Is PSLF Going Away? What’s Law, What’s Rule, and What Can Actually Change

PSLF isn’t going away by anything an administration can do on its own. Public Service Loan Forgiveness is written into federal law. Congress created it in 2007, and the law gives the Department of Education an instruction rather than an option: once a borrower has made 120 qualifying monthly payments while working in public service, “The Secretary shall cancel the balance of interest and principal due” on the loans. No regulation, no executive order and no court ruling about a regulation can strike that sentence out of the statute. Changing it takes an act of Congress.

A law that Congress wrote is a law Congress can amend, and the borrower’s own loan paperwork says so plainly. So PSLF could end, and ending it would take legislation. What happened in 2026 is a different and smaller thing. The rules around PSLF were fought over in court, and one of those fights is now in front of two federal appeals courts.

Can PSLF be eliminated?

PSLF cannot be eliminated by the Department of Education acting alone, because Congress wrote it into federal law. Congress could end it by changing that law. It lives at 20 U.S.C. 1087e(m), a section Congress added on September 27, 2007. The statute sets the 120-payment requirement, names the repayment plans whose payments count, and defines a “public service job” to include government work, public education, public health, public safety, public interest law and employment “at an organization that is described in section 501(c)(3)” of the tax code. Those employer categories are in the law itself, not only in the Department’s regulations.

The Department writes the regulations that carry the statute out, currently at 34 CFR 685.219. They fill in definitions and process, and they can’t repeal the section of the law they exist to implement.

Congress did amend PSLF recently. Public Law 119-21, the reconciliation law widely called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, revised the list of qualifying payments in 2025 to add “on-time payments under the Repayment Assistance Plan.” The amendment added a route into forgiveness for borrowers on the new plan. Our explainer on how PSLF actually works covers the mechanics the statute sets.

What’s law, what’s rule, and who can change each?

PSLF reads like one object and works like several. Each layer has a different owner and a different process for change:

Part of PSLF	Where it’s written	Who can change it	Where it stands in 2026
Forgiveness after 120 qualifying payments in public service	Federal statute, 20 U.S.C. 1087e(m)	Congress, by legislation	In force since 2007; amended in 2025 to add a plan
Which kinds of employers count	Statute lists the categories; regulation defines them	Congress for the categories; the Department for the detail, through rulemaking	The long-standing definition governs
Which repayment plans count	Statute lists the routes; 34 CFR 685.219 spells them out	Congress; the Department within the statute’s limits	RAP added by the 2025 law
The “substantial illegal purpose” employer rule	Regulation only	The Department by rulemaking; the courts on review	Vacated June 30, 2026; appealed August 27, 2026
How qualifying months are counted and credited	Regulation plus day-to-day administration	The Department	Counts were adjusted during 2026
Whether PSLF forgiveness is taxed	Federal tax law	Congress	Still excluded from federal income tax

The tax row has its own answer in our piece on whether PSLF forgiveness is taxable. PSLF also sits beside the other federal programs in our guide to federal student loan forgiveness in 2026, which several of the 2026 changes touched.

What can the Department change without Congress?

The Department of Education can change two things about PSLF without Congress.

The first is regulation. The Department can propose a rule, take public comment and issue a final rule, and that rule has legal force unless a court sets it aside. The employer-eligibility rule finalized in October 2025 is the clearest recent example, and we covered what it would have done in our explainer on the July 2026 employer rule. Even that rule, the most aggressive change to PSLF eligibility the Department has attempted, was written to look forward rather than backward: credit would have stopped only “for any month subsequent to a determination” that an employer had a substantial illegal purpose.

The second is administration, which is quieter and reaches borrowers faster. Counting months, crediting payments, processing forms and answering disputes are all day-to-day operations, and 2026 has been a hard year for them. The Department reduced qualifying-payment counts on some borrowers’ accounts during the summer and gave shifting explanations for it, which we tracked in detail in our post on the PSLF payment counts that dropped. The regulation provides a reconsideration process with a 90-day deadline, and that post explains how it works.

A borrower’s forgiveness depends on the Department’s record of their months, and a record can be wrong in either direction without any rule changing at all.

Is the PSLF employer rule coming back?

The PSLF employer rule is in front of two federal appeals courts, and it is not in force while they consider it.

Two federal district courts struck the rule down. Judge Myong J. Joun of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated it in full on June 30, 2026, the day before it was to take effect, and a second federal court in Washington, D.C. reached the same result. We covered both rulings in our post on the employer rule being struck down.

The College Investor reported on August 27, 2026 that the government filed notices of appeal in both cases that day, sending the Massachusetts case to the First Circuit and the D.C. case to the D.C. Circuit. NASFAA reported the First Circuit appeal the following day and stated the practical position for borrowers: “The vacatur remains in effect while the appeal is pending.” We have not read the court dockets ourselves. The account here rests on those two reports.

The employer definition that applied before June 30 governs today, so a government or 501(c)(3) employer that qualified then qualifies now. And an appeal isn’t a reversal. If an appeals court were to revive the rule, the Department would still have to act under it, and the rule’s own text only stopped credit for months after a determination.

The official regulation website still prints the vacated rule inside 34 CFR 685.219, including the “substantial illegal purpose” definitions, with nothing on the page noting the court rulings. A borrower who reads the regulation directly will see a rule the courts have set aside.

Has anyone tried to end PSLF before?

Yes, and each elimination proposal we can document was written to apply to loans made after a future date.

The Department’s own fiscal year 2021 budget request proposed “eliminating Public Service Loan Forgiveness” along with subsidized Stafford loans and certain guaranty-agency fees. The same document limited its reach: the student-loan policies in it “would apply to loans originated on or after July 1, 2021,” with an exception for students already borrowing to finish their program. The Congressional Budget Office costed the idea in December 2020 as one of its budget options, describing two alternatives that “would apply to federal student loans taken out by new borrowers.” CBO scores budget options and makes no recommendations on them.

The most recent attempt was narrower. When the House education committee approved its reconciliation package in April 2025, CBO’s estimate of that bill described a provision under which residency payments by new graduate doctors and dentists “would not be counted toward” the 120 PSLF requires. The PSLF section of the law Congress enacted contains no such exclusion.

Meanwhile the program keeps running. The Department’s fiscal year 2027 budget documents describe PSLF as a continuing program and report that more than 1.2 million borrowers had received PSLF or TEPSLF forgiveness as of January 31, 2026, worth $90.6 billion.

Can Congress end PSLF for borrowers already working toward it?

Congress can amend PSLF, and no document a borrower holds promises that a future change would spare people already working toward forgiveness.

The Borrower’s Rights and Responsibilities Statement that accompanies the federal student loan promissory note addresses it directly. It says the terms of the loan are set by the Higher Education Act “as amended,” and then: “Depending on the effective date of the amendment, amendments to the Act may modify or remove a benefit that existed at the time that you signed this MPN.” That’s the Department’s own language in the borrower’s own loan paperwork. It doesn’t promise that a benefit in place when someone borrowed will still be there later.

The elimination proposals we can document were written to apply to loans made after a future date, which left borrowers already in repayment where they were. Congress has never enacted one. A pattern in past drafting isn’t a commitment about a future bill.

What should you do while the appeals play out?

Keep the record clean, because the record is the part you control.

The statute requires qualifying employment during each of the 120 payments and at forgiveness, so your certification record has to cover the whole period. Writing about the appeals, The College Investor told borrowers to “keep certifying employment as usual.” Keep your own copies of employment certifications, payment history and any notices about your count.

Check the count the Department shows against what you’ve kept. If the two disagree, the reconsideration process exists for that, and our post on the PSLF on-time payment rule and the payment-count post both cover it. Your own file is the record you’ll point to if a month is disputed.

Where Finnita fits

Finnita is a specialist student loan enrollment service that focuses exclusively on federal repayment and forgiveness programs. We’re offered through an employer, and the borrower comes to us; borrowers pay for the service, and employers pay nothing. We enroll customers in the federal programs they qualify for and handle the recertification that keeps them enrolled.

Nobody outside Congress and the courts decides whether PSLF continues. Our work is the enrollment itself: filing it, and handling the annual recertification before the date passes.

Only 5% of PSLF-eligible borrowers succeed on their own. The Finnita figures that follow are service-wide aggregates across all customers and all programs, not projections for any individual. Finnita customers save an average of $468/month across all enrollees. 98% of Finnita customers are successfully enrolled. 100% refund if we can’t enroll you. Borrowers can see their projected savings in about 60 seconds.

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Frequently asked questions

Is PSLF going away in 2026?

No, not by anything an administration can do on its own. PSLF is part of federal law, at 20 U.S.C. 1087e(m), and it takes legislation to end it. Congress amended the program in 2025 to add the Repayment Assistance Plan to the list of qualifying payments, and the Department of Education’s fiscal year 2027 budget documents describe PSLF as a continuing program. The fights in 2026 have been about regulations and administration.

Can a President end PSLF by executive order?

No. An executive order directs the executive branch and does not amend a statute. What an administration can do is write regulations through rulemaking and run the program day to day. The employer-eligibility rule was the regulatory route, and two federal courts have vacated it.

Will I lose PSLF if the rules change?

Congress can change PSLF by amending the law, and the borrower’s own loan paperwork says so: the Borrower’s Rights and Responsibilities Statement that accompanies the promissory note says an amendment can remove a benefit a borrower had when they signed, depending on its effective date. Every elimination proposal we can document was drafted to apply to loans made after a future date, and none was enacted. A future bill is a separate question.

Can an appeals court put the PSLF employer rule back in force?

It could. The rule is on appeal and is not in force while the appeals run. The government filed notices of appeal on August 27, 2026, according to The College Investor, sending one case to the First Circuit and the other to the D.C. Circuit. NASFAA reported that “The vacatur remains in effect while the appeal is pending.” Until an appeals court rules otherwise, employers qualify under the definition that was in place before June 30, 2026.

Why does the PSLF regulation still show the employer rule?

The text of the vacated rule is still printed in 34 CFR 685.219 on the eCFR site, with no note about the litigation. A federal court in Massachusetts vacated that rule on June 30, 2026, a second federal court in Washington, D.C. reached the same result, and the vacatur stands while the appeals proceed. If a borrower’s employer is a government agency or a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, that employer qualifies today, under the definition the rule never replaced.