Get Refunded For Student Loan Payments Made During The Pandemic (2024)

Federal student loan payments have been paused for borrowers since March 2020. While borrowers have long been allowed to request refunds of any payments made during the payment freeze, few people seemed to know about that benefit.

Now, this refund opportunity is even more important after the Biden administration made a historic announcement: It will forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loans per borrower who earn less than $125,000 (or $250,000 per household). If you made student loan payments during the payment freeze to take advantage of the 0% interest waiver and paid off your loans, you could be eligible for a refund of those payments and still qualify for loan forgiveness.

Here’s how to get a student loan refund.

Who Is Eligible for a Refund?

You may get a refund if you made payments during the payment freeze on an eligible federal student loan. Eligible loans include:

• Direct subsidized loans
• Direct unsubsidized loans
• Parent PLUS loans
• Grad PLUS loans
• Direct consolidation loans
• Federal Perkins loans held by the U.S. Department of Education (ED)
• Federal Family Education Loans (FFELs) held by the ED
• Defaulted FFEL loans not held by the ED
• Defaulted Health Education Assistance Loans (HEAL) loans

Loans that didn’t qualify for the payment freeze include:

• Nondefaulted FFEL loans not held by the ED
• Federal Perkins loans not held by the ED
• Nondefaulted HEAL loans
• Private student loans

To get a refund, you must have made a payment on an eligible loan between March 13, 2020 and December 31, 2022.

Should I Request a Refund?

While getting your payments back can seem like a great perk, not everyone should request a refund. During the federal payment freeze, interest rates were set at 0%, so the full amount of your payments went toward your loan principal rather than interest charges. Making payments during this time helped you chip away at your debt and save a substantial amount of money.

However, there are some cases where requesting a student loan refund can make sense:

You Have Immediate Financial Needs

Over the past two years, your circ*mstances may have changed. You may have medical bills, a new baby or you may have relocated for another job. If you need cash to cover essential expenses or to pay off high-interest debt, requesting a refund and using your student loan payments to pay for those issues could be useful.

You’re Eligible for the New Loan Forgiveness Program

Under President Biden’s new forgiveness program, federal student loan borrowers who earn less than $125,000 (or $250,000 per household) will see their balances drop by $10,000. Borrowers that received Pell Grants are eligible for up to $20,000 in forgiveness if they meet the same income requirements.

If you made payments and paid off your federal student loans during the federal payment freeze—or reduced your balance to less than the forgiveness amount—you can get a refund of your payments to maximize the value of this forgiveness opportunity.

For example, let’s say you had $10,000 in federal student loans in March 2020. Due to the 0% interest rate, you decided to pay back your loans aggressively and made extra payments throughout the pandemic. Today, your loan balance is $2,000. If you’re eligible for Biden’s forgiveness plan and didn’t take any action, you’d qualify for just $2,000 in loan cancellation.

But if you qualify for a refund, you could potentially get $8,000 of your payments returned to you. With your student loan balance returned to $10,000, the government would forgive that full amount. Thanks to this program, you’d get $8,000 in cash to use for your other financial goals—and you’ll still be free of student loans.

Update:As of October 2022, the Department of Education has updated its guidelines about refunds for student loan payments. If you made voluntary payments between March 13, 2020 and Dec. 31, 2022 and your current loan balance is less than your maximum forgiveness amount, you will receive automatic refunds for your payments after you’re approved for student loan forgiveness. No further action is needed—you only need to submit the simple forgiveness application online. Find more info about refunds on StudentAid.gov.

How to Request a Refund for Student Loan Payments

To request a refund of student loan payments that you made during the pandemic, you must contact your loan servicer. If you aren’t sure who your loan servicer is—and it may have changed in the last two years—you can sign into your account dashboard on the Federal Student Aid site to find out. Or, you can call the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-433-3243.

Once you know who your loan servicer is, call the company directly. Below are the phone numbers for each of the federal loan servicers:

• FedLoan Servicing: 1-800-699-2908
• Great Lakes Educational Loan Services: 1-800-236-4300
• Edfinancial: 1-855-337-6884
• MOHELA: 1-888-866-4352
• Aidvantage: 1-800-722-1300
• Nelnet: 1-888-486-4722
• OSLA Servicing: 1-866-264-9762
• ECSI: 1-866-313-3797
• Default Resolution Group: 1-800-621-3115 (TTY: 1-877-825-9923 for the deaf or hard of hearing)

Be prepared to give the customer service representative your account number and a list of what payments you want refunded. If possible, include transaction numbers for each one and dates when the payments were made.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Have more questions? Check out our comprehensive student loan forgiveness FAQs.