Teachers Union Sues Education Department Over PSLF Backlog: Nearly 90,000 Buyback Requests Pending
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and nine student loan borrowers filed a proposed class action on October 30 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the U.S. Department of Education and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, accusing the department of delaying Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) "buyback" determinations, failing to credit borrowers for time worked in public service, and clawing back time it had already credited. The case, No. 1:26-cv-03826, names AFT President Randi Weingarten as lead plaintiff in her official capacity.
Congress created PSLF in 2007: after ten years of public service work and 120 qualifying payments, a borrower's remaining federal student loan debt is forgiven. The buyback mechanism lets borrowers pay for months spent in deferment or forbearance so those months count toward the 120 payments — the route many borrowers placed into the SAVE plan forbearance in the summer of 2024 must use to reclaim that time.
Citing the department's own status reports filed in a separate case, the complaint says pending buyback applications nearly doubled, from 49,318 in April 2025 to 89,720 in March 2026, and that about 88,000 requests were still pending as of April 30, 2026. During that period the department decided roughly 1,472 requests per month; even at its fastest demonstrated pace, and with no new applications, clearing the backlog would take more than 18 months, the complaint says. Some borrowers have waited close to two years: Antonio Lozada, a Florida government lawyer who owes about $191,000 and had reached 116 of 120 qualifying payments, filed his buyback application in November 2024 and, nearly 24 months later, has no determination; David Petley, a critical care pharmacist at a rural Oregon hospital who owes about $338,000, has waited about 18 months since filing in May 2025.
The complaint also alleges that, beginning in August 2026, the department sent borrowers "Qualifying Payment Reduction Update" notices permanently cutting payment counts it had previously awarded: Elizabeth Schoepflin, a New York speech-language pathologist who had been told she had reached 120 payments, had 14 months removed, and another plaintiff, Renee Johnson, saw her count fall from 118 to 114. The AFT says the department is "trapping in debt borrowers whose loans should be forgiven," and asks the court to order the department to process applications, restore credit and cancel the loans of eligible borrowers; the suit seeks no money damages.
For its part, the department has said the count corrections stem from "coding errors" that needed fixing. A department spokesperson told CNBC the errors were made by the previous administration and resulted in inaccurate payment counts for some borrowers, and that the department remains committed to ensuring every qualifying payment is properly credited. The case is at an early stage and the court has not ruled.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于华盛顿的美国教育部总部 Lyndon Baines Johnson 大楼入口（资料图）。G. Edward Johnson 摄，CC BY 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / The entrance of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C. (file photo). Photo by G. Edward Johnson, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
