Student loan attorney explains what new president means for payment plans

With the new administration and new court ruling, those paying back student loans with pay with the student payment plan could be facing some changes. Denver 7's Juanier Reese is joining us from the Aurorea campus and Juanier you had a chance to speak with a loan attorney. Can you break this down what this means for a person who's maybe got a payment coming up pretty soon? Good Monday morning to you Anusha. I got the chance to speak with Karen Cody Hopkins and she tells me that as of late she has been swamped because of a recent ruling that came down from the U.S. Circuit Court and basically what that ruling did was blocked the SAVE plan that was introduced by the Biden administration and SAVE stands for saving on a valuable education. So let's walk through this, let's talk through this a little bit this morning. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court that sided with seven Republican-led states against the plan. When the SAVE plan was active it provided borrowers with affordable income-driven repayment options on student loans with some people getting their loans forgiven. Cody Hopkins says that right now it seems like the SAVE plan is dead with former President Joe Biden not in office and conservatives having a stance against student debt relief. So I wanted to know what other options will you have to pay off your student loans and how much longer is this all going to play out? This is what Cody Hopkins explained to me. Public service loan forgiveness is likely to survive. Might be modified but I think the concept and its provisions are likely to survive. The time-based programs will survive. The income-based programs, there's one that was put in place by Congress, there's some others that might survive but I would expect that the end result of all of this and I think it's going to take at least a year for it all to play out but I think the end result is there could be fewer and more expensive repayment plans left at the end of all this. So Wanda we were just hearing that we're talking about a pretty long timeline of a year to play out so is there a way that people can start preparing from now? The best thing that you can do is do your homework. That's what my mom would tell me growing up sometimes and this is the homework you need to do. Go to the student aid website, stay on top of every latest development that is coming from them and also reach out to your service provider as well. Right now the Department of Education has not released any information about how they're going to move forward after this most recent ruling or if they're going to be changing any of the repayment options that you may have but you also want to make sure that you're reaching out to your servicer as well to go ahead and get signed up for one of those repayment options because it's just a matter of time. There's a saying that I like to say, stay ready so you don't have to get ready and this is one of those things that you definitely want to be ahead of Anoosha and Nicole. Yeah definitely especially with so much on the line with this so thank you so much for breaking that down Juanye.