Suggestions

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Student loan IDR plans (income-driven repayment plans)

I’d love to see support for federal student loans, which have various income-driven repayment (IDR) plans.

In 2023, the Biden admin announced a new SAVE plan that my partner and I found especially difficult to forecast. Like other IDR plans, the amount you pay each month is limited based on your last year’s income. Unlike other IDR plans, interest doesn’t accrue beyond what’s included in your minimum monthly payment - assuming you pay it in full.

It would’ve been incredibly useful to model the various repayment plans we were eligible for against my partner’s expected earnings before locking one in - changing your repayment plan capitalizes unpaid interest, so it’s best to choose the right plan upfront.

Now that we have chosen, it’d be nice to factor in the changing monthly payment. As a doctor, she will have a large income bump a few years into her career following fellowship.

Related: studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment/plans/income-driven

3 votes

Tagged as Suggestion

Suggested 09 May 2024 by user John Maguire

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  • 09 May 2024 John Maguire suggested this task

  • 09 May 2024 Kyle Nolan approved this task

  • avatar

    I’ll second this, it could be as simple as the existing student loan option having the same “change over time” settings other expenses have.

    I’ll also add that while the current implementation has a loan forgiveness option, there should be an additional setting to be able to treat the forgiveness as a taxable event (you get taxed as regular income the amount forgiven) which is how many of the income based repayment plans currently work. This is not the same as the full forgiveness received for the PSFL program.

    19 August