As is customary, the numbers were buried in a Monday court document that hardly anyone outside of student loan circles bothered to look at. However, the Department of Education’s most recent status report reads less like bureaucratic housekeeping and more like a slow-motion drama taking place in spreadsheet form for the borrowers awaiting a decision that could eliminate tens of thousands of dollars in debt.
The department reported an 88,170 PSLF buyback application backlog as of February 28. That figure was 83,370 two months prior. Therefore, despite the department’s insistence that it is making progress elsewhere, the pile is increasing rather than decreasing. Officials considered 2,520 of the 4,180 new buyback applications they received in February alone. It’s not really necessary to comment on the math. The line continues to grow longer.
Strangely, income-driven repayment presents a different picture. In February, ED reviewed 243,258 IDR applications and selected 329,169. Since December, the backlog has decreased by over 150,000. When you consider that the backlog is still at 576,609, the figure seems almost encouraging, as if a machine has finally begun to move. It’s similar to using a teacup to empty a bathtub. Technically, progress.
The difference between the two programs is difficult to ignore. IDR processing feels like an operation that has been coerced, prodded, and possibly even threatened into working. It feels different on the buyback side. slower. more entangled. In order to process a single form, public servants who have already dedicated ten years of their lives to the federal government are now giving it an additional year, sometimes two. There’s a feeling that this was approved by someone, somewhere.
Separate reporting of the April figures complicates matters in a way that may reveal more than the department intended. For the first time, ED reports that it decided 6,870 buyback applications compared to 4,790 new requests. If you accept the figure at face value, it’s a minor victory. Then, almost as an aside, officials stated that between 18,000 and 19,000 of the approximately 88,000 pending applications are probably duplicates. This implies that a significant portion of those “decisions” might have been the bureaucratic equivalent of removing the same name from the list twice.
Additionally, borrowers have been quick to draw attention to another issue. People frequently describe the same experience in online forums and comment threads: they apply for a buyback, wait months, keep making payments out of sheer exhaustion, and then receive a congratulatory email when they reach 120 qualifying payments through regular channels. All of a sudden, the buyback request is closed. Resolved. finished. It’s another matter entirely whether the department took any real action to address the issue.
The system might be operating more effectively than the optics indicate. It’s also possible that a lot of work is being done by the optics. Both are likely to be true simultaneously. Transparency had become a casualty of a system collapsing under its own weight, which is why the agreement that resulted in these monthly reports was created. It was the result of a lawsuit filed by the American Federation of Teachers. The reports are useful. They also show how much needs to be fixed.
As you watch this develop, it seems as though the buyback program was never intended to handle the volume that is currently being thrown at it. For borrowers who had been miscounted by the system, failed by servicers, or forced into forbearance during a pandemic that disrupted everyone’s recordkeeping, it served as a side door and remedy. The front door was unable to handle the foot traffic coming through that side door. It’s still unclear if the department will catch up before the next political shift completely rewrites the rules. One filing at a time, the numbers continue to come in for the time being.
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