Education Dept. Reports Increase in Borrowers Using Income-Based Repayment

There has been a large increase in the number of borrowers enrolling in income-based student-loan repayment plans, according to statistics released by the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday. The spike follows an effort by the Obama administration to better publicize the option.

According to the department, almost four million borrowers had enrolled in income-based repayment as of June 30, a 56-percent increase compared with that time last year. Also, the share of borrowers who are more than one month late in repaying their loans dropped from 23 percent to 21 percent over the same period.

In June of last year, President Obama announced he was expanding the income-based repayment program so that an additional five million borrowers would be eligible. That measure was part of a larger effort to better promote the program, which caps borrowers’ monthly payments at 10 percent of their income and forgives all debt after 20 years.