RAP vs. SAVE: What Actually Changes for Your Student Loan Payment

Short answer: if you’re one of the roughly 7.5 million borrowers still parked in SAVE forbearance, you’re not being kicked off it today. Loan servicers are sending 90-day switch notices in tranches from July 2026 through December 2026, and the Department of Education has said no one is required to leave SAVE before September 29, 2026 at the earliest. RAP is the new plan — live since July 1, 2026 — and it’s mandatory for anyone taking out a new federal loan or new consolidation from that date on, but if you’re already in repayment on an older loan, you generally get to choose among RAP and the surviving older plans (IBR, PAYE, ICR) once your own notice arrives.

Why SAVE is going away

SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education) was struck down through litigation, and a federal court approved the settlement ending it. That’s a legal outcome, not a policy opinion — this page describes what changed and what it means for your payment, not whether it should have happened.

The two plans, side by side

	SAVE (being phased out)	RAP (Repayment Assistance Plan)
Status	Ending — borrowers in forbearance get individual 90-day notices, July–Dec 2026	Live since July 1, 2026; mandatory for new loans/consolidations from that date
Payment based on	Discretionary income, with generous exclusions	Full Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), no discretionary-income exclusion
Payment formula	Percentage of discretionary income (varied by loan type)	1%–10% of AGI in whole-percentage steps per $10,000 of income bracket, minus $50 per dependent claimed, $10/month floor
Interest handling	Unpaid interest waived monthly	Full, on-time payments are shielded from runaway interest accrual
Forgiveness timeline	20–25 years, depending on loan type	30 years of qualifying payments
Who it’s for	No longer an enrollment option	Available to Direct Loan borrowers; the only IDR option for loans first disbursed July 1, 2026 or later

How much would RAP actually cost you compared to the older plans?

That depends heavily on your income, loan balance, and household size — the two structures calculate payments in genuinely different ways, not just different rates on the same base. See the RAP vs. old IDR plans comparator for a side-by-side estimate using your own numbers, including a difference worth knowing about: RAP has no cap tied to your loan balance the way IBR, PAYE, and ICR do, so a borrower with a small balance and a solid income can end up paying substantially more under RAP than under an older plan.

What if you do nothing?

If your 90-day window closes and you haven’t picked a plan, you get auto-enrolled in the Standard or Tiered Standard Plan and billing resumes immediately — a fixed payment, not an income-based one, and very likely higher than what RAP or another IDR plan would have set. There’s no grace period after that point; the switch to check studentaid.gov for your specific notice date is the only real deadline that matters here, not a single blanket date for everyone.

How to actually check where you stand

Log into studentaid.gov and confirm your current plan and loan type.
Look for a notice from your loan servicer — these are going out on a rolling basis through the rest of 2026, not all at once.
If you’re already in default rather than current repayment, this page doesn’t apply to you the same way — see the federal student loan wage garnishment guide instead.

Questions & Answers

Am I forced off SAVE right now?

No. Notices go out in tranches through December 2026, and each borrower gets 90 days from their own notice date to choose a new plan — nobody's forced to move before September 29, 2026 at the earliest.