This report is part of the SBPC’s Improving & Delivering Relief IDR paper series exploring ways to strengthen the IDR program via affordability, increased enrollment, and increased borrower protections.
This report highlights how the payment formulas currently underlying Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) can harm low to middle-income borrowers, forcing them to choose between meeting basic needs and paying their monthly student loan bills.
Using a series of hypothetical borrower scenarios, the report illustrates how the current IDR system is disproportionately failing a large chunk of borrowers. The report calls on President Biden to take action to fix IDR’s affordability problems by raising the level of “protected” income in order to ensure borrowers can still meet basic living needs.
Read the Report: Driving Unaffordability: How Income-Driven Repayment Currently Fails to Deliver Financial Security to Student Loan Borrowers
Read the Series Kickoff Blog: Fulfilling the Promise of Income-Driven Repayment
Read more on the SBPC’s work related to income-driven repayment here.