Hi! I am leaving my PSLF qualified job at the end of the year. I will have about 34 IBR payments under my belt. I am considering working for a non-qualifying employer, which would mean my payments would, of course, no longer qualify toward my 120 payments. This brings me to a question:

1) Is there any reason to make payments on my loan at all during a hiatus of working for a qualified employer if I think I might go back eventually? Hypothetically, why not just apply for forbearance for my non- public service years? Yes, my loan will get bigger, but the IBR formula isn’t really based on total loan amount, right? Wouldn’t it just mean more loan forgiven down the line?

Thanks!

I’ve considered a similar scenario of temporarily leaving qualifying employment. My thoughts regarding payments during this “hiatus” have been that, as long as I was sure that I was returning to PSLF employment within a reasonable time period (and ultimately finishing the 10 years), I would attempt to minimize payments during the the “hiatus”. IBR is, like the name says, mainly based on income, not loan size (although I just know what the IBR calculators tell me, not exact knowledge of the formula). You may also want to confirm that you would be eligible for forbearance during that time.