Borrowers and advocates watching the American Federation of Teachers v. U.S. Department of Education docket may be wondering where June’s student loan status report is. The answer: there isn’t one, and there was never supposed to be.
The monthly status reports became one of the few public windows into how fast the Department of Education was processing income-driven repayment (IDR) applications and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) buybacks.
With the court-agreed upon requirement now satisfied, that window may close — at least until a federal judge decides whether it should stay open.
Catch-Up
Under the October 23, 2025 order (PDF File), the Department agreed to file exactly six status reports. The first was due 30 days after the federal government’s appropriations lapse ended, with each subsequent report due every 30 days after that.
That schedule produced six filings, dated December 15, January 14, February 13, March 16, April 15, and May 13 (with a supplemental follow-up May 19). The sixth report on May 13 was the last one the settlement required.
No June report was missed, because none was owed.
What The Reports Covered
Each report had to disclose, for the prior calendar month:
- IDR applications received, pending, and decided (with approvals and denials where possible)
- The number of borrowers whose loans were discharged under IBR, Original ICR, or PAYE
- PSLF buyback applications received, pending, and decided
- The number of borrowers discharged through PSLF.
The first report also had to explain how the Department identified borrowers eligible for IDR discharge and how many IBR applicants were denied after July 4, 2025, for lacking a “partial financial hardship.”
The reports have been a key source of information for borrowers to understand how quickly IDR applications and PSLF buyback applications were processing.
What’s Next
The same order says that after the sixth report, the parties “shall confer about the need for further reporting” and, if necessary, tell the court where they stand. That sets up the next hearing on July 8, when the judge can decide whether the Department keeps filing these monthly disclosures or the reporting obligation ends for good.
How This Connects
These filings were the source for some of the starkest data on the student loan backlog.
The Department’s own reports showed IDR applications pending in the hundreds of thousands (roughly 530,295 still waiting as of May 2026) and described how it is processing time-based forgiveness in every-other-month increments.
The timing matters for the millions of borrowers caught in the SAVE plan limbo and those weighing a move to IBR, PAYE, or the new Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) taking effect in July 2026. If the July 8 hearing ends the reporting requirement, borrowers and watchdogs may lose their clearest month-to-month read on whether the backlog is actually shrinking.
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