It’s become painfully obvious to me that I will never be able to pay off my law school loans, so I am trying to find out about debt forgiveness at the end of 25 years.

I am on IBR and haven’t been able to find a job since I left law school in 2010.  How is the end of the loan period calculated?  Does it come after a specific number of IBR payments are made?  Is it 25 years after your first payment?  Do you have to apply for forgiveness, or are auto payments just taken out of your bank account until you do apply for forgiveness?

I haven’t been able to find the answer to this question anywhere, and it’s very important for me to have this information.  Can you help?

For the longer-term forgiveness that is NOT tied to employment (so NOT PSLF):

Forgiveness happens when, through a combination of monthly payments and economic hardship deferments, the borrower has made the equivalent of 25 years of payments or, for a new borrower, the equivalent of 20 years of payments. 

The beginning date for the loan forgiveness period is generally the date the borrower first made a payment under IBR, but can be earlier for borrowers who previously made payments under Income-Contingent Repayment (after July 1, 1994) or received an economic hardship deferment (after July 1, 2009).

See section(f)(3) of these regulations: http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/34/685.221

The loan servicer must notify a borrower 6-months before the end of the forgiveness period and there will be no forgiveness application required.