Reboot Your Life: Tampa Student Loan and Bankruptcy Attorney Blog
Parent Plus Loans: Those with Parent Plus loans which have not been consolidated into a Direct Consolidation loan will no longer qualify for income driven repayment or Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF).
If you missed the July 1, 2026 deadline, this leaves access to three legacy repayment plans: Standard (10 years), Graduated (10 Years), or Extended (25 years). Graduated payments start lower, and increase every two years. Extended payments are available for anyone with $30,000 or more in federal student debt – can be either fixed or graduated – but will result in more total interest. Our advice over the years for anyone choosing Extended Payments is it is a good plan to keep your monthly nut low, but try to pay it down with bonuses and extra funds to keep the interest under control.
Anyone who previously consolidated before July 1, is eligible for Income Contingent Repayment (ICR), and may have the option to switch to Income Based Repayment for a lower payment. Switching as early as possible is best for a lower payment. ICR is scheduled to be eliminated on July 1, 2028, at which time anyone remaining on ICR will have the option to switch to IBR.
Good news: the attestation process for anyone filing an adversary proceeding in bankruptcy is working quite well. It is important to have Direct loans prior to filing bankruptcy, and to have a ten year repayment history (including forbearances) for the best results. As other repayment options decline, we anticipate that more borrowers will elect to file adversary actions in bankruptcy to eliminate unaffordable payment requirements. For instance, those with Parent Plus loans who have not consolidated prior to July 1, 2026 will have extremely high loan repayments and few options.
