SAVE Is Shutting Down. Here Is How to Pick Your Next Repayment Plan

SAVE came out of the Biden administration in 2023 and was challenged almost immediately. The case that ended it is State of Missouri v. Biden, No. 24-2332, in the Eighth Circuit. After a December 9, 2025 settlement, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri entered judgment vacating the SAVE Final Rule on March 10, 2026. The plan is gone, not paused.

Borrowers who were enrolled spent much of that fight parked in an administrative forbearance, roughly July 2024 through March 10, 2026, where payments were not required and interest did not accrue. That forbearance is also ending. On March 27, 2026, the Department published its “Next Steps for Borrowers Enrolled in the Unlawful SAVE Plan” notice, which is the document that sets the timeline you are now living under.

Here is the part that trips people up. The 90-day clock is not a single national deadline. Servicers start mailing exit notices on July 1, 2026, and they go out on a rolling basis, so your neighbor might get theirs in July and you might not get yours until September. Your 90 days run from your notice date. Find that date, mark 90 days out, and treat it as the day you must have a new plan selected and your application in.

Two new plans were created by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, P.L. 119-21, which President Trump signed on July 4, 2025. Both go live on July 1, 2026: the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) and the Tiered Standard plan. Alongside them, one legacy income-driven plan, IBR, stays open, while PAYE and ICR begin a phased shutdown. The next four entries break down each one so you can see exactly what you are choosing between.

The calculator gives you a payment number. It cannot tell you which number matters most for your situation, so here is the decision framing by profile. Read the row that sounds like you.

• PSLF, pre-July-2026 loans. Stay on or switch to IBR now to keep a qualifying plan, then reconsider RAP after July 1, 2026 only if it produces a lower payment for your AGI and family. Lower payments are fine here, because a bigger remaining balance is forgiven tax-free under PSLF.
• PSLF, new loans (disbursed on or after July 1, 2026). RAP is your only qualifying income-driven option. There is no IBR path for you.
• No PSLF, low balance. The Standard or Tiered Standard plan usually minimizes total interest. A fixed payoff beats stretching a small balance across decades.
• No PSLF, high balance and lower income.IBR or RAP for a lower monthly payment. For high balances, weigh IBR’s 20 or 25-year forgiveness against RAP’s 30 years, since the shorter horizon can mean more forgiven sooner.
• Close to 120 PSLF payments. Do not switch plans. Stay in your current qualifying plan and let the count finish.
• Parent PLUS, new loans after July 1, 2026. Only the Standard plan is available. RAP and the income-driven plans are off the table.

On the RAP-versus-IBR question specifically, the pattern is fairly consistent. At very low incomes, roughly $20,000 to $30,000 of AGI, RAP’s 1% and 2% bands can undercut IBR. In the mid-range, $40,000 to $80,000, IBR usually wins because its 150% poverty deduction shields a large slice of income before the rate applies. At higher incomes, above $80,000, IBR’s cap at the 10-year Standard payment keeps it below RAP’s uncapped 8% to 10%. Large families lean toward IBR too, because its broader household definition and per-person poverty multiplier typically beat RAP’s flat $50 per dependent.

This is the single most expensive mistake available to you right now, so it gets its own section. If you do nothing during your 90-day window, your servicer auto-enrolls you, and the destination is either the legacy Standard plan or the new Tiered Standard plan. Both have the same fatal flaw for forgiveness seekers: neither one counts toward PSLF.

A borrower who was carefully logging PSLF months under SAVE, then lets the notice sit unread, then gets parked on Standard, stops earning PSLF credit the moment that placement takes effect. The months keep passing; they just stop counting. On top of that, auto-enrollment usually means a higher monthly payment than an income-driven plan would, because Standard plans ignore your income entirely. The fix is mechanical: open the notice, note your deadline, and submit an income-driven application before it. If you want a documented paper trail that you acted in time, a written demand letter to your servicer requesting confirmation of your plan election is a clean way to do it.

For an income-driven plan, IBR or RAP, the application lives at studentaid.gov/idr. For the Standard or Tiered Standard plan, you contact your servicer directly. Either way, run your numbers first in the Loan Simulator so you walk in knowing what each plan would cost you. The IDR steps go like this:

• Log in with your FSA ID at studentaid.gov.
• Open the IDR Plan Request form and enter your income and family size.
• Check the box that authorizes IRS tax-data sharing. If you have filed taxes, this pulls your income automatically and spares you from uploading pay stubs.
• If your income changed since your last return, or you have not filed, upload recent pay stubs or other income documentation instead.
• Submit. Your servicer processes the enrollment from there.

If you are consolidating first, say you have older FFELP loans that need to become Direct Loans before they can sit on RAP or IBR, start that well ahead of your 90-day deadline, because consolidation takes time to process. Get a written record of your current qualifying payment count from your servicer before you consolidate, so you can confirm it carries over afterward.

Income-driven plans are not set-and-forget. IBR and RAP both require annual recertification, and your payment adjusts when your income moves into a different band or your family size changes. To find your deadline, log in at studentaid.gov, open My Aid, choose View Details, then Loan Breakdown, and look for your IDR Anniversary Date. Submit your recertification 30 to 90 days before that date to give your servicer time to process it.

Authorizing IRS data sharing is the move that makes this painless: with it on, your annual recertification happens automatically, no documents required. And if your income drops mid-year, do not wait for the anniversary. Submit current pay stubs right away to lower your payment immediately rather than overpaying for months. If your refund or payment deposits ever need re-routing to a new account, a direct deposit authorization keeps your banking instructions clean and on file.

Plan transitions are exactly when servicer errors spike: wrong plan applied, payment counts dropped, a recertification lost. You have a ladder of escalation, and it works best when you climb it in order and keep records at every rung.

• Start with the servicer.Submit a written dispute through the servicer’s online portal and by certified mail with return receipt. Simple issues usually draw a response within 30 days; payment-count corrections and PSLF disputes can take 60 to 90.
• Escalate to the FSA Ombudsman. If it is unresolved, file through the Feedback Center, call 1-877-557-2575, or mail the FSA Ombudsman Group at P.O. Box 1854, Monticello, KY 42633.
• File a CFPB complaint. At consumerfinance.gov/complaint or 1-855-411-2372; the company must respond within 15 days.
• Use your state student loan ombudsman. In 2026, state ombudsman offices are often more responsive than the federal one given federal staffing cuts.

Before you file anything, gather your loan account numbers, any prior dispute letters, your payment history, call logs with dates and the names of who you spoke with, and any previous case numbers. If the dispute touches your credit report, a credit report dispute letter puts the inaccuracy in writing with the bureaus, and a debt validation letter forces a collector to substantiate a balance before you pay anything you are not sure you owe. If illness or deployment means someone else has to manage this for you, a power of attorney lets a trusted person act on your loans on your behalf.