How Federal Student Loan Payment Processing Works

Credit Reporting

Information about your student loans is reported to the four nationwide consumer reporting agencies. Based on the information provided, each individual consumer reporting agency uses their own unique scoring model to determine your FICO credit score.

These credit reporting practices apply to all student loans that are owned by the Department of Education.

• We will begin to report a loan delinquent once it is 90 days or more past due on the last date of the month.

• We report to the consumer reporting agencies (CRA's) monthly, with the status as of the last day of every month. Monthly reporting excludes loans that were previously reported in a final credit reporting status (for example, paid in full, transferred, etc.) and loans where credit reporting is bypassed or deleted. Please note the CRA's need time to update reporting once we have reported information to them.

• We will report each individual loan to the consumer reporting agencies as one unique tradeline that will appear on your credit report.

• We are not authorized to complete "goodwill requests" for credit updates, per the directive of Federal Student Aid.

For more information, visit mohela.studentaid.gov/credit.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Buyback

Due to changes in PSLF regulations, you can now buy back certain months of your payment history to make them qualifying payments for PSLF. Specifically, you can buy back months that do not count as qualifying payments because you were in an ineligible deferment or forbearance status.

The buyback opportunity is only available if you already have 120 months of qualifying employment and buying back months in forbearance or deferment would result in forgiveness under PSLF or Temporary Expanded PSLF (TEPSLF). Please note: The PSLF program is managed by the U.S. Department of Education, not MOHELA. To learn more about next steps, and general information on the program, visit Studentaid.gov/PSLFbuyback.