The Education Department has taken steps in recent weeks that may make harder for borrowers pursuing student loan forgiveness to reach their end goal of a discharge. Through administrative actions, legal appeals, and regulatory implementation, the department seems to be sending a clear message to borrowers that if you want to get your student loans forgiven, it may be tougher now than it was before. And things may be getting even harder.

While borrowers are still able to get their student loans discharged, and the department continues the grant people loan forgiveness under popular programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness, the future is as uncertain as ever. Here’s a breakdown of what’s going on, and what borrowers should know.

Education Department Takes Big Step To Reinstate Restrictions For Student Loans On Track For PSLF

Borrowers celebrated a major victory earlier this summer when two separate federal courts ruled that the Education Department’s proposed regulations to limit relief under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, or PSLF, were unlawful. The department, in response to an executive order issued by President Trump last year, had drafted new rules that would give U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon sweeping powers to disqualify employers from the program if, in her determination, the employer was engaged in activities that had a “substantial illegal purpose.” Borrowers working for such an employer would be cut off from student loan forgiveness, with no right of appeal.

Nonprofit groups, labor unions, state governments, and municipalities filed lawsuits against the Education Department, arguing that the new PSLF rules were illegal. Congress did not give the department any such authority in the statutes governing the PSLF program, they argued. And the regulations, if implemented, could allow the department to target........

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