From personal experience, I can tell you the requirement referenced in this snippet feels absurd: “Others were turned away for having the wrong type of federal

From personal experience, I can tell you the requirement referenced in this snippet feels absurd: “Others were turned away for having the wrong type of federal loan — those originated by private lenders through the now-defunct Federal Family Education Loan Program.” Federal loan? Check. Working for a 503c? Check. Oh, wait — the type of federal loan you took out is the wrong kind. So you need to consolidate under this other kind. And yeah, it resets it such that none of the payments you made for the past 10 years count. I’m lucky enough that it personally doesn’t really matter to me. I took on the loans for my education when the foregiveness program wasn’t in existence so I certainly wasn’t banking on a bailout. But the FFELP was still in existence when this program was being developed so I have no idea why those loans weren’t included.