Hi,

My aspiration is to work for the public defender, hopefully in Los Angeles.  The pay is pretty good, but my debt strategy has been to use IBR & PSLF.  In LA the pay is over $62K in the first year and then it jumps to $73K and increases from there. 

Would that pay level disqualify me from making payments towards the 120 PSLF installments?

Thanks!

Hi there,

Heather’s Helper here. Great question. Fortunately, even if you are at a high pay level you can still make payments that count towards Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Here’s what the Department of Education says “If your IBR payment amount increases to the point where it is more than the monthly amount you would be required to repay under a 10-year Standard Repayment Plan, you would no longer be considered to
have a ‘partial financial hardship.’ In this situation, you may remain on the IBR Plan, but your monthly payment will no longer be based on your income. Instead, you will be required to pay the amount you would have been required to pay under a 10-year Standard Repayment based on the amount of your eligible loans that were outstanding when you began repaying under IBR. Your repayment period based on this recalculated amount may be more than 10 years.”

Hope that helps!

-Heather’s Helper

And you can plug in your expected salary including salary jumps into this calculator: http://www.finaid.org/calculators/ibr.phtml

Be sure to view the full amortization schedule below the calculator, to see what happens to your payments over time.  There are definitely some people who will earn enough that they don’t end up with much left to forgive.  It’s really going to depend on what you owe.