21 hours Ago By CNET
Millions of student loan borrowers -- myself included -- haven't made a student loan payment since March of 2020, when loans were first placed into an emergency forbearance during the pandemic. Now experts are urging us to prepare for repayment. Before the payment pause in 2020, my student loan payments were about $40 per month under the now-defunct Repaye income-driven repayment plan.
I moved onto the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan as soon as the option was available in 2023. That set my payments to $0 per month. Shortly after, my loans, along with millions of other people's, were quickly put into an interest-free forbearance because of legal challenges to SAVE .
Now that SAVE has been officially shot down by the courts, experts don't expect the Trump administration to defend this income-driven repayment plan. With SAVE on its way out, what does repayment look like for my $63,493 student loan debt? How much will my student loan payments increase without SAVE? The Department of Education let borrowers in SAVE know just before Trump's inauguration that the earliest we should expect repayment to resume is December 2025, and income recertification won't be required until at least February 2026. However, repayment could start sooner now that SAVE has been blocked by the appeals court, Mark Kantrowitz, a student loan expert, told CNET .
At best, that gives me about a year to figure out how to fit a student loan payment back into my plan after a nearly six-year break. At worst, it gives me a few months. Encouraged by advisors, I used the Department of Education's loan simulator to see what kind of monthly bill I can expect when payments resume.
I was shocked by the numbers. My income as a freelance writer has gone up since those $40-a-month payments in 2020. Now I work for my own S-corp and pay myself an annual salary of $80,000.
If my payments were to resume under the SAVE plan given my income increase, my monthly payment would be $192, and my loan balance would be forgiven in April 2031. With SAVE likely disappearing, I'm not eligible for any other income-driven repayment (IDR) plans. My remaining options to repay my consolidated loans are: Graduated repayment is designed for borrowers who are early in their careers and can expect significant income increases over the years.
I'm midcareer and work for myself, so I don't expect that kind of bump. Bracing for $800 payments in the future doesn't sound feasible..
