4 million student loan borrowers sign up for income-based payments

The student loan payment pause ended Friday
US Secretary of Education: Millions of borrowers are enrolled in SAVE plan
Report: More than 43 million Americans have some kind of student loan debt

Updated: Sep 5, 2023 / 04:31 PM CDT

FILE – New graduates line up before the start of a community college commencement in East Rutherford, N.J., May 17, 2018. This summer, millions of Americans with student loans will be able to apply for a new repayment plan that offers some of the most lenient terms ever. Interest won’t pile up as long as borrowers make regular payments. Millions of people will have payments of $0. And starting in 2024, undergraduate loan payments will be reduced by half. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

(NewsNation) — More than four million student loan borrowers are now enrolled in the Biden administration’s Saving on A Valuable Education (SAVE) income-driven repayment (IDR) plan, the Department of Education announced Tuesday.

Under the SAVE plan, a borrower who makes less than about $15 per hour will not have to make any payments. Borrowers earning more than that would save more than $1,000 a year on their payments compared to other IDR plans, the department said.

Since July 30, the Department of Education has received more than 1.6 million IDR applications with nearly one million of those for the SAVE plan.

“Millions of borrowers are already benefitting from enrollment in the SAVE plan, and I’m thrilled to see so many Americans submitting applications every day so that they, too, can take advantage of the most affordable student loan repayment plan in history,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.

The student loan payment pause ended Friday after the Supreme Court ruled in June that President Joe Biden did not have the authority to cancel student loan debt.

According to the Federal Reserve’s Consumer Credit report, more than 43 million Americans have some form of student loan debt.