Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

11. Department of Education · Notable

Phase out all existing income-driven repayment plans

Partially done

337 11. Department of Education

“The Secretary should phase out all existing IDR plans by making new loans (including consolidation loans) ineligible and should implement a new IDR plan.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    ED's Reimagining and Improving Student Education final rule implements the change - phasing out the existing Income-Contingent Repayment plans, adding a tiered standard plan and establishing the Repayment Assistance Plan - and a rescission of the SAVE plan regulations sits on the 2026 Unified Agenda at Prerule Stage (RIN 1840-AE00). Not `done`: statutory income-based repayment under HEA sec. 493C survives for existing borrowers and the transition does not finish until 2028-07-01.

  2. Partially done

    Public Law 119-21 sec. 82001 does what the Quote asks, by statute rather than by the Secretary: it limits the existing repayment plans in HEA sec. 455(d)(1) to borrowers who have not taken a loan on or after 2026-07-01, creates the income-based Repayment Assistance Plan at sec. 455(q) effective the same day, and requires every borrower in an income-contingent plan to move to the Repayment Assistance Plan or to sec. 493C income-based repayment before 2028-07-01, with automatic enrolment for those who do not choose.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • The Quote addresses the Secretary; the mechanism it describes - making new loans, consolidation loans included, ineligible for the old plans, and standing up a new income-driven plan - was delivered by Congress in Public Law 119-21 and implemented by rule. Progress is measured on the ask, so the statute counts.
  • The line between partial and done here is close: an assessor who reads “all existing IDR plans” as the ICR family alone would call it done.
Action
eliminate
Object
Existing income-driven repayment (IDR) plans
ID
851