The Education Department processed more IDR applications in March than in any month since tracking began on a court order, reducing the pending backlog to 553,966. This is down from 576,609 in February and nearly 2 million in April 2025.
march status report (PDF file), filed today in federal court, also shows that IDR loan forgiveness has resumed after two consecutive months of zero payments.
What’s new: Two things emerged in the March figures. In a first, the department processed 424,583 applications – the highest number recorded in a month under the court order. This increased the number of new incoming applications by more than 103,000, reducing the backlog despite an increase in new filings.
Second and more important for affected borrowers: IDR waiver is back. Both the January and February reports showed zero discharges, raising concerns among advocates and borrowers who qualified for loan cancellation under income-driven schemes. In March, 21,200 borrowers were discharged: mainly split between income-based repayment (10,500) and the basic income contingent repayment scheme (9,900).
PSLF Buyback Problem: While the IDR backlog is shrinking, the PSLF buyback queue continues to grow. Pending applications rose to 89,720 and the department took decisions on only 3,280 in March. At that pace, borrowers at the back of the line face waits measured in years, not months. The department processed 10,050 PSLF discharges during the month.
What this means for borrowers: If you have recently applied for the IDR scheme studentaid.govYour application is likely to be processed within a few days. The backlog primarily affects older applications (many from early 2025 during the SAVE plan chaos) that require manual review or servicer coordination. If your application is pending for months, contact your loan servicer directly for a status update. This is also a big reason for more rejections: these older applications are likely to be rejected.
The withdrawal of IDR loan waiver is good news for borrowers who have fulfilled their repayment obligations and were waiting for cancellation. It’s unclear whether March’s 21,200 represents catch-up or a return to normal processing.
How it connects: College Investor has tracked every monthly status report since the court order began. The IDR backlog has fallen from nearly 2 million to less than 554,000, a decrease of approximately 72%. But as we reported last month, the PSLF buyback backlog is a huge wait. Even these faster processing times can still mean a wait of 2.5 years for civil servants in the queue.
Borrowers need to ask themselves, is the PSLF buyback worth it?
what to watch: See if IDR backlog continues to decline as 7 million SAVE borrowers change plans. Also keep watching to see if the PSLF buyback process continues to accelerate.
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