What happens to your student loans now that the SAVE plan is dead?

After a long court battle, the SAVE plan is officially kaput.

Launched in 2023, the Biden administration’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) federal student loan repayment plan was created to replace the outgoing REPAYE program–and help keep Biden’s campaign promise to forgive student loans.

Under the SAVE plan, a borrower’s monthly payment would be calculated based on income and family size and could be set as low as $0 per month for the lowest-earning borrowers. The program also fast-tracked forgiveness for those who borrowed less than $12,000.

Several states sued the Biden administration in 2024, arguing that the SAVE plan exceeded the administrative branch’s statutory authority. Payments were paused for borrowers enrolled in the SAVE program during the litigation process, but interest began accruing on the loans as of August 2025.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decision on March 10 officially ended the SAVE plan for good–and borrowers are left with the less-than-reassuring message that they can expect “clear guidance” from the Department of Education in the coming weeks.

To get some direct answers about what student loan borrowers should do about the end of the SAVE program, I talked to student loan expert and author Mark Kantrowitz. Here’s what you need to know.

Stick a fork in it—SAVE is done

Some of the reporting about the end of the SAVE plan has included information about the Havens v. U.S. Department of Education (ED) lawsuit which was filed hours before the Eighth Circuit Court’s decision. This lawsuit argues that the ED is compelled to implement the SAVE plan.

But Kantrowitz makes it clear there is no hail mary that can save the SAVE plan.

“The Havens v. U.S. Department of Education lawsuit was rendered moot by the Eighth Circuit Court’s decision ending the SAVE plan,” he says. “It will not resurrect the SAVE repayment plan or provide the forgiveness sought by the plaintiffs.”

Available repayment options

Current borrowers on the SAVE plan have the following repayment plan options. Borrowers can access these options by filling out the Income Driven Repayment (IDR) Plan Request Form.

Income-Based Repayment (IBR)

This repayment plan sets your monthly payment as 10% or 15% of your discretionary income, depending on when your loans were originally disbursed. After 20 or 25 years of repayment, any remaining loan balance is forgiven.

Pay As You Earn (PAYE)  & Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR)

Under the PAYE plan, your monthly payments are capped at 10% of your discretionary income. After 20 years of repayment, any remaining loan balance is forgiven.

The ICR plan calculates your monthly payment as either 20% of your discretionary income or the amount you would pay on a fixed 12-year plan, whichever is less. After 25 years of repayment, any remaining loan balance is forgiven.

Both the PAYE and ICR plans are currently available to SAVE borrowers, but they are scheduled to be phased out in July, 2028. If you choose to switch to PAYE or ICR today, you will need to choose a different repayment plan as of July 2028.

Repayment Assistance Program (RAP)—Coming July 2026

Under this forthcoming repayment plan, monthly payments will range from 1% to 10% of your adjusted gross income, with a minimum monthly payment of $10. As long as you are making payments, RAP will cancel any unpaid interest so your balance can’t continue to grow. After 30 years of repayment, any remaining loan balance is forgiven.

Although SAVE borrowers cannot sign up for this repayment plan currently, it will be available this summer.

No need to wait for ED guidance

The end of the SAVE plan instantly put the seven million borrowers who are currently signed up for the program into a strange sort of limbo. These borrowers have not had to make payments on their loans since litigation began in 2024, although interest has been accruing on their loans for the past seven months.

But when the Eighth Circuit Court decision struck down the SAVE plan, the ED was unable to offer clear guidance about when or how these borrowers would have to switch their repayment plans.

Kantrowitz explains that this guidance is probably going to take a little longer to materialize, since the Eighth Circuit Court decision reversed a lower court’s decision. That doesn’t change the fact that SAVE is dead, but it does mean there’s still a little more legal volleying.

“Once the lower court accepts the settlement between Missouri and the U.S. Department of Education, the SAVE plan will end,” Kantrowitz says. “Then the U.S. Department of Education will provide guidance about switching into another repayment plan.”

Remember that your interest is accruing

The seven million borrowers scrambling to change their repayment plan are unfortunately being met with a Department of Education that didn’t prepare for them.

“The IDR Plan Request Form has a backlog of 576,609 applications left to process, which will take an additional seven months at the current rate,” Kantrowitz says. “If there are no improvements and the 7.2 million SAVE borrowers file this form, it will take an additional seven years to clear the backlog.”

If waiting for the ED to deal with this doesn’t sound enough like a Kafka-esque nightmare, Kantrowitz points out that the delay will also stab you right in the bank account. “Interest will continue to accrue on these loans while the borrowers are waiting to switch into IBR,” he says.

If all that comes to pass, “undoubtedly there will be a lawsuit about the lack of timely processing of this form,” Kantrowitz says.

But the best course of action is to apply for a payment plan change as soon as possible. It is unlikely that borrowers will have to wait months or years, and the sooner you apply, the sooner you can stop the interest accruing.

Saving your loans in a post-SAVE world

The SAVE repayment plan disappeared practically overnight when the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s ruling on March 10. This leaves millions of borrowers unsure what to do with their paused loans that are accruing interest.

Student loan expert Mark Kantrowitz makes it clear that the SAVE plan is not only merely dead, it’s really most sincerely dead–even though the ED has not yet released guidance to borrowers. He suggests that the government agency may not offer guidance until after the lower court accepts the settlement required by the Eighth Circuit Court’s decision.

Borrowers have multiple repayment options to choose from, including Income-Based Repayment (IBR), Pay As You Earn (PAYE), Income-Contingent Repayment, and the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), all of which can be accessed by filing an IDR Plan Request Form. You should remember that PAYE and ICR will be phased out as of July 2028, and RAP is not officially available until July of this year.

Finally, Kantrowitz does want borrowers to remember that interest is still accruing on their loans and the ED has a backlog of IDR Plan Request Forms. So the sooner you apply for a change of repayment plan, the better it will be for your finances.

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