--- title: College Loan Repayment Plan Options | TIME description: If you have college debt and find yourself struggling to meet the minimum payments on your monthly bill, there is help. canonical: https://time.com/video/tC05EyO4/ og:title: College Loan Repayment Plan Options og:description: If you have college debt and find yourself struggling to meet the minimum payments on your monthly bill, there is help. og:url: https://time.com/video/tC05EyO4/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/tC05EyO4/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: College Loan Repayment Plan Options twitter:description: If you have college debt and find yourself struggling to meet the minimum payments on your monthly bill, there is help. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/tC05EyO4/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # College Loan Repayment Plan Options > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: College Loan Repayment Plan Options [Watch (HLS stream): College Loan Repayment Plan Options](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/tC05EyO4.m3u8) (2:40)  _Published 2016-06-06. If you have college debt and find yourself struggling to meet the minimum payments on your monthly bill, there is help._ --- Jul 27, 2023 8:13 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Elizabeth Warren Wants Debt Collectors to Stop Hassling Corinthian College Students](/video/2D1QO9gk/) ### Elizabeth Warren Wants Debt Collectors to Stop Hassling Corinthian College Students [The 8% Rule for Managing College Debt](/video/55J1Fhq9/) ### The 8% Rule for Managing College Debt [Govt. Erases Some Loan Debt As For-Profit Colleges Decline](/video/xbV9oLQf/) ### Govt. Erases Some Loan Debt As For-Profit Colleges Decline --- ## Transcript Like 41 million Americans, I have student debt and like a couple million of them, I'm enrolled in an income driven payment plan. So today I'm going to walk you through how to sign up for one of those plans. The first thing you're going to need to know is what type of loans you have, how much debt you have, and the interest rate for each of the loans. If you don't know that and you have federal loans, you can go to the National Student Load Database System. Once you have that information, you're ready to learn about the different income- driven repayment plans. In general, these plans are gonna limit your monthly payment to between 10 % and 15 % of your discretionary income. And they're gonna last longer than a standard repayment plan, so it's gonna be between 20 and 25 years. Your discretionary income is how much your take- home pay exceeds 150 % of the poverty level, depending on the state you live in and your family size. A helpful tool in deciding what plan you might want to enroll in is the Federal government's Repayment Estimator. If you go to studentaid. ed. gov, it will give you an estimate of how much you'll pay each month over the life of the loan. This is really helpful, because while income based repayment plans can lower your monthly payment, they may end up causing you to pay more over the life of the loan, because you'll be paying for a longer time period. Once you have played with the repayment tool, And read all about the different plans, you are ready to actually sign up for an income driven repayment plan. The easiest way to apply is online through the Department of Education's student loan portal. You'll need to sign up for a federal student loan ID if you don't already have one. You're going to need your most recent tax return. Which will tell you your adjusted gross income, your family size and you will also need documentation for any alternative forms of income. Like say child support that you receive. If you apply online with the department of ed that data will be pulled from the irs and auto filled into the form. So it's now much easier and quicker to apply than it used to be. Once you submit your form to your servicer, you should be prepared to continue paying the amount that you have been until you hear from them. There are two important things that you have to remember. The first is that you can change your repayment plan at anytime. The second is that if you want to stay in an income- based repayment plan You have to recertify every single year. This is really important because if you don't recertify every year, you'll be kicked out of the plan and your payments will go back to the standard repayment plan which will drastically increase the amount. Research and reports have shown that a lot of borrows who struggle and end up in default could have lowered their monthly payment through an income driven repayment plan. Don't let that be you. Now you know how to sign- up. [ MUSIC ] ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"College Loan Repayment Plan Options","description":"If you have college debt and find yourself struggling to meet the minimum payments on your monthly bill, there is help.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/tC05EyO4/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-06-06T18:42:11.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/tC05EyO4.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/tC05EyO4/","duration":"PT2M40S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/tC05EyO4/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```