This is a big fucking deal: https://www.npr.org/2023/08/22/1195141913/borrowers-can-now-apply-for-new-income-based-student-loan-repayment
Under the SAVE plan, as long as borrowers make their monthly payments, interest will not accumulate. With previous plans, borrowers with low or $0 payments — too low to cover their monthly interest charge — saw that interest accrue. Now, the government says, that won't happen.
The department says that under the old plan, borrowers repaid, on average, $10,956 for every $10,000 they borrowed. Under the new plan, they would pay back just $6,121.
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Borrowers can now apply at studentaid.gov/SAVE . In an announcement video, President Biden assured borrowers that the application will take "10 minutes."
The program allows borrowers to opt in to a feature that allows the Education Department to access their tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service. This will allow the department to automatically recertify borrowers' enrollment every year, so they don't have to keep applying and updating.
The administration is urging borrowers to apply soon because, after three years of pause extensions, student loan payments are set to resume in October, with interest starting to accrue in September.
studentaid.gov/SAVE
As somebody who used to work in the industry (trying to unfuck peoples' loans, and also investigate frauds schools committed that screwed over stuents) the SAVE plan is one of the most generous options for repayment that's currently available. Which is to say, it sucks way less than many of the other options that exist in the capitalist hellscape we live in where people have to sell their souls to the government to afford an education. BUT, if indeed you are someone with government student loans, you owe it to yourself to look into this plan.
I still work in the industry and HARD seconding the above, it's far and away the most generous repayment plan out there.
