Currently the Pay As You Earn repayment plan is a great way to make college more affordable by capping federal student loan payments at 10% of the borrower's monthly income. Any remaining loan balance is forgiven after 20 years. Through this plan millions of Americans of all ages can better afford their loan payments and basic necessities.
However, this plan has a huge problem. You also must be a new borrower as of Oct. 1, 2007, and must have received a disbursement of a Direct Loan on or after Oct. 1, 2011. This bit of fine print arbitrarily excludes millions of Americans who would otherwise benefit from Pay As You Earn.
We call on the administration to expand the Pay As You earn program to include all citizens with a Federal Student Loan.