The Education Department temporarily halted a loan forgiveness tracker on borrowers’ accounts in response to a court order blocking the student loan forgiveness program under the SAVE, ICR, and PAYE plans.
“The payment counter has had a banner on it for probably almost two months now, and it basically stated that your payment could be inaccurate,” an Education Department communications official told the Washington Examiner. “It was a big disclaimer, so the payment counters are temporarily unavailable while we update the back end of the system.”
On Sunday, Reddit users first flagged the disappearance of the student loan forgiveness tracker, which the Biden administration implemented for borrowers in income-driven repayment plans.
Just days before, the National Consumer Law Center published a blog post informing borrowers that the tracker could be removed anytime, urging users to screenshot their IDR progress.
“Removing the tracker would make it harder for borrowers to make sure they actually get their loans canceled when they are eligible for cancellation, and to dispute any mistakes the government or their servicers may make by failing to credit borrowers for qualifying time in repayment,” the blog post said.
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In February, a federal judge blocked former President Joe Biden’s SAVE Plan, which would have cost upward of $500 billion over 10 years.
“Due to a court injunction affecting IDR plans, only loans enrolled in the Income-Based Repayment (IBR) Plan that have accumulated enough time for forgiveness are eligible to be forgiven,” the Federal Student Aid website says. “The forgiveness information presented on this page is not applicable to you unless you are enrolled in the IBR Plan.”