If you have Parent PLUS loans and want access to more affordable monthly payments, you will need to act soon – likely before April 1, 2026. By taking action now, you can make your Parent PLUS loans eligible for an Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plan, which sets payments as a portion of your income each year and offers many people lower payments compared to the Standard Repayment plan. But the door is closing: If you don’t act in time, then your Parent PLUS loans will be locked out of IDR plans permanently, which may leave you with unaffordable student loan payments in the future.
Parent PLUS loans are federal student loans taken out by parents to help pay for their child’s education. Not sure if you have a Parent PLUS loan? See how to find out what types of loans you have here.
To make your Parent PLUS loans eligible for an IDR plan, you have to first apply to consolidate your Parent PLUS loans into a new Direct Consolidation Loan. Under a new law, the Big Bill, any Consolidation Loan containing a Parent PLUS loan must be issued before July 1, 2026 to be eligible for an IDR plan. The Department of Education says it typically takes 4-6 weeks for a consolidation to be completed after a borrower submits a consolidation application but can take longer, so it recommends that interested borrowers apply to consolidate by April 1, 2026. You can sign up to repay your Direct Consolidation loan in an Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plan, which you must do before July 1, 2028.
What’s the advantage of an IDR plan?
On an IDR plan, each year your student loan monthly payment is set based on your income and family size—not on how much you owe. As a result, IDR payments are often much lower than payments in other plans, especially for borrowers with low incomes or high debts, and payments go down if your income decreases. In addition, in an IDR plan, your loans are canceled after a certain number of years in repayment. Learn more about IDR here.
Here is what you need to know:
1. If you already have a Parent PLUS loan, you must consolidate your loan well before July 1, 2026 – probably before April 1, 2026 – and must enroll in an IDR plan before July 1, 2028 to ensure those loans will be eligible for an IDR plan in the future.
You must take two steps if you want to be able to repay yourParent PLUS loans using an IDR plan now or in the future.
- First, you must apply to consolidate your Parent PLUS loans well before July 1, 2026 – probably before April 1, 2026. Parent PLUS loans consolidated into a Direct Consolidation Loan before July 1, 2026 will be eligible for IDR. To meet that deadline for the new Consolidation Loan, the Department recommends applying to consolidate Parent PLUS loans before April 1, 2026 to ensure your application is processed in time. You can apply to consolidate online here. You can learn more about consolidating your loans here.
- Second, you must enroll your resulting Consolidation Loan in an IDR plan before July 1, 2028, or you will lose the opportunity to enroll in IDR in the future. You can apply to repay your Consolidation Loan in IDR when you apply to consolidate. At first, the Consolidation Loan will likely only be eligible for the Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR) plan. But after at least one payment in ICR, you can then apply to switch into the Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plan, which offers lower payments than ICR for most borrowers. You do not have to apply for ICR when you consolidate, but you must apply for ICR and make at least one payment in it before July 1, 2028 or you will lose the opportunity to enroll in IDR in the future.
On July 1, 2028, repayment plans options will change again and the ICR plan will disappear. But if you have taken the two steps above — (1) consolidated your Parent PLUS loans by April 1, 2026, and (2) enrolled in ICR by July 1, 2028 — then you’ll continue to be eligible for IBR, and will be automatically switched from ICR to IBR if you haven’t already switched. This is good because IBR offers lower payments and better terms than ICR for most people.
What if I have already consolidated my Parent PLUS loans?
If you have already consolidated your Parent PLUS loan into a Direct Consolidation Loan, then you do not have to consolidate it again. But if you haven’t already enrolled the Consolidation Loan in an IDR plan (including ICR, IBR, or PAYE), then you must enroll in ICR before July 1, 2028 or you will lose the opportunity to enroll in IDR in the future. Additionally, you should double check that your consolidation loan is a Direct Consolidation Loan. If it is a FFEL Consolidation Loan (only issued before July 2010), then you will likely need to apply to consolidate it into a Direct Consolidation Loan to enroll in IDR. Here’s how you can check what type of loan you have.
2. If you borrow a new Parent PLUS loan or consolidate your Parent PLUS loan and the loan or consolidation is made on or after July 1, 2026, then you will not be able to enroll them in an IDR plan.
The Big Bill changes the repayment rules for all new federal student loans made on or after July 1, 2026. New loans will have to be repaid using one of two new repayment plans:
- the Tiered Standard Repayment Plan, which has fixed monthly payments paid over 10 to 25 years based on the amount you owe, or
- the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), a new IDR plan with payments based on your income.
Unfortunately, Parent PLUS loans and Consolidation Loan containing Parent PLUS loans (including double consolidation loans) are not eligible for RAP. Therefore, all new Parent PLUS loans and Consolidation Loans that contain Parent PLUS loans made on or after July 1, 2026 will have to be repaid using the new Tiered Standard plan. This will mean Parent Plus borrowers with low incomes or high student loan burdens will not have a good option to reduce their payments to a more affordable amount.
3. If you consolidate or borrow a new loan after July 1, 2026, then your already existing Parent PLUS loan or Consolidation Loan containing a Parent PLUS loan will not be eligible for IDR.
The Big Bill raises the stakes on borrowing new loans (or consolidating loans) after July 1, 2026 for people who already have loans. If you consolidate or borrow even one loan after that date, then you will have to repay your new loans using one of the two new plans – Tiered Standard or RAP – AND all of your existing Direct loans will have to switch to these new plans. And again, because this deadline applies to the making of new loans, which only happens weeks or months after a borrower has applied for new loans, it could impact borrowers who apply to consolidate after April 1, 2026.
The stakes are especially high for Parent PLUS borrowers, because borrowing or consolidating after this time will mean that even your existing Consolidation Loan that contains a Parent PLUS loan will no longer be eligible for IDR.
This is because Parent PLUS loans, Consolidation Loans containing Parent PLUS loans, and double Consolidation Loans containing Parent PLUS loans are not eligible for the RAP plan. So if you apply to consolidate existing loans or borrow new loans and the loan is issued on or after July 1, 2026, then you will only be able to repay Parent PLUS Loans and Consolidation Loans that contain Parent PLUS loans using the new Tiered Standard plan.
What if I consolidated my Parent PLUS loans before April 1, 2026 to get access to IDR, but then I take out another loan after July 1, 2026?
Unfortunately, if you take out a new loan or consolidate a loan after July 1, 2026, then you will lose access to IDR for any Consolidation Loans you have that contain Parent PLUS loans, even if you previously jumped through all the hoops to make them eligible for IDR. For many Parent PLUS borrowers, this will mean losing access to more affordable monthly payments.
