On July 1, 2028 — the day PAYE disappears — I'll have made roughly 164 qualifying payments toward forgiveness. Under PAYE, that would leave me six years from the finish line. Under Old IBR, I'll be eleven years away, paying 15% of my income instead of 10% — a 50% increase in every monthly payment, for five extra years. That's it. That's the whole reason: a date on my paperwork from before 2014. I didn't miss a payment or break a rule. The plan I enrolled in is simply being taken away. This is devastating for me and my family, and I'm not the only one it's happening to.

Millions of us signed up for PAYE in good faith — a plan that promised forgiveness after 20 years at 10% of our income. That plan is being phased out by July 1, 2028. When it goes, pre-2014 borrowers like us don't land on New IBR, which mirrors PAYE's terms — we get pushed onto "Old IBR" instead: 25 years, not 20, and 15% of our income instead of 10%.

We didn't choose to leave PAYE. We didn't do anything wrong. The only reason we're losing years and paying more is the date we happened to take out our first loan — a detail that has nothing to do with our income, our need, or the plan we actually signed up for.

This is a bounded, identifiable group: borrowers who were on PAYE, who first borrowed before July 1, 2014, and who are about to be displaced onto worse terms through no fault of their own. We're not asking to rewrite IBR for everyone. We're asking Congress to keep us on the terms we signed up for — 20 years at 10% — for the specific group of people PAYE's sunset is about to hurt.

The Ask
Congress created this gap through Section 493C of the Higher Education Act.

We are calling on Congress to add a targeted grandfather clause to Section 493C: any borrower who was enrolled in PAYE before its phase-out, and who first borrowed before July 1, 2014, should be moved onto New IBR terms — 10% of discretionary income, 20-year forgiveness — instead of Old IBR's 25 years at 15%.

We are calling on President Trump to press Congress to fix this and to sign that fix into law — don't let these borrowers fall through the cracks.

We are calling on the Department of Education to pressure Congress to update the clause.

This is not a request to rewrite IBR for every borrower, and it's not a request for new forgiveness or new spending beyond what these borrowers were already on track for under PAYE. It's a narrow, bounded fix for a specific group of people who are losing something they already had, through no fault of their own — restoring the terms they were already working toward, not creating a new benefit.

Call to Action
Sign this petition, then contact your Representative and Senators, the Department of Education, and the White House.

Tell Congress: displaced PAYE borrowers deserve fair terms — give us New IBR terms.

Tell the Department of Education: pressure Congress to update the clause.

Tell President Trump: press Congress to fix this and sign it into law — don't let these borrowers fall through the cracks.