Income driven repayment

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 The federal government offers four income-driven repayment, or IDR, plans that can lower your monthly bills based on your income and family size. Payments could even be $0 if you're unemployed or earn less than 150% or 225% of the poverty threshold, depending on the plan you choose. 

Switching to one of these plans is usually right for you in the following instances:

• You can’t afford your current payments and want to avoid late payments and student loan default.
• You’ll qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
• You have high student loan debt and a low income or are unemployed.

 All income-driven repayment plans share some similarities: Each caps payments to between 10% and 20% of your discretionary income and forgives your remaining loan balance after 20 or 25 years of payments. The four plans are:

• Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE), which replaced the REPAYE plan.
• Income-Based Repayment (IBR).
• Pay As You Earn (PAYE). 
• Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR).

 There's a new IDR plan, SAVE, which has replaced the formerly available REPAYE plan. 

SAVE's final rules illustrate the most generous federal student loan repayment option yet:

• Borrowers earning less than about $32,800 individually, or less than $67,500 for a family of four, would see $0 monthly bills.
• Most other borrowers would see their payments cut by at least half. 
• Students who borrow less than $12,000 would see their remaining balances wiped away after 10 years of payments, instead of 20 to 25 years.