1.  New Income-Based Repayment (IBR) Plan Available!

While you consolidate your loan(s), you have a new repayment plan option called the Income-Based Repayment (IBR) Plan. The IBR Plan bases your monthly payment on your yearly income and you must have a partial financial hardship to enroll. This plan is an alternative to the Income Contingent Repayment (ICR) Plan and is designed to make repaying education loans easier for students who intend to pursue jobs with lower salaries, such as careers in public service. It does this by capping the monthly payments at 15 percent of your discretionary income (the difference between your Adjusted Gross Income and 150% of the poverty guideline for your family size and state of residence). If you are married and file taxes jointly, both your and your spouse's income will be considered when calculating your IBR payment amount. If you are married AND file taxes separately, only your income will be considered when calculating your IBR payment amount. Like ICR, after 25 years of qualifying repayment, any remaining balance on the loan will be forgiven, but you may have to pay taxes on the amount forgiven.

To participate in the IBR Plan, you must authorize the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to inform the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) of the amount of your income.

The IBR Plan is NOT available for repayment of your Direct PLUS Loan(s) made to parent borrowers and/or Direct Consolidation Loan(s) that repaid PLUS Loans made to parent borrowers. If you have these loan types that you want to include in a new consolidation, you must repay your consolidation loan under one of the other repayment plans and cannot repay under the IBR Plan.