The Ministry of Education suspends forgiveness of student loans under IBR

The Ministry of Education has suspended forgiveness of student loans as part of the income -based reimbursement plan, or IBR. The IBR plan is one of the many reimbursement programs focused on the income offered to borrowers, and is the only current plan which does not subject any judicial dispute or to an injunction of the court.

“Currently, forgiveness IBR is interrupted while our systems are updated,” the ministry announced in the directives updated on the challenges awaiting courts published earlier this month. “The IBR forgiveness will once again resume these updates completed.”

The ministry’s announcement corroborates the previous statements by former officials of the department. And this confirms what some borrowers who had reached the threshold for the forgiveness of student loans – but who did not obtain a liberation – had already suspected. Here is what we know and what borrowers can do.

The forgiveness of student loans under IBR is not blocked by any court

Like all reimbursement plans focused on income, IBR uses a borrower’s income formula and family size to determine the borrower’s monthly payment requirement. Payments are then recalculated every 12 months. The borrowers who have not reimbursed their student loans in full by the end of their repayment mandate – which is 25 years for borrowers who contracted their loans before July 1, 2014 and 20 years for those who contracted loans on this date or after this date – would be entitled to pardon of student loans.

But IBR is unique in that it is not directly subject to a legal challenge at the moment. Last year, a group of States led by Les Républicains filed a complaint to stop the backup plan, a new reimbursement option focused on the income created by the Biden administration in 2023. A federal court of appeal then published a safeguarding of the injunction of the injunction last summer. The decision of the court, as well as a later decision rendered earlier this year, questioned whether the forgiveness of student loans was authorized under the federal law that governs Save. This same law also underpins two other income -focused plans – ICR and pay. But IBR was created separately by the congress, and the status of the IBR expressly authorizes the forgiveness of student loans at the end of the reimbursement period of 20 or 25 years. The Court of Appeal recognized him in his recent decisions.

Consequently, the forgiveness of the student loan under Save, ICR and pay is blocked. But the forgiveness of student loans under IBR is not. The ministry confirmed it in its updated directives on the current dispute which was issued earlier in July.

“Forgiveness as a characteristic of the Save, Pay and ICR plans is currently interrupted, because these plans have not been created by the Congress,” said the ministry. “Generally, ED can and will always treat the forgiveness of the loan for the IBR plan, which has been promulgated separately by the congress.”

But despite this, the ministry does not deal with the pardon of student loans under the IBR. And the announcement of the ministry confirms the charges accumulated by a former official of the Federal Aid Office for students, who suggested in a declaration of a separate legal challenge to mass layoffs to the ministry that the Trump administration could rape the law by blocking the reduction of the debt under the IBR.

“I understand that in April or early May 2025, federal student loan borrowers who are eligible for income -based reimbursement cancellation was still not in advance of their loans – a process that has been paused since July 2024 – despite the statutory obligation to do so,” said the official. The same official also indicated that the ministry had trouble updating the Payment Payment Payment Payment Loan Payment Eligible Student.

The Pardon Pardon at the IBR student loan is linked to an injunction of the court, explains the department

The Ministry of Education has provided only a wave explanation to the suspension of the pardon of students by virtue of the IBR, which suggests that it has been interrupted “while our systems are updated to count precisely the months not affected by the injunction of the court” led by the safeguard plan.

The ministry may refer to a decision of the Federal Court of Appeal earlier this spring which has widened the blocking of the court injunction to include the entire underlying regulations which governs the safeguard plan. Certain elements of these regulations also have an indirectly impact of other income -focused reimbursement plans, including IBR. For example, the regulations have enabled certain periods of postponement and abstention to count for the forgiveness of students’ loans by virtue of all income on income (ICR, Pay, Save and IBR).

Nevertheless, nothing in the recent judicial decisions associated with the legal challenges of the safeguard plan, the ministry only entails the forgiveness of student loans under the IBR. And no court has ordered the ministry to suspend the discharges under the IBR – something which is expressly required by the laws previously promulgated by the Congress.

The legal groups of the borrower of student loans previously accused the Trump administration of having used the recent judicial orders involving the safeguard plan to justify the political decisions which harm borrowers.

“Instead of repairing the broken student loans system, Secretary McMahon chooses to drown millions of people in unnecessary accusations of interest and to blame judicial affairs unrelated to his own mismanagement,” said executive director of the borrower of the student Mike Pierce in a statement earlier this month after the ministry announced that this would be the interest of the rocket on the loan. safeguarding the claim. Borrowers subject to abstention had no interest in their loans since the injunction was announced last summer.

The suspension of the forgiveness of student loans comes in the middle of other disruptions of the program

The suspension of the forgiveness of student loans under the IBR intervenes while the federal reimbursement system for student loans experiences upheavals and disorders. More than 1.5 million requests for reimbursement focused on income remains blocked in a massive backlog, as the Ministry of Education progresses slow after having suspended treatment for several months (which the officials of the department also attributed the injunction of the safeguard plan). Despite this backward, earlier this month, the department announced that the interest of student loans covered by the removal of the safeguard plan would resume in August and encouraged almost eight million additional borrowers to apply to change to another reimbursement plan – in particular to IBR.

“The ministry urges all borrowers in the safeguard plan to quickly switch to a legally compliant reimbursement plan – such as the income -based reimbursement plan,” said the ministry in its advertisement. “Borrowers in safeguard cannot access important benefits on loans and cannot progress to the loans of loans authorized by the congress.”

Meanwhile, other changes will soon be available. Earlier this month, President Trump signed the so-called “big and beautiful bill”. The legislation makes changes to the IBR plan and will result in the possible repeal of the ICR, the pay and the savings of the plans, while creating in their place a new option focused on the income called the reimbursement assistance plan, or RAP. IBR will always be available for current borrowers in reimbursement, allowing forgiveness of student loans after 20 or 25 years. But rap will not allow forgiveness of the loan until the borrower has been in reimbursement for 30 years.

The borrowers currently in IBR who have reached the forgiveness of student loans, but who are unable to receive release due to the suspension of the Ministry of Education, have limited options. They can continue to make payments under the IBR and hope that they may be reimbursed for these excess payments once their student loans are unloaded (any payment made in addition to the 240 or 300 monthly payments required for the delivery of the IBR loan should be refundable). Or, they can contact their loan service to request a cash register to suspend payments while they are waiting for a release. But the interests would continue to accumulate on their balance during the period of abstention, and it is not known how long the break of the IBR student loan will last.