By Suzanne Blake

Copyright newsweek

The Department of Education updated borrowers on Monday about the status of its application backlog.Many borrowers remain in limbo about the applications for federal student loan forgiveness and repayment programs, and currently there are more than a million applications for income-driven repayment plans that are still unprocessed.Why It MattersMore than 42 million Americans hold a collective $1.7 trillion in student loan debt.While the Department of Education offers several income-driven repayment options to help lower borrowers’ debt balances, the agency has been working to fix its backlog for several months now.U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon prepares to do a live TV interview with Fox News outside of the White House on July 15, 2025 in Washington, DC. What To KnowSecretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a filing on Monday that more than a million applications for IDR plans remain unprocessed.And the backlog for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness credit continues to grow, impacting public service workers who were unable to get the financial help due to deferment or a period of forbearance.The original IDR backlog stood at around 2 million applications earlier in the spring, and the current number falls at 1,076,266 applications. More than 300,000 applications were processed in August.Many borrowers have been waiting six months or longer for a decision, according to Forbes, and other publications reported that the Education Department was planning to reject more than 400,000 IRD applications as the SAVE plan continues to be blocked by legal challenges.The number of PSLF applications has surged to 74,510, up from 72,730 last month. In April, there were less than 50,000 applications pending.At the current rate of procession, it would take the department more than 13 months to get through the entire backlog.“This mess started when the Trump administration essentially hit the panic button and froze all IDR applications earlier this year,” Michael Ryan, a finance expert and the founder of MichaelRyanMoney.com, told Newsweek. “Their excuse? They needed to ‘update the system’ because of ongoing court challenges to the SAVE plan. They threw the baby out with the bathwater, blocking applications for programs that weren’t even under legal challenge.”The American Federation of Teachers previously sued the Education Department in March after all IDR applications were paused, alleging that the shutdown illegally deprived borrowers from gaining student loan forgiveness under IDR and PSLF.“Although the Department began to process pending IDR applications after this case was filed, the slow rate of processing and the lack of transparency with respect to whether processed applications are being correctly approved or denied do not meaningfully address the reality that borrowers are still being denied their statutory rights to affordable payment plans and to debt cancellation,” the AFT said in an amended complaint last week.Newsweek reached out to the Department of Education for comment via email.What People Are SayingDrew Powers, the founder of Illinois-based Powers Financial Group, told Newsweek: “The notion that the rising number of backlogged applications is slowing is of little comfort to student loan borrowers seeking a repayment plan. What the current administration seems to dismiss is that these students borrowed money not only based on the landscape faced when borrowing, but also on what was presented as their then-current options for future affordable repayment and pathways to forgiveness. If we have decided student loan repayment needs to change, then it should change for current borrowers, not past borrowers.”Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek: “While processing for income-driven repayment plan applications has slowly increased, there still remain more than a million submissions in the pipeline, not to mention additional entries for other loan forgiveness programs. The constant legal back-and-forth on the validity of some of these plans has paused processing multiple times, and now, further legal action could be triggered if the remaining claims are not hastily handled.”Ryan told Newsweek: “These are borrowers who played by the rules, chose public service careers, and trusted the government’s promise of loan forgiveness. Now they’re paying the price for administrative incompetence and political gamesmanship.”What Happens NextMany student loan borrowers will likely still have to wait multiple months to get a final decision on their applications.“Regardless of the outcome, the reality for many playing the waiting game with these programs at this point unfortunately appears to be ‘wait longer,’” Beene said.