From October 2011 to February 2025, I paid my student loans down from $57,500 to $24,500. I probably paid about $18,000 to $20,000 in interest.
In October 2024, I applied for the Temporary Extended Public Student Loan Forgiveness (TEPSLF) program. If you have 120 payments while working full-time for a public non-profit, you can qualify. I got an update on my application on February 14th stating that I qualified and my student loans are forgiven. I logged into my student loan account today and they are all gone. It's actually showing a refund is due.
They recognized my 10-years of payments from October 2011 to October 2021. It looks like March 2020 to October 2021 counts as qualifying payments even though all student loan payments were suspended during that time.
I started making payments again October 2023 and my last payment was February 2025. I'm getting a refund check for $3400 because my last payment should have been October 2021.
My goal was to be worth 1 million before I paid off my student loans. We are at 1.7 million, so I guess I achieved my goal.
This loan forgiveness program is probably the only one that makes sense as it is not a giveaway for nothing....it is an inducement and essentially part of benefits package to attract and retain employees.
That said and good for you, the bolded part is ridiculous and another example of how dumb the federal government is. No payment is not a payment and shouldn't be counted as such, and there shouldn't be a refund. Surely you would have reached the milestone anyway and if it me I would be happy about it as well and certainly wouldn't complain.
In a more reasonable country (like Norway) they'd realize that educating the masses is a net benefit and not try to profit on it. Glad this worked out but still think it's ridiculous that you went in to debt becoming a more valuable asset for the country LOL
This argument is only partially true - yes, Norway provides free tuition/fees but there is still housing and other related costs and Norway is quite expensive. Most in-state tuitions throughout the US are not prohibitively expensive (and some even are free based on good grades) but all the other costs such as fees, books, meals and especially housing add a lot to the total, and I am sure it does in Norway also. There is also community college that in many states is free or very low cost.
Also, Norway has like 5.5mil population and probably 5% of that are college age in geography about the size of most states, and states are what provide higher education so voters could advance that if it were important to them (but it would come with higher taxes). And just like in the US, there are private universities that are full pay in Norway.
So its not as simple as you say.
