Student Loan IDR Backlog Drops To Record Low, But PSLF Buyback Issues Remain

The Department of Education’s income-driven repayment application backlog has dropped to its lowest point on record, according to a new court filing submitted March 16 (PDF File).But that progress is overshadowed by a continued delays on IDR loan forgiveness and a growing queue of public servants waiting for PSLF buyback decisions.The data comes from the latest status report filed in American Federation of Teachers v. U.S. Department of Education, a federal lawsuit spearheaded by the teacher's union that requires the Department to provide monthly updates on its loan servicing operations.

Tax refunds are running more than 10% larger this filing season, the IRS reported, with the average individual refund reaching $3,742. That's up from $3,382 at roughly the same point in 2025.The increase is being driven in part by new deductions signed into law by President Donald Trump that are appearing on returns for the first time.The IRS released its cumulative filing season statistics through Feb. 27, 2026, comparing them to the same period in 2025. The data covers roughly 51.5 million individual returns received out of approximately 164 million expected before the April 15 deadline.

The federal government quietly stopped independently checking whether student loan servicers are keeping accurate borrower records (and stopped monitoring the quality of calls with borrowers) in February 2025. More than a year later, it still has not resumed those reviews, according to a new report released by the Government Accountability Office.The findings come at a precarious moment for the nearly 43 million Americans with federal student loans. Major repayment plan changes are underway, millions of borrowers are in or approaching default, and the very oversight designed to catch servicer errors has gone dark.For an administration that is allegedly focused on reducing waste and fraud, it's concerning that government contractors overseeing a trillion dollar portfolio of loans impacting 43 million Americans are not being closely monitored or held accountable.

The SAVE student loan repayment plan is dead — and a federal appeals court just made that official.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled on March 9, 2026 (PDF File) that a lower court wrongly dismissed the Republican states’ lawsuit against the plan, directing the district court to enter a December 2025 settlement agreement that permanently bans the Biden-era income-driven repayment program. The request to force the joint settlement was one of the alternatives presented in the GOP appeal to the 8th Circuit Court.Here's what borrowers need to know.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jeff Merkley accused the U.S. Department of Education of obstructing congressional oversight of federal student loan servicers. In a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon (PDF File), the senators wrote that the department “appears to have progressed to active obstruction” of lawmakers’ efforts to obtain servicer performance data.The dispute centers on basic service metrics: how long borrowers wait on hold, how often calls are dropped, how quickly written inquiries are answered, and how satisfied borrowers report being.For families navigating student loan repayment (especially with all the changes), those details can mean the difference between staying current and slipping into delinquency.With more than 42 million Americans holding federal student loans totaling over $1.81 trillion, even slight declines in servicing quality can ripple across household budgets.

A new federal court filing (PDF File) shows that borrowers seeking Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) credit through the buyback process could face waits approaching three years under current processing speeds.The latest status report from the U.S. Department of Education reveals that 86,520 PSLF Buyback applications were still pending as of January 31, 2026. During January, only 2,430 buyback applications were decided.At that pace (and assuming no new applications were submitted) clearing the existing backlog alone would take roughly 35 months. In reality, new requests continue to arrive each month and processing times have varied month-to-month - meaning the wait time could be longer.For public service workers who have already reached or are near 120 qualifying payments, the numbers suggest a long period of uncertainty.

A new report from the Pew Research Center offers one of the most detailed looks at how educational attainment differs across religious groups in America.The findings come from Pew’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, a survey of 36,908 U.S. adults. Because of its large sample size, researchers were able to analyze not only broad religious categories, but also specific denominations within Protestantism and other traditions.The headline finding: Hindus and Jews stand apart by a wide margin.

A federal judge on Friday dismissed the central lawsuit challenging the Biden-era SAVE student loan repayment plan — not because the court endorsed it, but because there is no longer a dispute to decide.The ruling clarifies the legal posture of the case but does not immediately end the administrative forbearance for the roughly 7 million borrowers enrolled in SAVE.The decision (PDF FIle), issued by Judge John A. Ross of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, ends the case State of Missouri v. Trump without prejudice and rejects a joint request from the parties to vacate the SAVE rule outright.The judge notes "that clarity must come from the Department of Education, and not from this Court, which is no longer empowered to weigh the merits of a case that is now moot."

The U.S. Department of Education has announced two new interagency agreements, handing off selected responsibilities to the Departments of State and Health and Human Services. The stated goal: break up federal education bureaucracy, improve efficiency, and return education to the states.As someone who believes deeply in higher education (and in the value of federal student aid programs that expand opportunity), I also believe in an efficient government where tax dollars are spent purposefully to achieve specific goals. That’s why these interagency agreements deserve a closer look.Shifting programs from one federal agency to another does not necessarily make government smaller. It makes it more complex. And if we’re not careful, it may reduce accountability while ignoring the structural reforms that education policy actually needs.

Borrowers who were a part of a years-long legal battle over student loan servicing practices are now seeing tangible results: compensation checks arriving in their mailboxes.According to the CFPB’s website, a third-party administrator began issuing payments on or about February 13, 2026, from a $100 million fund tied to a 2024 enforcement settlement with Navient, one of the nation’s largest former federal student loan servicers. The case accused the company of steering borrowers into repeated forbearances (temporary pauses on payments) even when they qualified for more affordable income-driven repayment plans.For affected borrowers, some of whom report receiving checks in the thousands of dollars, the payments represent long-awaited financial relief.