Years of qualifying payments toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) can add up steadily, with borrowers tracking their progress month after month on StudentAid.gov.
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Then, without warning, that total can drop, leaving borrowers with no advance notice, phone call, or clear explanation.
That scenario is now unfolding for an unknown number of borrowers pursuing PSLF, which cancels student loan balances after 120 qualifying monthly payments.
The Education Department confirmed it reduced some borrowers’ counts, blaming coding errors from the previous administration, but has not said how many accounts are affected, according to CNBC.
The Education Department is recalculating account histories for borrowers who pursued Public Service Loan Forgiveness, reducing qualifying payment totals for some, CNBC reported.
One borrower said in a Reddit comment that their tracker plunged from nearly 120 qualifying payments to just 94 after a routine dashboard update.
Another borrower reported on Reddit that their count fell from 103 to 88 after submitting a standard employment certification form, according to the College Investor.
Roughly 1.2 million public servants have received debt cancellation through the program since its creation in 2007, the Brookings Institution reported.
Mark Kantrowitz, President of Cerebly Inc. and a nationally recognized student loan expert, told CNBC that borrowers watching their counts drop are being asked to trust the recalculation without seeing the math behind it.
When a borrower isn’t given a specific explanation, they are unable to verify whether the change was accurate
The lack of a specific explanation, Kantrowitz said, leaves borrowers accepting a lower count on the department’s word alone.
The department’s account of why the reductions occurred has shifted since borrowers first raised alarms on social media in early August.
Call center agents initially described the problem as an unspecified data error, and the department posted a dashboard banner calling counts “incorrect,” the College Investor reported.
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The agency now acknowledges that at least some of the reversed credit was deliberate, not the product of a temporary glitch.
Officials tied the reductions to PSLF counter code errors stemming from changes implemented in May 2024, when the Biden administration moved the program in-house at Federal Student Aid, Forbes reported.
Politico first reported that the department was rolling back Biden-era credits.
Those changes included the Limited PSLF Waiver and the One-Time Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) Account Adjustment, both of which had broadened the types of payments counted, Forbes reported.
The agency has not disclosed how many borrowers were affected, or whether legitimately qualifying payments were swept up alongside data errors.
The changes were technical accounting corrections rather than the result of any new PSLF policy, Scott Buchanan, Executive Director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, confirmed.
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ABRAHAM GONZALEZ FERNANDEZ / Getty Images
The PSLF tracking error represents the third significant data problem to surface in roughly one month, compounding the volatility for borrowers.
Two advocacy groups, the Student Debt Crisis Center and the Debt Collective, called for a national pause on payments until system failures are resolved.
Asides system failures, a policy change effective July 1, 2026, has raised the stakes for every borrower chasing the PSLF finish line.
Starting July 1, 2026, every qualifying payment must be made on or before its due date under any repayment plan, The College Investor reported.
Borrowers previously had a 15-day grace period that allowed slightly late payments to still count toward the 120-payment threshold for loan forgiveness.
That cushion no longer exists, so a payment that lands one day past the due date now costs a borrower an entire month of progress.
Borrowers who believe they lost qualifying payments in error can file a PSLF Reconsideration request through the PSLF Help Tool on StudentAid.gov.
Nancy Nierman, assistant director of the Education Debt Consumer Assistance Program at Community Service Society of New York, recommended that affected borrowers act before further updates are rolled out, CNBC reported.
Nierman also advised borrowers to screenshot their current payment count and download bank statements that prove exactly when each payment was made.
Some borrowers may see their counts rise once the department completes its corrections, since the technical fixes could affect both directions, Buchanan noted.
The department has not released a breakdown of how many accounts lost credit, which months were removed, or how borrowers can verify the changes.
For public servants who structured their careers around a government-provided forgiveness timeline, the stakes of an unexplained count reduction extend well beyond paperwork.
A longer repayment timeline can push back homeownership, delay marriage and family planning, and keep workers in lower-paying qualifying positions for extra years, consumer advocates warned.
The focus now turns to how the department will publish a transparent accounting of how many borrowers lost credit and why.
Until it commits to restoring payments that were accurately earned, borrowers are left to take the department’s word that the fix is complete.
Related: Student loan borrowers face growing default threat
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This story was originally published August 22, 2026 at 4:37 PM.