Student loan forgiveness and loan repayment programs provide borrowers a means of having all or part of their student loan debt forgiven or repaid upon satisfying certain criteria, such as having worked or served in particular fields or professions for a specified period of time. Some of these programs are intended to support goals such as providing a financial incentive to encourage individuals to en ter into and/or remain in a particular profession or public service. One such federal program that has received considerable attention in recent years is the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. Under the PSLF program, borrowers of the U.S. Department of Education's (ED's) Direct Loans who are employed full-time in certain public service jobs for 10 years while making 120 separate qualifying monthly payments on their Direct Loans may be eligible to have any remaining balance of principal and interest forgiven. Borrowers first became eligible to apply for PSLF forgiveness benefits on October 1, 2017, based on service completed and payments made prior to that date. With the opportunity to apply for program benefits being made available recently, many issues that span multiple aspects of the program have been raised and have garnered congressional interest. In general, identified issues fit into the following groupings: 1. Program implementation issues, which pertain to the operationalization of statutory provisions, difficulties experienced by borrowers in participating in the program, and difficulties experienced by entities administering the program. Specific issues include operationally defining a "public service job," certifying qualified public service employment, determining qualifying payments, and administering a program with relatively complex eligibility criteria. 2. Interaction of the PSLF program with other programs and benefits, which from a borrower's perspective relates to understanding the interactions to make rational choices and maximize available benefits. This involves borrowers understanding the various loan repayment plans available, interaction between PSLF and other service benefits (e.g., loan repayment programs), deciding the amount of student loans to borrow, and the tax treatment of program benefits. From the federal government's perspective, interaction of program benefits relates to whether desired targeting of benefits is being achieved and the potential costs associated with such interactions. This issue also relates to subsequent changes to benefits (e.g., expansion of available loan repayment plans), which may substantially affect the targeting of PSLF and resulting program costs. 3. Broad program-related issues, which relate to how the program complements or fits into the overall suite of federal student aid benefits and how costly the program might ultimately be. This report begins with a brief legislative and regulatory history of the PSLF program. This is followed by a brief description of how the program works. Finally, the report describes several selected program issues that have arisen in recent years. These are issues that have received recent congressional and stakeholder attention and issues identified in reviews of the program, as well as some that have been raised by researchers, analysts, and other entities outside of the government. The issues discussed in this report are not intended to be an exhaustive list. The PSLF program was first authorized in 2007 under the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 (CCRAA; P.L. 110-84 ). However, at least as early as 2003, other bills, including H.R. 1306 , proposed authorization of a program providing loan forgiveness benefits to individuals making payments under specified repayment plans while also being employed in public service. H.R. 1306 presented findings suggesting that student loan debt was placing constraints on the career options of many college graduates, resulting in borrowers choosing higher-paying jobs over public service, and that many public service professions such as teaching and nursing were facing staffing shortages. Over the years, several iterations of this construct of providing loan forgiveness benefits to individuals who were employed in public service and who made monthly payments on their loans over a specified period of time were introduced in Congress. Several of these sought to encourage individuals to enter into public service occupations and were often introduced under the presumption that borrowers may choose higher-paying jobs in the private sector over public service and that this issue was at least somewhat exacerbated by student loan debt burdens. However, the means for meeting this goal differed among the proposals. For instance, some proposals would have based borrowers eligibility for forgiveness largely on the type of their employer (e.g., federal, state, or local government), while others seemed to have proposed making benefits available to borrowers based largely on a borrower's job function while employed (e.g., jobs in public safety, education). In addition, some proposals would have provided for the forgiveness of a borrower's entire outstanding loan balance after a specified number of years of public service employment and monthly payments, while others would have provided borrowers the opportunity to have a percentage of their loans forgiven based on the number of years employed in public service (e.g., 10% of a borrower's loan balance could be forgiven for each year of employment in public service, up to 100% forgiveness). Finally, some proposals would have made benefits available to borrowers whose annual income or earnings fell below a threshold amount. Congress authorized the PSLF program in 2007 to encourage individuals to enter into and remain employed in public service and to alleviate the potential financial burdens associated with federal student loans of borrowers in public service who were presumed to generally earn less than their counterparts in other types of occupations. In doing so, it stated it was concerned with the number of individuals who chose not to enter into lower paying jobs, such as public service, due to increasing student loan debt. Under the program, Direct Loan borrowers employed full-time in certain public service jobs for 10 years while making 120 qualifying payments are given the opportunity to have any balance of principal and interest that remains after those 10 years forgiven. The CCRAA specified that monthly payments made under, among others, the Income Contingent Repayment (ICR) plan or the newly created Income Based Repayment (IBR) plan (discussed below) would qualify for purposes of PSLF and that only Direct Loan borrowers would be eligible for PSLF forgiveness benefits. In addition to enacting the PSLF program, the CCRAA made another change to the HEA that would have a bearing on the design and operation of the PSLF program; specifically, it authorized the Income-Based Repayment plan for pre-July 1, 2014, borrowers. Prior to the enactment of the CCRAA, the ICR plan was the only income-driven repayment (IDR) plan available to borrowers. Under ICR, a Direct Loan borrower's monthly payments are set at an amount equal to the lesser of 20% of their annual discretionary income divided by 12, or what they would pay under a repayment plan with a fixed monthly payment over a 12-year period multiplied by an income percentage factor that corresponds to a borrower's adjusted gross income (AGI). Borrowers make payments on their loans for 25 years, and any loan balance remaining after that period is forgiven. The CCRAA made no changes to the ICR plan but did authorize the IBR plan for pre-July 1, 2014, borrowers, under which eligible borrowers with partial financial hardships may have their monthly payments capped at 15% of their annual discretionary income divided by 12. Borrowers make payments for a maximum of 25 years, and any loan balance remaining at the end of that period is forgiven. The CCRAA specified that payments made under both the ICR and IBR plans would qualify for purposes of PSLF. In coupling PSLF with the newly created IBR plan, Congress expressed its intent to offer a suite of benefits to borrowers who entered public service that would not only offer loan forgiveness benefits after 10 years of such service, but also provide borrowers with the opportunity to make reduced monthly loan payments during that 10 years. Proponents of the PSLF provisions argued that the program would incentivize individuals to enter into and remain in those professions with shortages and that paid relatively less than other professions. In addition, proponents argued that PSLF benefits would help address the effects on borrowers of increasing tuition at institutions of higher education (IHEs) by alleviating the higher debt burden they assumed. On the other hand, opponents argued that the program's benefits were not well targeted. For instance, some argued that the program would not make sufficient distinctions among types of borrowers. It was contended that higher-income students would be more likely to receive larger benefits than low-income students because higher-income individuals tend to attend higher-priced IHEs and would likely borrow larger amounts of federal student loans that could then be forgiven under the program. It was also argued that, because the program placed no cap on potential program benefits, it might create an incentive for individuals to borrow the maximum amount of federal student loans possible with the expectation of receiving program benefits. The statutory provisions of the PSLF program have remained largely unchanged since its enactment. However, changes were made to the federal student loans programs both immediately prior to and several years following the enactment of PSLF that may have effects on the program. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 ( P.L. 109-171 ) authorized Direct PLUS Loans to be made to graduate and professional students, with no specified aggregate borrowing limits, unlike Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans. In relation to the PSLF program, there is no limit to the amount of loan forgiveness benefits that a borrower may realize under the program. Thus, it is possible that borrowers with large amounts of debt, and in particular Direct PLUS Loans for graduate and professional borrowers for whom there are no aggregate borrowing limits, may realize significant forgiveness benefits under PSLF.