Four Federal’s Student Loan Repayment Plans With Bruce Mesnekoff

1. As per Bruce Mesnekoff from Student Loan Help Center Said US Government’s Federal Loans Provides Four income-driven repayment plans: Revised Pay As You Earn Repayment Plan (REPAYE Plan) Pay As You Earn Repayment Plan (PAYE Plan) Income-Based Repayment Plan (IBR Plan) Income-Contingent Repayment Plan (ICR Plan) Revised Pay As You Earn Repayment Plan (REPAYE Plan) The Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE) Repayment Plan helps make student loan payments more affordable. This plan is available only to borrowers with Department of Education-owned loans (account number starts with an E) disbursed under the Federal Direct Loan Program (FDLP). As Bruce Mesnekoff REPAYE Repayment Plan caps regular monthly payments at 10% of your discretionary income or, if married, 10% of your combined discretionary income. You do not have to pay the accrued interest (interest not covered by your regular monthly payment amount) on subsidized loans for the first three consecutive years of repayment on REPAYE. After the first three consecutive years of repayment on subsidized loans, and for the full REPAYE repayment period on unsubsidized loans, you only have to pay 50% of accrued interest (interest not covered by your regular monthly payment amount). The three-year interest subsidy period is per loan for the life of your loans, not per repayment plan. For example, if you receive one year of the 100% interest subsidy benefit on IBR and switch to REPAYE, you will be eligible for as many as two consecutive years of the 100% interest subsidy benefit on REPAYE. On the REPAYE Repayment Plan, the remaining student loan balance will be forgiven after you have made the equivalent of 20 years of qualifying payments if you have all undergraduate-level loans, or 25 years of qualifying payments if you have eligible graduate-level loans. Please note, your repayment term under this plan could be longer than 20 or 25 years if you postpone payments with a deferment or forbearance, or if you make payments under a different plan that does not meet qualifying criteria for forgiveness. As with other income-driven repayment plans, REPAYE needs to be recertified every year. If you do not recertify, your loans will be exited from the REPAYE Plan and placed into the Alternative Repayment Plan. Pay As You Earn Repayment Plan (PAYE Plan)

2. Pay As You Earn (PAYE) is a federal student loan repayment plan that is available to some borrowers with newer federal loans. It caps your monthly federal student loan payment at 10 percent of your discretionary income. The Pay As You Earn Repayment Plan helps make student loan payments more affordable. This repayment plan caps monthly payments at 10% of the discretionary income or, if married and filing a joint federal income tax return, 10% of your combined discretionary income. Under the Pay As You Earn Repayment Plan, your remaining student loan balance will be forgiven after you have made the equivalent of 20 years of qualifying payments (please note that your term may be longer than 20 years if you defer payments at any time). You must have at least one eligible Department of Education-owned Direct Loan (your account number starts with an E) that had a disbursement on or after October 1, 2011, to be eligible for the Pay As You Earn Repayment Plan. If you had any student loans disbursed prior to October 1, 2007, that had an active balance as of October 1, 2007, you are not eligible for this plan. Other loans not eligible include: defaulted loans, private loans, Federal Perkins Loans, FFELP Loans, Federal Direct Parent PLUS Loans, and Direct Consolidation Loans that repaid Direct or Federal Parent PLUS Loans or loans disbursed prior to October 1, 2007. How to Apply Online To expedite the application process, apply online by logging in to StudentLoans.gov and clicking Complete Income-Driven Repayment Plan Request. You can securely transfer your federal tax return information to us at StudentLoans.gov. Sending your tax information online may expedite our review of your income-driven repayment plan request. Income-Based Repayment Plan Income-Based Repayment (IBR) is the most widely available income-driven repayment (IDR) plan for federal student loans that has been available since 2009. Income-driven repayment plans can help borrowers keep their loan payments affordable with payment caps based on their income and family size. As Per Bruce Mesnekoff Who can use IBR? IBR is available to federal student loan borrowers with either Direct or FFEL loans, and covers most types of federal loans made to students, but not those made to.

3. To enter IBR, you have to have enough debt relative to your income to qualify for a reduced payment. That means it would take more than 15% of whatever you earn above 150% of poverty level to pay off your loans on a standard 10-year payment plan So Bruce Mesnekoff Can you tell us how does IBR make payments more affordable? IBR uses a kind of sliding scale to determine how much you can afford to pay on your federal loans. If you earn below 150% of the poverty level for your family size, your required loan payment will be $0. If you earn more, your loan payment will be capped at 15% of whatever you earn above that amount. Income-Contingent Repayment Plan So Bruce Mesnekoff Can you tell us what is income contingent? The Income Contingent Repayment (ICR) plan is designed to make repaying education loans easier for students who intend to pursue jobs with lower salaries, such as careers in public service. It does this by pegging the monthly payments to the borrower's income, family size, and total amount borrowed. How to Apply Online To expedite the application process, apply online by logging in to StudentLoans.gov and clicking Complete Income-Driven Repayment Plan Request. You can securely transfer your tax return information to us at StudentLoans.gov. Sending your tax information online may expedite our review of your income-driven repayment plan request.