Banking Law

Student Loan Debt ? New Options for Repayment?

By Karen Oakes, Southern Oregon Debt Law Attorney

The website providing details for a new student loan repayment program is up and running to provide information to borrowers anxious to get their student loan payments under control.  The website, www.IBRinfo.org, provides information, a calculator and is a portal to further information.   As of June 28, 2009, t the calculator did not appear functional, but the links to further information appear to work.

In two more days, officially the Income-Based Repayment (IBR)begins–a new payment option for federal student loans as of July 2009.    Like the Income Contingent Repayment program, it assists borrowers to keep their payments affordable with payment caps based on income and family size. If eligible, most IBR loan payments will be less than 10 percent of the borrower’s income - and even smaller for borrowers with low earnings. IBR will also forgive remaining debt, if any, after 25 years of qualifying payments (Income Contingent Repayment program provides for cancellation after 30 years of repayment and provides also for payments based on income and dependents).

More exciting that the IBR program is the provision for public service work to be used to cancel student loan repayments after 10 years of public service work (post October 2007).   It looks like the government is finally assisting teachers, police officers, government workers, deputy district attorneys, and others who have dedicated their careers towards community service.

Full post as published by Debt Law Network on June 28, 2009 (boomark / email).