Interest will start accruing again on your SAVE plan 8/1/25. Since you are in PSLF it would be worth switching out of SAVE sooner rather than later so you can get this monkey off your back - especially since you made payments that aren’t counting. Since you only have 37 months left until you are discharged it would be worth switching sooner rather than later.
The older you get the harder it is to find jobs. Worst case, as a back up plan if all else fails (sounds like you are in a job that counts now based on what you posted though) get a teacher job at a public school for 4 years. If you can’t make your 10 years when you make your 25 years of payments you will get a 1099-C for what is written off. That is considered taxable income (so you pay taxes on that as if you earned that income) and so you are trading written off student debt for a tax bomb with the IRS (and in some states state taxes too). If you stop paying and go into default, when you retire, they will take 15% of your social security until your loan is paid off. They will also take any federal tax refund to plan your tax withholding accordingly (eg owe less than $200, even if you end up having to make a couple of estimated payments because you withheld too little, so you don’t pay a penalty for not witholding enough, so there is no refund, rather you owe money and thus nothing to take).
You need a repayment program that you can use PSLF (which I am sure you already know) with so that should be priority #1. I have no clue what “professionals” are out there but certainly supervisors rather than first line phone answering people would be a better choice with whomever your current loans are with along with the federal government (eg federal student loans). I’d talk with them both sooner rather than later as the closer we get to when you have to move to something else (or have them default move you) the phone lines are going to become busier and busier. Also if there is any risk you will not have those last 3+ years for public service discharge, you don’t want to lose payments that count from where you are employed right now. (presuming, based on your post that you are working in an eligible job with enough hours).
I believe I read somewhere that two part time jobs at the same time, if they add up to the number of hours a week that would count otherwise were you to work that many hours in one job also count. Double check that with both your loan processor and the Federal student aid people.
This federal page, which is not updated to show the demise of SAVE may help a bit
https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment/plans/income-driven
and for updated legal junk (page last updated July 9th)
https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/idr-court-actions
You can always have your servicer tell you how much your payments will be on each of the existing plans that are continuing where payments will count to PSLF before you sign up.
Second link above has this: (copy paste)
Borrowers should be aware that forgiveness as a feature of the SAVE, PAYE, and ICR Plans is currently paused. Borrowers can have their loans forgiven if they are enrolled in the IBR Plan. Payments on PAYE, SAVE, and ICR are counted toward IBR Plan forgiveness if the borrower enrolls in the IBR Plan.
So it looks like if you switch to IBR then those payments you made to SAVE will count towards your remaining months left. BUT double check my interpretation of this - especially since elsewhere on that page it says payments to SAVE during the pause don’t count and here they say they do. So who knows. Worth checking into, calling the feds and your processor more than once to see if you get the same answer. If they conflict the feds rule and not your processor. If they don’t give the same info work your way up the hierarchy until you get someone several layers up as they are more likely to know the actual correct answer.
