profit organizations, including for-profit government contractors

Contractors: You must be directly employed by a qualifying employer for your employment to count toward PSLF. If you’re employed by an organization that is doing work under a contract with a qualifying employer, it is your employer’s status—not the status of the organization that your employer has a contract with—that determines whether your employment qualifies for PSLF. For example, if you’re employed by a for-profit contractor that is doing work for a qualifying employer, your employment does not count toward PSLF.

Other types of not-for-profit organizations: If you work for a not-for-profit organization that is not tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, it can still be considered a qualifying employer if it provides certain types of qualifying public services.

Full-time Employment

For PSLF, you’re generally considered to work full-time if you meet your employer’s definition of full-time or work at least 30 hours per week, whichever is greater.

If you are employed in more than one qualifying part-time job at the same time, you will be considered full-time if you work a combined average of at least 30 hours per week with your employers.

If you are employed by a not-for-profit organization, time spent on religious instruction, worship services, or any form of proselytizing as a part of your job responsibilities may be counted toward meeting the full-time employment requirement.

Eligible Loans

Any loan received under the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) Program qualifies for PSLF.

Loans from these federal student loan programs don’t qualify for PSLF: the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program and the Federal Perkins Loan (Perkins Loan) Program. However, they may become eligible if you consolidate them into a Direct Consolidation Loan.

Student loans from private lenders do not qualify for PSLF.

Under normal PSLF Program rules, if you consolidate your loans, only qualifying payments that you make on the new Direct Consolidation Loan can be counted toward the 120 payments required for PSLF. Any payments you made on the loans before you consolidated them don’t count. However, if you consolidate these loans into a Direct Loan before October 31, 2022, you may be able to receive qualifying credit for payments made on those loans through the limited PSLF waiver.