The DOJ Student Loan Attestation Form: What It Covers & How the Process Works

Federal student loans can be discharged in bankruptcy, and for loans held by the U.S. Department of Education, the process runs through the Department of Justice’s Attestation Review. Instead of going straight to trial, DOJ uses a standardized form to evaluate whether repaying your loans would cause undue hardship. That form — and the review built around it — is what decides most federal student loan bankruptcy cases today.

The Attestation Review applies only to federal student loans owned by the U.S. Department of Education. These loans become eligible for DOJ’s evaluation once you file an adversary proceeding.

Other federal loans follow different rules:

• Guaranty-agency FFEL loans. In October 2023, the Department of Education issued Dear Colleague Letter GEN-23-13 telling FFEL guarantors and Perkins loan holders that they may use the DOJ attestation process to satisfy their existing regulatory obligations. Some guaranty agencies have adopted the framework; others still rely on their own review process. Whether a guaranty agency follows the attestation process can depend on the jurisdiction and the individual attorney handling the case.

• Commercially held FFEL loans. These loans qualify for the attestation process only if consolidated into a Direct Consolidation Loan before filing bankruptcy. Consolidating afterward creates a new loan that is not part of your case.

Private student loans — those not made or guaranteed by the federal government — are not eligible for the Attestation Review. Discharging private student loans in bankruptcy requires proving undue hardship through the traditional adversary proceeding process.

Eligibility depends on who owns the loan when the bankruptcy is filed.

The Attestation Form is a 15-page document the Department of Justice uses to collect the financial information it needs to evaluate your case. You receive it after filing an adversary proceeding and confirming that your loans are owned by the U.S. Department of Education.

The form replaced the older, case-by-case approach that left outcomes inconsistent across districts. Now every federal borrower presents the same core financial details, and DOJ evaluates them under a uniform framework.

The most recent version was updated in May 2025 to reflect annual changes to the IRS Collection Financial Standards used for expense calculations.

The attestation form tracks the three prongs of the Brunner test — present hardship, future hardship, and good faith — through seven functional sections. Your attorney will need specific information and documents for each one.

Basic information

The form starts with your name, address, bankruptcy case number, adversary proceeding number, and student loan details: outstanding balances, current monthly payment amounts, and loan servicer information. DOJ shares this with the Department of Education, which provides account history and loan details for the review.

Current income

You report your household gross income from all sources — employment, Social Security, unemployment benefits, and income from other household members. If your income hasn’t changed since filing, you can reference your Schedule I if it was filed within the past 18 months.

Documents to gather: Recent tax returns, pay stubs, W-2s, Social Security award letters, or unemployment benefit statements.

Current expenses

This is the most detailed section. The form compares your actual household expenses against IRS National Standards and Local Standards for your geographic area and family size.

Expenses are broken into categories:

• National Standard expenses: Food, housekeeping supplies, apparel, personal care, and miscellaneous costs. If your spending in each category falls at or below the IRS standard amount, no further explanation is needed.

• Local Standard expenses: Housing, utilities, and transportation. These are compared against IRS allowances specific to your county and household size.

• Other necessary expenses: Court-ordered support payments, childcare, health insurance premiums, life insurance, delinquent taxes, payments on other student loans not being discharged, and any other expenses essential to maintaining a minimal standard of living.

If any category exceeds the IRS standard, you explain why the higher amount is necessary.

The form also asks about foregone expenses — things you would spend money on if you could, like your own apartment (if you’re currently living with family) or childcare you can’t afford. DOJ’s guidance directs attorneys not to treat foregone expenses as available income for loan payments.

Net income calculation

The form subtracts all allowed expenses from your gross household income to determine what’s left. If the remaining amount is zero or negative, the present-inability-to-pay element is established. If there’s money left but not enough for a full standard repayment plan payment, DOJ may consider a partial discharge.

One detail that matters here: DOJ compares your remaining income against the standard 10-year repayment plan amount — not an income-driven repayment amount. This distinction works in borrowers’ favor because the standard payment is typically higher.

Future circumstances

This section asks why your financial situation is unlikely to improve over the remaining repayment period. DOJ’s guidance includes five factors that create a presumption of ongoing hardship (covered in the next section below).

You also get an open-ended field to describe any other circumstances affecting your future ability to pay, even if they don’t fit the five presumptions.

Good faith efforts to repay

The form asks what you’ve done to address your student loans. Specific indicators include:

• Making any payment on the loans

• Applying for deferment or forbearance

• Applying for an income-driven repayment plan

• Applying for a federal consolidation loan

• Responding to outreach from a servicer or collector

• Engaging with the Department of Education or a servicer about repayment options

If you never enrolled in an income-driven repayment plan, the form asks why. DOJ’s guidance says attorneys should accept any reasonable explanation — including that you were given inaccurate information, discouraged from enrolling, or unaware that the option existed.

Inactivity during the COVID forbearance period (March 2020 through December 2022) is explicitly not treated as evidence of bad faith.

Current assets

The final section discloses real estate, vehicles, bank accounts, retirement accounts, and other valuable property. DOJ’s guidance directs attorneys not to give heavy weight to assets that aren’t easily converted to cash or are critical to your well-being. Forcing the sale of a primary residence or liquidation of a retirement account to pay student loans should be, in DOJ’s words, “exceptionally rare.”

The future-circumstances section of the form includes five specific factors that carry special weight in DOJ’s review. When any one applies, DOJ presumes your inability to repay will persist without requiring additional scrutiny of your future circumstances.

The five presumptions are:

• Age 65 or older.

• Disability or chronic health condition impacting your income potential. No formal medical opinion is required — the presumption can apply even without one.

• Unemployed for at least 5 of the last 10 years.

• Did not complete the degree the loans were taken out for.

• Loans in repayment status for at least 10 years. This includes any status other than in-school — active repayment, forbearance, deferment, and default all count. For consolidation loans, time on the underlying loans is included.

These presumptions are rebuttable — DOJ can decline to apply one if the rest of the attestation shows a likely future ability to pay — but rebuttal must be based on concrete facts, not speculation about what might change. The presumptions also don’t shift any burden of proof if the case goes to court. They direct DOJ’s internal evaluation, not the judge’s.

Even without a presumption, you can describe other facts supporting future inability to pay. A significant history of unemployment that falls short of the 5-of-10 threshold, for example, can still factor into DOJ’s assessment.

Once you return the Attestation Form, DOJ coordinates with the Department of Education and reviews the financial information you submitted. DOJ evaluates it under its federal review framework to decide whether to offer a stipulation for full or partial discharge.

If DOJ recommends relief, it prepares a stipulation and files it with the bankruptcy court.

Attestation eligibility depends on loan ownership at the moment the bankruptcy is filed. Loans qualify for the review only if consolidated into a Direct Consolidation Loan before filing. Consolidation increases the principal by capitalizing unpaid interest.

Timing also affects when the review begins because the Attestation process starts only after an adversary proceeding is filed:

• Chapter 7: The adversary proceeding can be filed any time after the bankruptcy case is opened.

• Chapter 13: Many courts start the review later in the plan, often near completion.

DOJ resolves most Department of Education-owned cases through one of three outcomes.

1. Full discharge

DOJ recommends eliminating the entire federal loan balance. Courts typically approve these stipulations.

2. Partial discharge

DOJ recommends reducing the balance to an amount it considers manageable based on your remaining income after expenses. The court reviews and enters the stipulation.

3. No stipulation

If DOJ does not offer relief, the case continues through the normal adversary-proceeding process. You can still pursue discharge through litigation. The Attestation Review does not restrict your ability to seek relief in court.

For Department of Education-owned loans, reviews commonly finish within a few months after you return the form. Guaranty-agency FFEL loans generally take longer because agencies may use their own review process, and timelines vary by agency and jurisdiction.

The Department of Justice released results in July 2024 covering cases from November 2022 through March 2024. Among borrowers with Department of Education-owned loans:

• 1,220 adversary proceedings were filed

• 96% of borrowers submitted the Attestation Form

• Of the cases courts had decided during that period, 98% ended in a full or partial discharge

DOJ has not released updated statistics since the July 2024 report or provided a breakdown between full and partial outcomes.

Independent research supports these results. A 2025 study by Professor Jason Iuliano in the American Bankruptcy Law Journal found an 87% success rate across 652 student loan bankruptcy cases filed between October 2022 and November 2023 — a figure covering all student loan types, not just federal loans on the attestation track. A related study in the Emory Bankruptcy Developments Journal found that women obtained discharge at a higher rate (89%) than men (82%).

If you’re working with an attorney to file the attestation, having these documents ready will streamline the process:

• Recent tax returns or pay stubs verifying household income

• Social Security award letters or unemployment benefit statements (if applicable)

• Student loan servicer statements showing balances and payment history

• Your Schedule I and Schedule J from your bankruptcy filing

• The litigation report from the Assistant U.S. Attorney — a document the AUSA provides summarizing your loan history, balances, and payment records as compiled by the Department of Education

• Documentation of any disability or chronic health condition (helpful but not required)

• Records of prior payments, forbearance applications, or IDR enrollment attempts