IDR Application Processing Backlog Hits 2 Million Student Loan Forgiveness Borrowers
A status report filed in federal court on May 15 reveals that 1,985,726 income-driven repayment applications were still pending as of April 30, 2025. That same month, only 79,349 IDR applications were processed. This means less than 4% of the backlog was addressed in April, leaving almost 2 million student loan borrowers still stuck waiting for their IDR applications to be processed and on the path towards lower payments and student loan forgiveness.
April’s throughput is likely not representative, given that student loan servicers were only processing a portion of applications and had partially restarted processing after a Department of Education freeze. They could only start operating at full processing capacity on May 10. Therefore, it is hard to draw firm conclusions on how long it will take to clear the IDR backlog. We could divide the pending 1.99 million applications by April’s 79,000 processing rate to identify an upper bound of 25 months. In other words, if servicers continue processing at the April pace and no new backlog accumulates, borrowers at the end of the queue could be waiting until 2027 for their IDR adjustments to complete.
It’s important to stress this isn’t a formal timeline from the Department of Education. The timeframe would be shorter if servicing capacity increases, but a flood of new applications could also hamper it. Unfortunately, while the May 15 status report provides some detail and the June 15 update will provide more, it won’t be until the July 15 status report that we will get an accurate data point on the servicer’s processing throughput when they are operating at full capacity for an entire month; the number of applications processed in June, the first full month after processing resumed.
Officials have not provided a specific completion date. Education Department lawyers acknowledged they do not have an estimated date for clearing the IDR application backlog. “This filing confirms what borrowers have known for months: their applications for loan relief have effectively been going into a void,” said Student Borrower Protection Center Legal Director Winston Berkman-Breen in a statement.
IDR Processing Resumes But Student Loan Forgiveness And Repayment Bottlenecks Persist
The backlog is significant because IDR application processing was paused for much of the winter due to legal and operational challenges. In February 2025, the Education Department abruptly turned off online applications for all IDR plans and loan consolidations. This drastic step was prompted by a court injunction related to the new SAVE repayment plan, which effectively blocked the implementation of SAVE and, by the Department’s interpretation, necessitated halting processing for other IDR plans.
For borrowers, this meant that throughout late February and most of March, they could not even apply online for IDR or consolidation, and servicers were instructed to pause processing existing IDR requests for at least 90 days. Processing resumed in the spring after lawsuits and public pressure forced the Department’s hand. In March, the American Federation of Teachers sued the Department for blocking borrowers’ progress toward PSLF by taking down the IDR application system. In response, the Department restored the IDR and consolidation applications online on March 26, 2025 (excluding the enjoined SAVE plan). However, simply making the form available did not immediately clear the logjam, as servicers still had to wait for further guidance to process the pile of applications that had built up.
In an April court memorandum, the Department indicated that loan servicers would resume processing new IDR plan enrollments by May 10, 2025, for plans like IBR, ICR, and PAYE. The April data suggests that by sometime in April, the cogs started turning again on IDR requests, with nearly 80 thousand processed that month.
PSLF Buyback Delay Leaves Public Servants Waiting Years For Forgiveness Credit
The status report also highlights the separate but related backlog of PSLF buyback requests. These are requests by public service workers to retroactively count certain past forbearance or deferment months as qualifying payments toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness under a program created by recent PSLF regulations. The PSLF buyback process allows borrowers to buy back non-qualifying months, such as months spent in certain deferments or the recent pandemic forbearance, by making a one-time payment, thereby increasing their count of PSLF-eligible payments. This was intended to complement the IDR account adjustment and give public servants credit for periods that generally wouldn’t count toward the required 120 months of service.
However, the PSLF buyback processing has mainly been stalled for months. According to the new court filing, only 1,472 PSLF buyback requests were processed in April. Meanwhile, 49,318 PSLF buyback requests remained pending as of April 30. That means just 3% of pending PSLF buybacks were completed that month, an even slower clip than the IDR applications. Borrowers and student-loan observers report that few, if any, buyback requests had been processed in the past several months before this spring.
Aside from a small batch of approvals in late 2024, many public servants have seen no movement on buyback submissions. The program, introduced in July 2023, quickly accumulated tens of thousands of requests as teachers, nurses, and other public-sector employees hoped to reclaim forbearance time toward forgiveness. Yet, by early 2025, it appeared virtually frozen, contributing to growing frustration among borrowers who thought they were nearing the finish line for PSLF.
Now that IDR processing is back on track, it’s reasonable to expect PSLF buyback processing to resume in tandem, though the April data shows it’s starting from a crawl. If April’s output is any indication, clearing 49,000 outstanding PSLF requests could take well over two and a half years. It’s possible that PSLF buybacks were intentionally deprioritized while the IDR system was on hold, and servicer focus may return to these requests in the coming months. Notably, MOHELA (the servicer that handles PSLF) has been contending with both the PSLF forms from borrowers hitting 120 payments and these buyback requests while juggling the broader account adjustment updates. Limited resources and the complexity of verifying past employment and deferment periods mean PSLF-related adjustments can be labor-intensive.
For public servants, the forgiveness path remains frustratingly opaque. Some have been making payments beyond 120 while waiting for past periods to be credited via the buyback or IDR adjustment. The latest filing suggests that those past periods will be credited, but not quickly. The stall in processing has delayed forgiveness for borrowers who otherwise have met their 10-year public service commitment. As processing resumes, perhaps alongside the IDR backlog work, public service workers should finally see their counts updated, but they may need to remain patient for at least several months, if not much more.
What Borrowers Should Expect Next For Student Loan Forgiveness, Including IDR and PSLF Processing
For borrowers keen to learn more about student loan forgiveness and repayment process, the Department of Education’s July 15 status report will provide the first full-month snapshot of IDR application processing since servicers resumed operations at full capacity. That will be a better predictor of the true time it will take to process the current backlog.
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