United States | News & Politics

It’s a new payment plan, so applies to new student debt as well.

If I’m reading the StudentAid.gov correctly, the SAVE plan has the following:

• Increase in income exemption to 225% of poverty line (~$66k/yr for family of 4, ~$32k for single filer, no dependents)
• Undergraduate Loans now are 5% of AGI above exemption limit
• No interest accrued if you make your monthly payment
• After 10 yrs of payment, if principle loan was $12k or less, loan is forgiven. Payment period increases by 1 yr for every $1k over that amount (e.g. for $20k loan, forgiveness after 18 yrs)

This action makes a good headline for re-election purposes.

If you read the article, yes.

Debt forgiveness occurs after 10 years in an income-driven repayment plan (down from 20-25 years). Payments in these plans is now capped at 5% of discretionary income (down from 10%). Unspecified improvements to tracking progress towards loan forgiveness (historically this has been done by the company servicing the loan, and they are beyond awful at it, so this might just be not relying on them for this decision anymore).

If you guys would take the time to read the article you would see that this is not the same debt forgiveness plan as before. The plan cancels the debt remaining for students who have been making payments for 20 years. It's not a one time action but will be available to anyone in the future under the same circumstances.