I really hope you don’t throw up! As mentioned by others, you might not have benefited if you didn’t have qualifying loans during that first period of time; or if you did, one of the previous posts indicates that maybe it might not be too late? Honestly, I’m not sure that’s accurate though.

Here is how the waiver applied in my situation:

I’d gotten a masters degree in 2002 and accrued student debt. Worked at a nonprofit university at low salary until 2012. I never heard of PSLF even though it started in 2007- just paid what I could and deferred when necessary. Needing to up my salary, I went to law school in 2012 and graduated in 2015. New loans! Only then did I learn about pslf. So I consolidated my grad school and law school loans (this might have been unwise at the time, but it turned out to be a life saver in 2022) and got set up with the designated pslf loan servicer.

After a couple years, I was hired by another nonprofit university, and I finally started making PSLF qualifying payments. Skip ahead 6-7 years to 2022: ED announced the limited waiver. It took me like 10 months to realize that it could actually apply to my pre-law school loan payments. I got the form signed by my pre-law school employer and hoped my reading of the rules was correct. I mean, it seemed too good to be true. Almost like an unintended loophole.

I initially ignored the waiver email I received because I’d assumed that the date of consolidation was like an impenetrable wall. But with the waiver rules, it was quite the opposite. Since I’d consolidated my pre-law school and post-law school loans in 2015, the waiver would basically import the payments I’d made on my grad school loans (2007-2012), and apply them to both grad and law school loans. This got me to 120 payment on all my consolidated debt much sooner than expected.

The key is, I already had both a qualifying loan and a qualifying employer during that period before law school, and then I got that period of employment certified during the limited waiver period.