The deadline for student-loan borrowers to pick a new repayment plan keeps shifting — with higher payments looming.
September 29 was the initial deadline for the earliest wave of borrowers on the SAVE income-driven repayment plan to pick a new plan. If they didn’t, they would be automatically placed on a standard plan with the highest payments.
Now, borrowers have told Business Insider that as their deadline approached at the end of September, they received a 30-day “final notice” to select a new plan, which extended their deadline by one month. Over the past couple of weeks, more borrowers reported receiving that notice ahead of their initial deadline.
Over 7 million borrowers were enrolled in the Biden-era SAVE plan, which allowed for cheaper payments and a shorter timeline to debt relief. The Trump administration eliminated the plan and began sending notices to borrowers on July 1 informing them of their 90-day timeframe to switch.
New research from the JPMorgan Chase Institute showed what’s at stake for borrowers if they do not select a new income-driven repayment plan. According to the research, SAVE borrowers placed on a standard plan would face “much higher” payment burdens, rising from around 3% of their take-home income to roughly 12%.
The research also said that, given that SAVE borrowers have been in forbearance for over a year, transitioning them back into repayment will be challenging, and they might not be aware that payments are due. As a result, “some may not re-enroll in IDR even when doing so would lower their monthly payments, potentially increasing their payment burdens.”
While the 30-day final notices give borrowers more time to pick a repayment plan, many have expressed confusion about the changing deadlines. A range of glitches has also made it difficult to navigate President Donald Trump’s repayment changes. These include incorrect billing amounts, erroneous notices on account statuses, and the removal of payments that counted toward loan forgiveness.
Consequences for borrowers as they transition off SAVE are high; the JPMorgan researchers said the transition could “create renewed delinquency risk” as millions of borrowers are resuming payments after a pause, with many facing higher bills. Data from Federal Student Aid found that 9.3 million borrowers were in default as of June 30, with another 1.5 million at risk of entering default in the next six months.
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