Student Loan: RAP vs IBR (2026 forced choice)
us_student_loan_rap_vs_ibrYour monthly payment and forgiveness timeline under RAP vs IBR — the choice SAVE borrowers are being forced to make. SAVE is dead (vacated, then repealed by the July 2025 law) and the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) went live 1 July 2026; PAYE, ICR, and SAVE all end 1 July 2028, when anyone who hasn’t picked is auto-enrolled in RAP. This tool computes your monthly payment under RAP (a %-of-AGI cliff schedule) and IBR (15% or 10% of discretionary income depending on when your first loan was disbursed), the forgiveness horizon for each (30 vs 25/20 years — and 10 tax-free years on PSLF), and the traps: RAP’s payment cliffs at every $10k of AGI, Parent PLUS exclusion, and the new default Tiered Standard plan not counting toward PSLF. General AI still recommends the dead SAVE plan and calls IDR forgiveness tax-free — the ARPA tax exclusion expired 31 Dec 2025.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| agi | No | Adjusted gross income (AGI) From your latest federal return. Married filing jointly: combined AGI of both spouses. Married filing separately: yours only. | |
| pslf | No | Public Service Loan Forgiveness track? PSLF flips the strategy: forgiveness arrives at 120 qualifying payments and is federally TAX-FREE, so the lowest qualifying payment wins. Both RAP and IBR qualify; the new Tiered Standard plan does not. | no |
| rate | No | Average interest rate (%) Weighted average across your loans. | |
| state | No | Where do you live? Alaska and Hawaii have higher poverty guidelines, which lowers IBR payments. | contiguous |
| balance | No | Total loan balance Outstanding principal. Sets the standard-plan comparator, the IBR payment cap, and the interest math. | |
| loanType | No | Loan type Parent PLUS loans are excluded from RAP entirely, and reach IBR only through a consolidation carve-out — the answer changes completely. | regular |
| firstLoan | No | When was your FIRST federal loan disbursed? The decisive input. Your first-ever federal disbursement date sets WHICH IBR you get (15%/25yr vs 10%/20yr) — and loans originated from 1 Jul 2026 can’t use IBR at all. Taking any new loan on/after 1 Jul 2026 also ends IBR eligibility for your old loans. | mid |
| dependents | No | Dependents claimed on your return RAP subtracts $50/month per dependent (IRC §152 dependents claimed on your federal return). Not the same thing as family size. | |
| familySize | No | Family size You + spouse + dependents — sets the poverty-guideline deduction in IBR. |