Get on track for PSLF and certify every month you have earned

  1. Pull your complete federal loan record from StudentAid.gov
    25 min

    This step produces your complete federal loan inventory — every loan's type, disbursement dates, balance, interest rate, and current servicer — with each non-Direct loan flagged for action. The trap: the loan's name decides everything, and loans disbursed before July 1, 2010 are often FFEL or Perkins, which do not count toward PSLF as they stand.

    1. Go to StudentAid.gov and sign in with your FSA ID (no FSA ID yet? Step 4 of this phase creates one).
    2. Open My Aid from the dashboard — the loan list shows each loan’s type, servicer, balance, interest rate, and disbursement dates.
    3. Select View Details on any loan to open its full record.
    4. Save a permanent copy: use Download My Data on the NSLDS portal at nslds.ed.gov, or print each loan’s detail page to a PDF from your browser.
    5. Copy every loan into your own table: type, balance, rate, servicer, first disbursement, and current status.

    What each loan type means for PSLF

    • Direct Subsidized, Direct Unsubsidized, Direct PLUS, Direct Consolidation — count as they are.
    • Any Stafford, PLUS, or Consolidation loan disbursed on or after July 1, 2010 — automatically a Direct loan; counts.
    • FFEL Stafford, FFEL PLUS, Federal Perkins, HEAL — do not count; they must be consolidated before any payment on them can ever count.
    • Rule of thumb: if the name does not start with Direct, flag it in your table.