Student Loan

How to Get MOHELA Student Loan Forgiveness

Jan 31, 2022 3 years ago

Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) is one of a handful of federal student loan servicers that manages the $1.73 trillion federal student loan debt portfolio. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Education recently announced MOHELA will take over managing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) and TEACH Grant programs.

If you have federal student loans, there’s a chance you’ve already dealt with MOHELA or will in the future. Therefore, it’s important to stay on top of your available repayment strategies — especially when it comes to loan forgiveness.

To clarify, there aren’t any exclusive MOHELA student loan forgiveness programs.

But there are various federal loan forgiveness programs that MOHELA borrowers might qualify for.

Here’s what you need to know about your MOHELA loan forgiveness options.

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1. A quick note about MOHELA and its role with student loans 2. MOHELA loan forgiveness programs for federal loans 3. Other student loan forgiveness programs to explore

A quick note about MOHELA and its role with student loans

MOHELA has worked with student loans for several decades as a private lender.

It has been a relatively small player as a federal loan servicer. But in December 2021, the Department of Education announced that MOHELA will be taking over the PSLF and Teach Grant programs from FedLoan Servicing.

Some FedLoan accounts have already began transferring to MOHELA. However, the remainder of accounts enrolled in PSLF and all TEACH Grant recipients will be transferred sometime in 2022.

Additionally, MOHELA could take on a significant share of borrowers who are on income-driven repayment (IDR) plans. Therefore, it would be responsible for more loans that might eventually qualify for loan forgiveness.

Currently, MOHELA only manages a small portion of IDR plans.

This portion is so small that the Department of Education bundles this loan servicer with other nonprofit servicers when reporting data.

For example, the Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE) program has more than $194.9 billion outstanding for more than 3.28 million borrowers as of the second quarter of 2021. Nonprofit servicers as a whole (not just MOHELA) only service about $10.6 billion of outstanding loans on REPAYE. This equates to roughly 300,000 borrowers.

So, it’ll be interesting to see how MOHELA handles this major transition, including what share of repayment plans they’ll take on with such big changes in loan servicers.

MOHELA loan forgiveness programs for federal loans

If you have federal student loans with MOHELA, here are some forgiveness options to thoroughly explore.

1. Public Service Loan Forgiveness

Public Service Loan Forgiveness allows borrowers to earn tax-free loan forgiveness in as little as 10 years.

To be eligible for PSLF, you must:

Work full-time for a qualifying employer in the public or nonprofit sector.
Make 120 payments under a qualifying repayment plan.
Have eligible Direct Loans (or consolidate your loans with a Direct Consolidation Loan).

You can use the new PSLF Help Tool on the federal student aid website to help you submit your Employment Certification Form (ECF) and apply for forgiveness.

Note that FedLoan Servicing currently still manages the majority of PSLF accounts. However, MOHELA will take over in 2022 (an exact timeline hasn’t been announced).

2. Income-driven repayment forgiveness

IDR plans can lower your monthly student loan payments by capping your payment at 10% to 20% of your discretionary income. But they can also make you eligible for MOHELA loan forgiveness after 20 to 25 years of qualifying payments.

Popular federal student loan repayment options include:

REPAYE
Pay As You Earn (PAYE)
Income-Based Repayment (IBR)
Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR)

These plans require recertification of your income and family size each year in order to determine your monthly payment.

Keep in mind that IDR loan forgiveness will be taxed, so it’s important you begin saving for this eventual tax bomb.

3.
Teacher Loan Forgiveness

Teachers might be eligible to receive up to $17,500 of MOHELA student loan forgiveness by using the Teacher Loan Forgiveness program.

However, this program has some caveats and limitations that teachers should be aware of.

For instance, the full $17,500 of forgiveness is only available to “highly qualified” math and science teachers at the secondary level and special education teachers — other teachers max out loan forgiveness at $5,000.

Most teachers are better off pursuing PSLF for total loan forgiveness.

4. Alternative forgiveness options

Depending on your situation, you might be eligible to have your MOHELA student loans canceled through one of these alternative provisions:

Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) discharge. You must have documentation showing you meet disability discharge requirements from one of three sources: the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Social Security Administration or a physician.
Closed school discharge. You might be eligible for discharge if your school closes while you’re enrolled or soon after you withdraw.
Death discharge.
The federal government will forgive a borrower’s student loans in the case of death. The same applies if a parent who has Parent PLUS loans passes away.

StudentAid.gov details additional situations that could result in having your loans forgiven, canceled or discharged.

Other student loan forgiveness programs to explore

Even if you plan on pursuing MOHELA loan forgiveness through federal programs, you might meet eligibility requirements for other state- or profession-based loan forgiveness programs that might include federal and private student loans.

Many states have established student loan repayment programs designed to boost employment in certain regions or professions.

For example, some nursing loans can be forgiven in exchange for working in an underserved area. There are even programs to help wipe away law school debt.

If you need help figuring out the best repayment plan — which might include loan forgiveness — our student debt experts can create a custom plan for you.

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