The SAVE Plan has ended… Now what? What you need to do now with your student loans
Updated: Aug 9
Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash
Major news headlines have been announcing the death of the SAVE Plan, which, we can't forget, was killed by Trump’s terrible One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It’s having real impacts on student loan borrowers nationwide now.
If you were on the SAVE Plan, paying little to no monthly payment, what do you need to do now?? What are the other repayment plans and which remaining repayment plan is the best?
The Federal Student Aid webpage to explain your options feels like it's set up intentionally to be confusing. I also believe it was re-written recently with bias toward making Trump’s new RAP plan sound more appealing than it actually is. (More on that later.)
Luckily for you, when a financial coaching client of mine mentioned she needed to look into these plans, I spent hours and hours researching all the options, then another couple hours writing this to boil it down for you in simple terms! Let’s get into it.
TLDR:
You really need to switch off of SAVE. You’ve got a month or so to do that.
Use the plan calculator to see if you can switch to PAYE.
Your payment is going to go up. I can help you figure out how to afford it here.
What happens if I do nothing? What happens if I don’t switch from the SAVE plan to a new plan?
You will automatically be switched from SAVE to the Standard Repayment Plan (Source). These plans make you pay off the entirety of your loans over the course of 10 years, so your default payment will be MUCH higher.
If you switch to an Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) Plan, then the remaining balance of your loans will be forgiven after you make payments for a certain time frame. I’ll explain the time frames momentarily.
Most importantly, if you’re working towards Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), your 120 payments made over 10 years need to be on an Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) Plan. If you get moved to a Standard Plan by default, any of those payments won’t count toward your PSFL payments!!!
(Trump also introduced the new Tiered Standard Plan, which spreads out your pay-off timeline over a period of 15-25 years but YOU STILL PAY EVERY DOLLAR of your loans. This will be the new default for any new loans taken out after July 1, 2026, instead of the Standard Repayment Plan.)
How long do I have to switch off of SAVE to a different IDR plan?
To get onto a new IDR plan that will result in your loans being partially forgiven in the future, you’ll need to switch …soon(ish).
Each borrower has a different deadline. (Again with them making it confusing for no reason!!!)
Your personal deadline is 90 days after you get an email that says you need to switch. The emails are being sent out in July and August of 2026.
So for example, if you got the email on July 1st, you need to switch to a new IDR plan by September 29th. If you get the email on August 15th, you’ll need to switch by November 13th.
However, your email might come even later. For instance, Nelnet says, “You’ll receive your notice by the end of 2026.” So, keep an eye out for incoming notices from your specific loan servicer.
You can use this date calculator to figure out when your deadline is. Put in the date you got the email and "add 90 days."
Plan Comparison Chart: PAYE vs. IBR vs. ICR vs. RAP
Here are all of the Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) Plans that you may be eligible for with your federal student loans.
I’m not going to lie - the SAVE plan was the best option for borrowers to pay the least amount monthly. Unfortunately, the others all suck in comparison.
But let’s look at which plan sucks the least. Here they are, listed in order from least terrible to absolute worst:
Plan Name | Remaining loan balance is forgiven after… | Monthly payment is capped at | How “discretionary income” is calculated for this plan |
PAYE | 20 years | 10% of your “discretionary income” | Your total income minus 150% of the federal poverty guideline |
IBR First borrowed after July 1, 2014, and before July 1, 2026 a.k.a. "new IBR" | 20 years | 10% of your “discretionary income” | Your total income minus 150% of the federal poverty guideline |
IBR Borrowed before July 1, 2014 a.k.a. "old IBR" | 25 years | 10% of your “discretionary income” | Your total income minus 150% of the federal poverty guideline |
ICR | 25 years | 20% of your “discretionary income” | Your income minus 100% of the federal poverty guideline |
RAP | 30 years | 10% of your income | No subtraction here. See below. |
Worried about being able to afford a higher monthly payment when everything else has already gotten more expensive this year too?
If you want a plan for your worries and someone to talk through decisions with, I’m offering a discounted coaching session to anyone with student loans who’s feeling the crunch and wants to figure out how to make things work.
We’ll look at exactly where you stand now. Then, I’ll see how we can adjust for your increased payment, so you can go back to living your life and not have to think about this any more.
I’m offering the discount on sessions booked August 1st through September 31st. Click here to schedule a free consultultation call!
Plan Breakdown: PAYE vs. IBR vs. ICR vs. RAP
Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Repayment Plan
If you qualify for PAYE, it’s the best option remaining (for now). (I’ll come back to that in a second.) You’re going to have the lowest possible payments on PAYE.
Use the StudentAid.Gov Repayment Calculator to find out if you qualify for this plan. This link is also how you will apply, once you log in.
Payments on PAYE are “capped,” so your monthly payments will never be higher than 10-year Standard Repayment Plan amount.
Income-Based Repayment (IBR) Plan
IBR is the next best option if you don’t qualify for SAVE. The newer plan is slightly better than the older version, but you get what you get based on when you took out your loans. Sorry Millennials, you’re getting screwed with this one.
Payments on IBR are also “capped,” so your monthly payments will never be higher than 10-year Standard Repayment Plan amount.
Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR) Plan
The confusingly named ICR plan is a slightly worse version of IBR. You’re going to pay more in your monthly payments than any of the above plans. If you have consolidated parent PLUS loans you’re going to need to go the ICR route though, it seems.
Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP)
I’ll explain this more in the next section, but RAP uses different numbers to calculate your minimum payment that will lead you to have the largest monthly payment you’re likely to have on any of these plans.
There’s also this part “There is no cap on your monthly payment amount under RAP. For example, you could pay more per month under RAP than you would under the Standard Repayment Plan.” (Source) which honestly makes no sense!!! If I’m paying my loans over 30 years, not 10 years like the Standard plan, why on earth would you allow my monthly payments to be more??
Trump introduced RAP and intends to wipe out all other ICR plan options in favor of this one. For anyone who is a new borrower after July 1, 2026, this will be the only income-based repayment option for them.
What’s happening to the PAYE plan? Why did you say it’s the best “for now”?
Another cool fact about what Trump did with that Big “Beautiful” Bill is that July 1, 2028 will be the end of the PAYE and ICR plans.
If you want to get the lowest possible payment for now, it’s still worth it (in my opinion) to go on PAYE for now and wait to switch to IBR or RAP in 2028.
If IBR is the best plan you qualify for now, you should be good to go and hopefully won’t need to switch plans again (unless they change things again later).
Put your info into the StudentAid.Gov Repayment Calculator to see what your options are as of August 2026.
Okay, now if you’re a details nerd like me, keep reading to learn why I hate the RAP plan with a passion:
Why does it matter how they calculate my income for each plan? What does discretionary income mean for federal student loan payment?
Discretionary income for student loan plans means how much your income exceeds a certain level of the federal poverty guidelines, not how much you actually have left over each month after paying your bills.
The SAVE plan was calculated with payments capped at 5% of your “discretionary income” for undergrad loans and 10% of your “discretionary income” for graduate loans.
Your “discretionary income” was calculated as your income minus 225% of the federal poverty level.
For example, for a household of 2 adults, it would be:
[your salary] - $49k = SAVE discretionary income
Now, even the next best plan, PAYE, is only calculated with 150% of the federal poverty level.
For example, for a household of 2 adults, it would be:
[your salary] - $32k = PAYE discretionary income
And on the RAP plan, there is NO CALCULATION. That means:
For example, for a household of 2 adults, it would be:
[your salary] = RAP income
If you remember any basic math around percentages, you can clearly see that 10% of your salary minus tens of thousands, versus 10% of your salary minus nothing, means that we will be paying MUCH more in our minimum monthly payments on RAP.
Here’s a federal poverty level percentage calculator, if you’re curious what the difference looks like for households of various sizes.
Oh yeah, and the StudentAid.gov website shows biased and incomplete information about these plans to make the Big Beautiful Bill plan look better
The math I just walked you through is why the chart that Federal Student Aid website offers now is so slimy and nefarious!!!
It makes RAP sound like you’re paying less, which is actually not likely to be true for most people. (Especially not for Gen Z borrowers.)
When I first started researching the different plans on July 14th, 2026, the information about the federal poverty guidelines that I explained in my chart above was listed when you clicked into info on each plan.
NOW IT IS NOT.
I had to refer back to another source, who cites StudentAid.gov as of June 2026!!! Proof that Trump’s people removed that information to make RAP look better. I hate it here!!!
What should I do now that I know what’s happening?
Go check your email to see if you got a personal deadline assigned yet.
Use the repayment calculator to estimate your new monthly payment.
Schedule a free consult call with me for guidance on how to make that new payment fit into your real life.
Set a reminder to yourself to switch to a new IBR before your personal deadline.
Let’s stay connected!
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Feel free to DM me on Instagram @mindfulmoneymarie if you have corrections to any of the information I’ve shared here or have any questions.
Disclaimer: This is general financial education, not personalized advice. I know there are lots of types of federal student loans, but I decided not to outline which types of loans are eligible for which plans because the point of writing this was to make things less confusing, not more. The repayment calculator will tell you what you need to do based on your specific loan situation.
Additional sources I consulted if you want to learn more:
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