Sweet Automatic Relief Group Deadline Survey

Please only fill out this survey if you are a Sweet class member in the Automatic Relief Group as defined in our Sweet FAQs. 

Please fill out all the required fields below, even if you have already shared this information with us previously. This is for our information management purposes. 






Please enter the state abbreviation here (For example, MA for Massachusetts)

You will have the opportunity to provide information related to each school that you attended for which you applied for Borrower Defense.

If your school does not come up, type "Other."



This is an eight digit number, often starting with a 1 or 0. This survey will not accept anything other than an eight digit number. Do NOT make up a number just for the sake of submitting this survey. If you are unable to identify your BD Claim ID number, enter 00000000 and we will understand why you did this.
If you submitted your BD application between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2019, you should receive a decision or revise and resubmit notice by this July 28, 2024. If you have not, please return to fill out this form at that time.

If you submitted your BD application between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2020, you should receive a decision or revise and resubmit notice 
by January 28, 2025. If you have not, please return to fill out this form at that time. 

If you submitted your BD application between January 1, 2021, and June 22, 2022, you should receive a decision or revise and resubmit notice by July 28, 2025. If you have not, please return to fill out this form at that time.

If you are reaching out because you have not yet received a decision and/or relief, please note that under the settlement, the Department of Education has until January 28, 2026 to issue decisions to Post-Class Applicants. As such, we will not respond individually to these inquiries.
If you are reaching out because you have not yet received a notice from the Department of Education confirming your post-class status, please note that this notice may have been sent to an email you no longer have access to or your spam folder. Before submitting this survey, please search every email inbox you have access to for an email from noreply@studentaid.gov with the subject “Sweet v. Cardona Settlement Post-Class Applicant Borrower Defense Notice.” If you are unable to locate a notice after searching for it, please submit this survey. 

If you are reaching out because you did not receive a notice from the Department of Education confirming your eligibility for settlement relief, please note that this notice may have been sent to an email you no longer have access to or your spam folder. Before submitting this survey, please search every email inbox you have access to for an email from noreply@studentaid.gov with the subject “Approval of Your Borrower Defense Case Under Exhibit C of the Sweet v. Cardona Settlement.” If you are unable to locate a notice after searching for it, please submit this survey. 

If you are reaching out because you have not yet received settlement relief, please note that the Department of Education has one year from the date of decision to effectuate full relief. As such, we will not respond individually to these inquiries.
If you received a “revise and resubmit” notice, this means that you are in the decision group and the Department of Education determined that your application did not meet the standards for approval under the streamlined procedures. This notice should explain why your application was not approved and provide examples of successful applications. (If the notice you received did not include this information, please share that with us in response the following question). You will have six months from when you received this notice to submit a revised borrower defense application to the Department. If you submit a revised application, the Department will have six months from when you submit to either grant relief or issue a final denial notice. If you choose not to resubmit, your notice will convert to a final denial upon the expiration of the six-month resubmission window. If your application is denied, you have the right to challenge that denial in federal court.


If you are reaching out because you have not yet received a decision or a revise and resubmit notice from the Department of Education, please note that this information may have been sent to an email you no longer have access to or your spam folder. Before submitting this survey, please search every email inbox you have access to for an email from noreply@studentaid.gov and look for one of the following subject lines: “Sweet v. Cardona Settlement: Borrower Defense Notice to Revise and Resubmit,” or Sweet v. Cardona Settlement: Borrower Defense Notice of Approval.” If you are unable to locate a decision after searching for it, please submit this survey. 
"Relevant Loans"
Please note, in this survey we will refer to your dischargeable or BD-related federal student loans as your "Relevant Loans."

To select multiple loan types, hold down "Ctrl" while clicking each type of loan you have.
Direct Loans are federal student loans that are originated by and held by the Department of Education. There are two types of FFEL(P) loans: some are held by the government, and some are held by private bank lenders. Loans held by private bank lenders are known as “commercially held FFELs.” Although both are considered “federal loans” because they were authorized by federal law, payments that you made on commercially held FFEL loans were made to bank lenders, not to the Department of Education. The Department of Education does not have the legal authority to refund payments made to commercial lenders. Please note that some companies service multiple kinds of loans. For example, Navient can service Direct, FFEL, and/or private loans. Therefore, knowing that you have loans with Navient (or another servicer) is not an indication of the type of loans you have. If you’re unsure whether you have Direct or FFEL loans, or whether your FFEL loans are commercially held, please visit the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance page for helpful resources on figuring out what kind of loans you have. If you want to find out who your federal loan servicer is, click here. If you’re unsure whether your loans are private, you can call your servicer and ask, or you can cross-reference your credit report with your Federal Student Aid (FSA) information.



To select multiple servicers, hold down "Ctrl" while clicking each servicer.




MM/DD/YYYY

Please type only the number value. For example, enter $1,500 as 1500.


(e.g., screenshot of payment made in your federal loan servicer's portal)



Please note: payments that you made on commercially held FFEL loans were made to bank lenders, not to the Department of Education. For that reason, such payments will not be included in any refund you receive under the Sweet settlement, because the Department of Education does not have the legal authority to refund payments made to commercial lenders.  If you’re unsure whether you have Direct or FFEL loans, or whether your FFEL loans are commercially held, please visit the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance page for helpful resources on figuring out what kind of loans you have.




Optional: It would be helpful for us to learn more about your Relevant Loans. One way to do this is to view what is called an NSLDS (National Student Loan Data System) text file. This file contains a lot of information about your loans. Please see instructions below on how to download your NSLDS text file. We will ask you to upload this file once you download it. Please note, this file does not contain your Social Security Number.
How to upload your NSLDS text file
How to upload your NSLDS text file




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