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Your payment is a percentage of your life, not your balance.
Income-Based Repayment ignores your balance and prices your payment off your life: 10% (new IBR) or 15% (old IBR) of discretionary income — AGI minus 150% of the poverty guideline — capped at the 10-year standard payment, with forgiveness after 20 or 25 years. This calculator runs that math with the current poverty guidelines.
Borrowers use it before recertification to predict the payment from this year's AGI — and to see whether the balance even matters. Financial aid offices point students at it to show that a $0 payment still counts toward forgiveness.
The SAVE plan is in litigation and effectively unavailable; IBR is the stable statutory option. New IBR (borrowers after July 1, 2014) charges 10% of discretionary income with 20-year forgiveness; old IBR is 15% with 25-year forgiveness. PAYE phases out in 2027–2028. Confirm current availability at studentaid.gov before applying — the plan landscape has been volatile.
Yes — if your AGI is below 150% of the poverty guideline for your family size ($23,940 for a single person in 2026), discretionary income is zero and so is the payment. Those $0 months still count toward the 20/25-year forgiveness clock, which is why certifying income even when broke matters.
Federal tax exemption on forgiven student debt expired after 2025 — forgiveness under IDR after 2025 is generally taxable as income again under current law (the "tax bomb"), unless Congress extends the exemption. Several states also tax it regardless. Model a potential tax bill of 20–30% of the forgiven amount when comparing IDR to aggressive payoff.