It seems to me that REPAYE has no appeal whatsoever to married borrowers, except maybe in cases where one spouse has no income. If both spousal incomes are counted, almost inevitably the loan payment under REPAYE will be higher than under IBR or PAYE.

Am I correct? If so, I see very little to recommend REPAYE over the current income-driven repayment plans for married borrowers. Even if I was single, I would be hesitant to enroll in REPAYE for fear that the IBR and PAYE options may disappear at some point in the future.

I agree.  I suppose a late stage IBR enrollee would consider it for the reduced timeline.

If:

(higher payments from combined income)*(20 - years remaining) + benefit of filing jointly < (lesser payments of non-combined income)*(25 - years remaining) + (negative impacts of filing seperately)

Then REPAYE.  Else, remain in IBR and reduce discretionary (or get divorced).

A few things why I’m going to switch to REPAYE (though I would appreciate input if I’m missing something):

1) I’m in a community property state (California), meaning my income is calculated by taking (my income + spouse income) x 50% if filing MFS, so i was never able to separate out my income in the first place for IBR.

2) We have a joint business that’s split 50%

3) We have a child (I think child tax credits disappear w/ MFS vs. MFJ)

4) The majority of her income is from the business (she has no wage income), so we are able to shelter $52,500 of net profit into retirement accounts and live off of my income alone. Our small business net profit is usually $40-$60k/yr, so her income can become zero or close to zero at our discretion.

I’m 3 years into PSLF, and my student loan burden is so high (and 10 year repayment amount so high) that I probably wouldn’t exceed it under REPAYE.

I think for everyone with a less specific situation, they’re going to have to run a full scenario between MFS & MFJ, and then calculate the repayment amounts for each, and then do a final calculation of increased tax burden vs. decreased payments.