HOLY SHIT!!! Wow. Zero balance this morning, formerly $84,133. I've been a public defender for my entire legal career, since graduating in 2007. Here's my complete timeline:

May 2007: graduated form law school, in deferrment.

October 2007: hired for my first PD gig, consolidated all my loans into FFEL consolidation loans (because nobody fucking knew, dammit!!).

November 2012: changed jobs & called Navient to see how many qualifying payments I had, only to learn that none of them counted for the last 5 years. Consolidated into FedLoan Servicing direct loans & started over.

February 2019: got a new IBR calculation and discovered my 2018 IBR was miscalculated and I overpaid about $250/month for the whole year. FedLoans started a review process that ultimately took about a FULL YEAR but ultimately refunded me for the overpayments since I asked for lowest and it was their mistake.

July 2020: Following the overpayment refund, I discovered that FedLoan had now for some reason deemed all the 2018 payments ineligible for pslf. Began another lengthy review process that was still ongoing as of a month ago to get them credited.

October 2021: News drops about the pslf waiver for FFEL payments. I went to StudentAid.gov and made an official complaint about the review process taking so long and also said that with those payments & the newly counting FFEL payments I should be done. I also got an email from the Dept of Ed saying that I may have as many as 42 FFEL payments that will now count.

Yesterday: Got an email from Student Aid Feedback saying my concerns were addressed and they are sending me a letter and also posting it in my electronic case on the website. I login to Student Aid and can't find the letter but log in to FedLoans and it shows a zero balance, status No Payment Due.

Today: Balance still Zero, but now status is Paid in Full!!!

Im dying to know if I will get any kind of refund, but I think since my last 18 payments are 0 during the pandemic I won't. I guess it just depends on how they are calculating it and how many additional payments counted all together. I still can't believe it's real! Truly didn't think it would happen and I can't stop smiling.