IBR Goes Digital!
An Electronic Income-Based Repayment (IBR) Application is now available and only 27 months after IBR came on line! If you qualify for Income-Based Repayment, your required monthly payment will be capped at an amount that is intended to be affordable based on your income and family size, and will be less than what you would have to pay under a 10-year Standard Repayment Plan.
Why consider IBR? Well, assuming that you are not a Kardashian or heir to the Five Guys Burgers & Fries™ dynasty (I like cheese, jalepenos, mushrooms and ketchup), IBR offers a number of benefits for qualifying student loan borrowers:
- If your IBR payment amount does not cover the full amount of interest that accrues on your loans each month, the government will pay any unpaid, accrued interest on your subsidized loans for up to three consecutive years from the date you begin repaying the loans under IBR. (You are responsible for paying the interest that accrues on your unsubsidized loans during this three-year period.)
- If you repay under IBR and meet certain other requirements, any remaining loan balance that you owe will be canceled after 25 years.
- Payments that you make under IBR count toward the 120 payments that are required for the Direct Loan Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program.
Get your Electronic Income-Based Repayment (IBR) Application on the StudentLoans.gov Web site using your Federal Student Aid PIN. I'm really hopeful the process will work right (finger crossed). Let us know how it goes.
Find more about IBR on our tools page.
