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  1. What We Do
  2. Federal Student Loans
  3. Delivering Debt Relief
  4. Income-Driven Repayment

Income-Driven Repayment

Attacks on the student loan safety net have left millions of borrowers without access to affordable repayment options and threatened the promise of debt relief.

Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) is meant to be a key protection that sets federal student loan borrowers’ monthly bill at an affordable amount determined by their income, not by their loan balance. Nearly 10 million borrowers rely on this program as an eventual pathway out from under historic levels of student debt. Unfortunately, as a result of widespread breakdowns and illegal practices by loan servicers combined with right-wing attacks on student loan relief programs, IDR has failed millions of borrowers in dire need of relief that the program promised to provide.

What We’re Doing

Protect Borrowers is working to shine a light on breakdowns and policy choices that are raising costs for millions of working families and have left perhaps the most critical element of the student loan safety net broken. We will hold the U.S. Department of Education and servicers accountable when they fail to deliver on the promise of IDR and hurt American families.

By The Numbers

$300/month

The Trump Administration’s decision to restart interest for millions of borrowers in SAVE will cost the typical borrower $300 per month

1 million+ borrowers

Since the IDR Account Adjustment, over 1 million borrowers have received debt cancellation through IDR.

only 132 borrowers

Before the account adjustment happened, only 132 borrowers had ever received debt cancellation through the IDR plans.

In The Field

In The News


  • News Clips

    Student loan interest will restart for millions of SAVE borrowers

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  • News Clips

    8 Million Federal Student Loan Borrowers Will Soon See Interest Restart

    READ More


  • News Clips

    Biden administration begins canceling student loan debt for 804,000 borrowers

    “The Biden Administration kept its latest promise to 800,000 people who were repeatedly failed by the broken student loan system. For these borrowers, the prospect of delayed justice will be life changing,” said Persis Yu, deputy executive director and managing counsel for the Student Borrower Protection Center.

    READ More


  • News Clips

    Exclusive: How the most affordable student loan program failed low-income borrowers

    “That is one of the most concerning things that you’ve highlighted because the people with the $0 payments are the folks in financial distress,” says Persis Yu of the Student Borrower Protection Center. “If that payment is not tracked adequately, it means that they’re in debt that they don’t owe. And to build a system in which we utterly fail the lowest income borrowers so explicitly is just inexcusable.”

    READ More


  • News Clips

    About 2 Million Borrowers Missed an Opportunity to Get Their Student Debt Forgiven: Report

    That small slice of borrowers shows that the programs aren’t doing enough to protect borrowers from being trapped in a lifetime of debt, according to a report released this week by the National Consumer Law Center and the Student Borrower Protection Center.

    READ More


  • News Clips

    ‘Abysmal Track Record’: Few Student Loan Borrowers Received Forgiveness Through Government Repayment Plan

    Congress wrote a law promising forgiveness to student loan borrowers who make two decades of on-time payments. But that promise has fallen short, according to a new report. Of the roughly two million borrowers on the plan who have been making payments for more than 20 years, only 32 individuals have ever received total cancellation.

    READ More

Featured Work


  • Press Releases

    Trump Administration to Restart Student Loan Interest Charges for Nearly 8 Million Borrowers, Borrowers Will Face More than $3500 Per Year in New Charges

    New analysis of Trump policy projects borrowers will pay $27 billion in unnecessary interest charges per year as millions remain unable to access legal rights to affordable loan payments.

    READ More


  • Press Releases

    AFT Sues U.S. Department of Education, Demands Justice for Student Loan Borrowers Blocked from Affordable Loan Payments

    The 1.8 million-member AFT sued ED for effectively breaking the student loan system, denying borrowers’ access to affordable loan payments and blocking progress towards PSLF, in violation of federal law.

    READ More


  • Press Releases

    Advocates to 8th Circuit: Stop Playing Politics and Protect Borrowers

    Despite orders temporarily blocking lower student loan payments and forgiveness, no court has weighed in on the legality of the decades-old law used to deliver debt relief.

    READ More


  • Amicus Briefs

    Amici Curiae: Qualified Public Service Employers In Support of IDR Account Adjustment

    Brief argues that plaintiffs suing over IDR Account Adjustment have no standing.

    READ More


  • Reports

    Delivering Distress: How Student Loan Companies Cheat Borrowers Out of Their Rights

    Read our Delivering Distress paper series tat lays out a new roadmap for action against unjust and unlawful collection efforts by the nation’s largest student loan companies. 

    READ More


  • Reports

    Restoring the Promise of Income-Driven Repayment: An IDR Waiver Proposal

    In a whitepaper, the SBPC, the National Consumer Law Center, and the Center for Responsible Lending offer a proposal to the Biden administration to fix income-driven repayment via the creation of an “IDR waiver.” This waiver would cut through the red tape that has long stymied the IDR program and deliver a pathway out of student debt by giving borrowers credit for time in repayment.

    READ More


  • Reports

    Driving Into a Dead End: Why IDR Has Failed Millions with Decades-Old Debts

    This report synthesizes evidence identifying various glaring warning signs that Income-Driven Repayment is failing millions of borrowers who have been in repayment for decades on federal student loans—and that it is slated to continue doing so for years to come.

    READ More


  • Reports

    Driving Inequity: Are IDR’s Documentation Requirements Hurting Borrowers of Color?

    This report examines the role that the use of alternative documentation of income plays in driving racial disparities in access to Income-Driven Repayment for student loan borrowers.

    READ More


  • Reports

    Driving Runaway Debt: How IDR’s Current Design Buries Borrowers Under Billions of Dollars in Unaffordable Interest

    This report highlights how the design of the main protection meant to deliver affordability to federal student loan borrowers, Income-Driven Repayment (IDR), ignores the widespread effects that runaway student loan balances have across borrowers’ financial lives.

    READ More


  • Reports

    Driving Unaffordability: How Income-Driven Repayment Currently Fails to Deliver Financial Security to Student Loan Borrowers

    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. 

    READ More


  • Reports

    Driving Down Distress? The Principles & Incomplete History of Income-Driven Repayment

    This report examines the history of Income-Driven Repayment (IDR), identifies its key founding principles, the ways that policymakers have tried to meet them, and how the current design of the protection has fallen short of achieving its original goals.

    READ More


  • Blogs

    Fulfilling the Promise of Income-Driven Repayment

    It’s time for policymakers to weigh whether the IDR program is fulfilling its promise. And if not, it’s time to boldly rethink the design and delivery of the protections that borrowers deserve.

    READ More


  • Reports

    Education Department’s Decades-Old Debt Trap: How the Mismanagement of Income Driven Repayment Locked Millions in Debt

    This issue brief highlights newly public data obtained by NCLC from the Department of Education showing that only 32 borrowers have ever qualified for debt cancellation through the federal government’s IDR program, even as approximately 2 million borrowers remain trapped in decades-old debts.

    READ More

EXPLORE MORE


Delivering Debt Relief
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