Hello Heather,

I am currently on one of the ‘grandfathered’ graduated repayment plans. I will likely switch to IBR, but once I do, the system says I cannot return to the ‘grandfathered’ graduated repayment plan.

Do you know what the story is with the grandfathered graduated repayment plan? Is there some advantage to it that I would be missing? There seem to be other graduated repayment plans, should I need to switch again, but I am not sure why I cannot switch back to the grandfathered one.

Many thanks, as always, for your help.

GP

You are exactly right that if you choose to update your repayment plan, you can only select from the new repayment plans and cannot return to one of the grandfathered repayment plans.  That’s the rule.  As for whether it’s better to stay where you are or switch, I’d suggest you look at your alternatives and see whether or not they work better for your individual situation.  The repayment plans you can choose from now (and the grandfathered ones) are listed here: https://www.dl.ed.gov/borrower/QctrHelpPage.do?cmd=initializeContext&APageID=QctrGlosA076

I can’t see an obvious reason why you’d be better off staying in the grandfathered plan, unless for some reason you don’t currently qualify to choose another repayment plan that you like as much.