My husband and I are both public school teachers in inner city schools. I have recently become permanently disabled and it could be some time before I receive any kind if disability compensation. We have three children. The oldest two have graduated from undergrad and the youngest about to begin in the Fall. We took out parent PLUS loans for my oldest two and had planned on doing the same for our youngest. We started making payments about five years ago, then increased payments as we added more loans for our second. It must be consolidated, since we only make one payment for all of the loans? I am not sure. My question is this: do we take out more PLUS loans for the third? Does the 120 payments start after we are done with all three? We have probably made at least half of the 120 payments, but that spans the two oldest. If we take out PLUS loans for the youngest, will they be included? Do we have five years left, or does the clock start over again? I am anxious about this, given my poor prognosis as my husband will likely be bearing the burden of repayment alone. Thank you.

I am sorry you are facing this situation.  Unfortunately, parent PLUS loans are not eligible for income driven repayment plans with ONE exception.  Consolidation loans that repaid Parent PLUS loans are eligible for Income Contingent Repayment.  The 120 payments refers to Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which is earned by making payments while in full time qualifying employment.  The only way for a parent PLUS borrower to get PSLF would be for the loans to be consolidated AND under the Income Contingent Repayment plan.  Only then can payments made start counting towards the 120 required to earn PSLF.  Be careful about reconsolidating with new loans, because the new consolidation loan would repay the first consolidation loan, meaning payments towards forgiveness would have to start over.

The first thing to do is get clear on exactly what kind of loans you have.  Begin by looking up your record on the National Student Loan Data System: http://nslds.ed.gov  You can then consider whether or not to consolidate, and whether payments under ICR make sense for you.  Also look into information about something called Total and Permanent Disability Discharge.