SAVE Has Ended: What Your Actual Options Are Now
If you were on SAVE, you have received a notice giving you 90 days to pick something else. The deadline is real, the default outcome if you ignore it is usually worse than choosing, and at least two of the available choices cannot be reversed. This is what is actually on the table.
What replaced SAVE
Two plans became available on 1 July 2026: the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), a new income-driven plan, and a Tiered Standard plan with a fixed schedule. Alongside them, the older plans — IBR, PAYE, and ICR — remain available to some borrowers but are closed to any loan made on or after 1 July 2026.
RAP is the plan most SAVE borrowers will end up comparing against IBR, so it is worth understanding how it differs structurally rather than just by percentage.
RAP does not use discretionary income
This is the single most important difference and the one most coverage glosses over. Every older income-driven plan applies its percentage only to the portion of your income above a multiple of the federal poverty guideline. IBR uses 150%. SAVE used 225%, which is why so many SAVE borrowers had a $0 payment.
RAP has no such deduction. Its percentage applies to your entire adjusted gross income, on a sliding scale from 1% to 10%. A lower headline percentage applied to a much larger base does not automatically produce a smaller payment.
It also means RAP has no $0 payment. The floor is $10 a month. If your SAVE payment was zero, it will not be zero on RAP.
Three things you may not be able to undo
You may already be barred from IBR. Under 34 CFR 685.209(c)(3)(ii), any borrower who has made 60 or more qualifying repayments under SAVE or REPAYE on or after 1 July 2024 may not enrol in IBR at all. If you have been paying steadily since mid-2024, check this before you spend time comparing against a plan you cannot join.
Time in RAP earns no credit toward IBR forgiveness. The regulation grants forgiveness credit for payments made under every income-driven plan except RAP. The reverse does not apply — payments under IBR and the Tiered Standard plan do count toward RAP's 360. So moving from IBR to RAP carries your progress with you, and moving from RAP back to IBR does not.
Consolidating closes doors permanently. A consolidation loan taken out on or after 1 July 2026 is a new loan, and the older plans are closed to new loans. Consolidation can be the right move for other reasons, but it forecloses IBR, PAYE, and ICR for good.
What happens if you do nothing
Borrowers who do not choose are moved onto a plan by the Secretary, and the automatic destination is generally not the cheapest option available to them. Given that the difference between plans commonly runs to tens of thousands of dollars over a full repayment term, the cost of not deciding is substantially larger than the effort of deciding.
Where to start
Work out your RAP payment first, because it is the simplest of the options to calculate and it anchors the comparison. Then check whether you are eligible for IBR at all. Then compare — bearing in mind that which plan is cheaper genuinely flips direction depending on your income and household size, so you cannot reason it out from the percentages alone.
Whatever you conclude, confirm the figures on the official Federal Student Aid Loan Simulator before you make an election. Your servicer's number can differ from any calculator based on the income record they hold, your verified dependent count, and which of your loans are eligible.
Sources: 34 CFR 685.209 as amended at 91 FR 23887 (1 May 2026), covering plan availability, eligibility bars, qualifying payments, and the RAP payment formula; P.L. 119-21 for the July 2026 transition and the closure of older plans to new loans.