The Education Department drastically underestimated the cost of the government’s income-driven repayment plans for student loans in its original estimates, the Government Accountability Office said in a highly critical report Wednesday.
The GAO report finds that estimates of the cost to the government of income-driven repayment plans — which eventually discharge a student’s remaining debt after 20 years or more of payments — has jumped from $28 billion to $53 billion for student loans issued from 2009 to 2016. And it found that nearly a third of student loan debt expected to be repaid via income-driven repayments ($108 billion) will be forgiven by the federal government through programs such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/12/01/gao-report-finds-costs-loan-programs-outpace-estimates-and-department-methodology
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