The Trump administration confirmed the earliest date by which millions of student-loan borrowers will have to start switching repayment plans.
In a legal filing on Thursday, the Department of Education said that borrowers will not be required to move off the SAVE plan until September 29 “at the earliest.”
Additionally, the department said that since it is transitioning borrowers off the plan in waves, most borrowers “will get even more time than that.”
Previously, the department said that starting July 1, borrowers would begin receiving notices of their 90-day timeline to transition to a new plan, and that if they did not take action, they would automatically be placed in the most expensive plan.
This update is in response to a lawsuit filed in March that challenged the department’s decision to eliminate the SAVE plan, a Biden-era plan that gave borrowers more affordable monthly payments and a shorter timeline to debt relief.
Public Goods Practice, which represents the borrowers in the lawsuit, filed a motion on Tuesday calling for the court to pause that forced transition to a more expensive plan while a court decides the outcome of the rest of the case.
The new legal filing comes just days before Trump’s sweeping student-loan repayment overhaul takes effect on July 1, with new repayment plans and borrowing caps. Borrowers said they expect their monthly payments to increase under the new plans, and some have reported glitches with their accounts, including inaccurate payment projections.
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