Student Loans

What would I pay on an income-driven plan?

The Repayment Assistance Plan against Income-Based Repayment and the ten-year Standard plan, with the bracket cliffs RAP introduces shown rather than smoothed over.

Never written into the address bar.
$50 a month each, under RAP.
Used by Income-Based Repayment. RAP ignores it.
Repayment Assistance Plan, monthly$216.67

5% of your whole adjusted gross income, not of the part inside the bracket. That is what makes the payment step up rather than bend.

  • $216.67RAP, monthly
  • $233.83Income-Based Repayment, monthly
  • $392.49Tiered Standard, 15 years
  • $511.42Ten-year Standard, monthly
  • $1,439.36Interest waived under RAP, over the plan
  • $26,172.45Discharged at payment 360

A discharge in 2026 or later is taxable

The federal exclusion that made income-driven forgiveness tax-free expired on 31 December 2025 and was not extended. A balance discharged at the end of RAP counts as income in the year it is discharged. Public Service Loan Forgiveness is still tax-free; this is not.

RAP does not work like the plans it replaced

Every income-driven plan before it took a share of discretionary income, meaning income above a multiple of the poverty guideline for your household size. The Repayment Assistance Plan takes a share of your whole adjusted gross income, and the share is set by which of eleven fixed dollar brackets you fall into.

Two consequences follow. Household size barely matters: instead of shifting your whole threshold, it buys a flat fifty dollars a month per dependant. And because the rate applies to all of your income rather than the part inside the bracket, the payment jumps at each boundary. Going from $20,000 to $20,001 of income roughly doubles the monthly payment. That is in the statute rather than a rounding artefact, and this calculator warns you when you are near a boundary.

The waiver is the good part

Where a full, on-time payment does not cover the month's interest, the rest is waived rather than carried. It applies to subsidized and unsubsidized loans alike and for as long as you stay in the plan, which is why a balance in RAP does not grow. Income-Based Repayment only subsidizes interest on subsidized loans, and only for three years.

One trap: paying more than the amount due can reduce or cancel the waiver, because the extra goes to accrued interest first. The Department has said more guidance is coming.

What this calculator assumes

A flat income for thirty years, which nobody has. Because the brackets are cliffs rather than slopes, a career of ordinary raises produces a payment path this cannot predict. Read the projection as one scenario rather than as a forecast.

Sources

  1. Repayment plans and important definitions, U.S. Department of Education. Checked on . Backs the eleven Repayment Assistance Plan brackets and their rates; the $50 monthly deduction for each dependant; the $10 monthly minimum payment; the $50 cap on the matching principal payment; discharge after 360 qualifying payments over at least 30 years; the interest waiver on both subsidized and unsubsidized loans.
  2. The Repayment Assistance Plan in P.L. 119-21 (IF13075), Congressional Research Service. Checked on . Backs the statutory basis for the plan.
  3. Repayment plans and important definitions, U.S. Department of Education. Checked on . Backs which plans are open to which borrowers from 1 July 2026; the Tiered Standard term brackets and its $50 minimum; the effect of a single post-cutover disbursement on all of a borrower's loans.
  4. Income-driven repayment plans, U.S. Department of Education. Checked on . Backs the IBR, PAYE and ICR formulas and forgiveness horizons.
  5. Court actions affecting income-driven repayment, U.S. Department of Education. Checked on . Backs the status of SAVE after the 10 March 2026 order; the 1% automatic debit reduction; that income-driven payment counters are not currently displaying.
  6. Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE): Federal Student Loan Program, final regulations, Office of the Federal Register. Checked on . Backs the regulation implementing the plan changes, effective 1 July 2026.
  7. 2026 Poverty Guidelines, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Checked on . Backs poverty guideline for household sizes 1 through 8; the increment for each person beyond 8; separate schedules for Alaska and Hawaii.

The rules behind this calculator were last checked on .

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