Hi,
I was just at the webinar and it was great. My question is this-I have about $30,000 left in undergrad loans that were Parent Plus (FFEL) loans. If I was able to, my parents obviously had a great interest in getting those forgiven as well. My total with law school eligible debt is $158,000.
Because I applied to consolidate with those undergrad loans I am not eligible for IBR. I expect my AGI to be around $40,000 (maybe going up to $50,000 in the course of 10 years). Right now my family size is 1. I obviously expect to benefit from Public Loan Service Forgiveness. It does seem that under ICR (based on using the calculator) I still get a large amount forgiven (over $100,000) even though my monthly payments will be a bit higher.
But is it not worth it and should I take out the undergrad loans? It just seems like getting them forgiven may be worth making slightly higher payments, even though I know you don’t see why ICR would ever be better than IBR. Or, I could take them out and just have that loan on it’s own.

I wasn’t aware of this restriction until I applied for consolidation so I thought I had it all figured out!

Thanks!

Parent PLUS loans are not eligible to be repaid under IBR or ICR. However, a parent PLUS borrower (that’s not you, that’s your folks) could consolidate the parent PLUS loans and then choose ICR for the new Direct Consolidation Loan. While a Direct Consolidation Loan that repaid a parent PLUS loan may not be repaid under IBR, it can be repaid under ICR. But eligibility for PSLF is based on the borrower’s own public service employment (in this case your parents), not the employment of the student on whose behalf the borrower obtained the PLUS loan.  So you can’t get your parent’s loans forgiven with your public service.  Are mom and dad in public service?

The loans are in my name though actually and I receive bills for them. If I consolidated them all wouldn’t they be considered my loan? Although my parents do happen to be in public service and work for the government. Except my Mom, who is retired. Here is what I think the difference is: it was already consolidated once. So it is actually a FFEL consolidated loan that I want to consolidate into mine. But it is repaying a Parent PLUS loan. It has a really low interest rate so I just don’t want to make a mistake by consolidating it.

OK but you can’t consolidate your parent’s loans in with yours.  It’s not permitted.  Maybe the loans you are talking about aren’t parent PLUS loans?  You aren’t talking about loans you borrowed for _your_ children, are you?

I am a parent of a student and I have 3 parent plus loans with Direct.  Can i consolidate these 3 loans into the ICR plan?

Parent PLUS loans could be consolidated into a Direct Consolidation Loan.  The Direct Consolidation Loan that repaid the Parent PLUS loans could then be repaid under ICR (but still can’t be repaid under IBR).

Thank you!!

I have lots of Parent Plus loans in my name for our kids’ educations.  My wife has been a school teacher for over 25 years.  If we do a Direct Consolidation Loan can her years as a teacher be used to gain any forgiveness?

Also, I’ve read that Obama is wanting to reduce IBR from 15% to 10%.  What about ICR?  Any changes being considered?