PSLF buyback backlog still doesn’t show much improvement in March 2026

Now for part two, let's talk about public service loan forgiveness buyback. So, here's the latest status report numbers for public service loan forgiveness buyback. As you can see, they received 4,600 applications and they actually processed 3,200, which is one of the highest that we have ever seen. But, it's really important to look that 2,700 were approved and over what? 570 were denied, either because they were denied or had missing information. So, that's really important because if you are counting on buyback, that's a pretty high denial rate and you need to be aware of it. With that being said, the buyback grew a little to 89,720. And guys, if they keep up this higher pace of 3,200 applications, that's still almost a 28-month waiting period. So, we're down from the 36 months, but that's still over two years. So, you need to be aware of that waitlist because also, if you are entering student loan repayment again and you're getting qualifying payments, you might knock out 12 qualifying payments before you get to that 27-month mark, you have no buyback. It's not going to get processed because you're finished PSLF the normal way. Cool stuff here at the bottom as well, over 10,000 people got their public service loan forgiveness in March. So, the regular PSLF program is running just as expected. Like I said, we're expecting to see 100 to 150,000 people get PSLF in 2026 and we're tracking right on that trajectory. So, let me know your thoughts. Are you stuck in PSLF buyback limbo? Have you already switched to a new repayment plan? Because I don't know how much of this backlog is actually going to get processed and I think we're going to see more and more move to the denied pile simply because people are resuming payments. But, I'd love to know your thoughts and as always, like, subscribe and follow The College Investor here and send this to a friend that needs to know it.