Student loan borrower options as SAVE forbearance ends

Millions of student loan borrowers whose payments are paused may soon have to start paying, under a Trump administration proposed settlement announced this week. Experts say the timeline could be short, and borrowers need to start planning.

The agreement centers on borrowers who signed up for the Biden administration-era Saving on a Valuable Education plan and remain in the SAVE forbearance. As of July, according to the U.S. Department of Education, that group included more than 7.6 million borrowers.

Trump officials have not yet specified when SAVE borrowers will be forced to leave the payment pause, and the Education Department did not respond to requests for comment.

But the Tuesday press release notes that SAVE enrollees would have “a limited time to select a new, legal repayment plan.”

“We don’t know exactly how long this is going to take, but borrowers should understand that they will likely have to make the transition from SAVE to a different repayment plan within months,” said Nancy Nierman, assistant director of the Education Debt Consumer Assistance Program in New York City.

The Education Department said in the release that it would begin outreach to borrowers “in the coming weeks.”

In the meantime, here’s what experts say borrowers need to know about the end of the SAVE forbearance, and how to prepare to resume payments.

People who remain in the SAVE forbearance are those who signed up for the Biden administration’s new repayment plan but then got caught in limbo after that program became mired in legal challenges.

The SAVE plan is now defunct. In February, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked SAVE and sided with Republican-led states that argued former President Joe Biden lacked the authority to establish the student loan repayment plan, which had the most generous terms to date.

Amid the lawsuits against SAVE, the Biden administration moved enrollees into forbearance in the summer of 2024.

Hundreds of thousands of borrowers have found themselves stuck in SAVE amid a backlog of requests for new repayment plans under the Trump administration.

“Many clients have taken steps to move out of the SAVE forbearance but are waiting months for their [income driven by repayment plan] applications to be processed,” Nierman said.

In August, Trump officials resumed charging interest for borrowers who stayed in that payment pause.

Tuesday’s announcement shortens borrowers’ timeline for remaining in the forbearance. President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” set the SAVE program’s expiration date at July 1, 2028.

Borrowers still in the SAVE forbearance should start looking for a way to restart their payments now, said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.

You can submit a request for another income-driven repayment plan at StudentAid.gov. IDR plans cap your monthly payments at a share of your discretionary income and lead to debt forgiveness after a certain period, typically 20 years or 25 years.

Most borrowers will be best off enrolling in the Income-Based Repayment plan, or IBR, Kantrowitz said. Trump’s tax and spending package phases out the Income-Contingent Repayment plan, or ICR, and the Pay as You Earn plan, or PAYE, as of July 1, 2028.

Starting July 1, 2026, student loan borrowers will have access to another IDR option, the “Repayment Assistance Plan,” or RAP. That plan leads to debt forgiveness after 30 years, compared with the typical timeline on other plans. But it will offer the lowest monthly bill for some borrowers due to its longer term.

There are several tools available online to help you determine how much your monthly bill would be under different plans. Borrowers should be able to move between repayment plans at any time.

If you’re pursuing the popular Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, you can use the PSLF Buyback option to make payments — and get credit — for months during which you were enrolled in the SAVE forbearance, as long as you were working for a qualifying employer in that period.