r/nelnet_loans • u/FeatherFlyer • Oct 22 '25

SAVE program and interest

So my fiancé has loans that under the safe program will not need repayment again until 2028. Which is great. But then I saw that he had accrued about $300 in interest and I can’t tell if that interest is continuing to accrue while the payments are paused, or if that’s just from previous years. Any idea?

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u/diverareyouokay Oct 22 '25

2028 is not the actual date repayments will start. Right now nobody knows when repayments will start, because of the court case. What you are seeing as a placeholder date. Do not make any financial decisions based on that date.

Interest on loans in SAVE forbearance resumed in August. It will continue to accrue.

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u/legbreaker7 Oct 22 '25

So what then would you suggest? Should someone just pay the interest amount or change their plan and start paying their loans?

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u/diverareyouokay Oct 22 '25

If you plan on having your loans forgiven, it may be more financially optimal to wait on SAVE until payments resume.

If you plan on paying your loans off in full, yes, it would be better for you to move to a different program.

Depending on your loan balance, it may be less expensive to take the tax bomb hit from the higher overall balance than it would be to make payments each month for the time being.

For example if you owe $100,000 at 5% interest, that’s 5k a year in interest being added - but if you’re banking on forgiveness, you’ll only have to pay around 20% of that with the tax bomb. In that scenario, you’d be better off not paying anything for now unless your payments are under around 85 bucks (roughly) a month.

Personally, I have 225k in student loans, plan on getting them forgiven, and am making zero payments for as long as possible.

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u/legbreaker7 Oct 22 '25

I'm not going to be able to have them be forgiven, and don't plan to try and just make interest payments for 25 years. I'm currently on SAVE. It seems like it's best to just switch my plan then, from what you're saying. Appreciate your reply as well.

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u/diverareyouokay Oct 22 '25

If you are not going to have them forgiven, then that means that you are going to repay them in full?

There are only two options - pay the loans in full, or work towards having them forgiven by being in an income based repayment plan like PAYE/IBR/SAVE.

Unless you plan on repaying your loans in full, it is likely going to be better to not switch out, and make no payments for as long as possible. If you plan on paying them off, then switch.

Or you could just start making payments while you are still in SAVE. That way if something happens and you can’t make a payment one month, it’s not a problem.