Grabar Law Office has filed a second class action against the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency for illegally extending student loan payoff durations to generate extra servicing fees and interest payments from 2009 to the present. As alleged in the complaint, since 2009, the PHEAA, which is one of four primary servicers of federal student loan debt, delayed or failed to process applications under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education grant program. These programs are designed to make higher education more affordable for public servants by providing financial assistance to reduce the burden of their student loans, and they include complete forgiveness of federal student debt for borrowers who commit to 10 years of qualifying public service employment.
Plaintiff in this action, a resident of Spokane, Washington, borrowed federal student loans to pay for her post graduate education. Plaintiff began working for an authorized 501(C)(3) entity under the Public Loan Forgiveness (“PLSF”) program. Despite making timely payments and meeting all of the requisite criteria, FedLoan miscounted the number of qualifying payments made by Plaintiff during the period of qualifying employment. Based on when Plaintiff met all of the PSLF criteria, plaintiff made thirty-one (31) qualified payments. Yet, as of January 2018, only five (5) payments were correctly calculated by FedLoan, despite Plaintiff having sent recertification in December 2017 reflecting a start date of June 2015 and having made timely payments under the IDR plan. Moreover, in January 2018, FedLoan spoke directly with Plaintiff’s Human Resources Department to verify Plaintiff’s employment start date. As alleged in the complaint, Defendant PHEAA’s failure to correctly process Plaintiff’s loan payments has resulted in a loss of credit for what otherwise would have been years of qualified payments under the PSLF program, thereby significantly extending the duration of her student loans.
The case is brought on behalf of all persons whose student loans were serviced by FedLoan and who enrolled in an Alternative Loan Repayment Programs during the period of at least January 1, 2009 through the present (“the Class Period”).
The case is Arielle Anderson v. Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, 18-cv-1378(E.D.Pa.).
If you have a FedLoan serviced through PHEAA and are having issues with respect to student loan payments or forgiveness, contact us today!
