Alan Pedrick, 41, is worried he'll have to cut back on his kids' after-school programs if the SAVE student-loan repayment plan never goes into effect.
Alan Pedrick
All Alan Pedrick wants is affordable monthly student-loan payments.
Pedrick, 41, has been making payments on his student loans since 2003 after receiving an associate degree to become an aircraft electronics technician. While he's now using that degree in his current career, he said it took him some time to land a well-paying job in his desired field, requiring him to put his payments on forbearance, during which he was not making payments, but interest was still accruing.
Throughout his repayment, Pedrick has been on an income-driven repayment plan, which calculated his payments based on his five-figure salary. When President Joe Biden's SAVE income-driven repayment plan rolled around last summer, Pedrick qualified for $0 payments, according to documents reviewed by Business Insider — and he was grateful for the relief.
"With inflation, it was harder and harder to pay bills," Pedrick told BI. "And I was really thankful not to have to pay my student loan payments at that point."
However, a series of lawsuits filed by GOP state attorneys general threw Pedrick and 8 million other student-loan borrowers on SAVE for a loop. Earlier this year, two separate groups of attorneys general filed lawsuits to block the SAVE plan. Federal courts initially blocked parts of the plan, an appeals court then allowed it to move forward, but a different appeals court most recently blocked the plan from moving forward in its entirety.
While a final decision from the court has yet to be made as the legal process continues, borrowers enrolled in SAVE have been placed on an interest-free forbearance. That means bills aren't due, and the months on forbearance won't count toward their loan forgiveness progress. Pedrick said the lack of certainty about the future of the SAVE plan is weighing on him and his finances.
"I'm going to have to rebudget all over again," Pedrick said. "And this is probably the most difficult time of my life as far as finances go with the cost of housing, the cost of vehicles, gas, food has shot up and now they want to go back and make us start repaying. It's kind of depressing, really."
Pedrick said that if losing SAVE forces his monthly payments to be higher, he'll have to reconsider the amount of after-school programs he can afford for his two kids and adjust his everyday expenses to make ends meet. He's not feeling too optimistic.
"I've still got some hope, but it's dwindling just by how long they've been dragging this out," he said. "And with the elections coming up and Biden stepping out of the race, I don't see this getting much of a priority from any politicians."
Pedrick is waiting for the Education Department to evaluate his account to determine if he qualifies for student-loan forgiveness under his income-driven repayment plan. The department is still carrying out account adjustments, during which it brings borrowers' payments up to date to bring them closer to relief. In the meantime, Pedrick has benefited from the $0 SAVE payments.
Now that conservative groups are trying to block SAVE — with support from Republican lawmakers — Pedrick said he's frustrated that this program, in particular, is facing so many challenges.
"This is just one of many things that the government's trying to help out on," he said. "And it's one of the few things that directly affected me this time and that I was looking forward to. I was really looking forward to getting some kind of relief."
Top Republican on the Senate Education Committee, Bill Cassidy, said in a statement after the plan was most recently blocked that the ruling was "another rebuke to President Biden's illegal student loan schemes."
"This is an abuse of power before an election in an attempt to buy votes at the expense of American taxpayers," Cassidy said.
Still, the Education Department has maintained it would continue to fight conservative groups in court seeking to block the plan. Education Sec. Miguel Cardona said in a statement following the ruling that blocking SAVE "could have devastating consequences for millions of student loan borrowers crushed by unaffordable monthly payments if it remains in effect."
"It's shameful that politically motivated lawsuits waged by Republican elected officials are once again standing in the way of lower payments for millions of borrowers," Cardona said.
Pedrick can't do much more than wait for the legal process to progress, and while he hopes he can continue to benefit from low payments on the SAVE plan, he's cautiously preparing for a scenario when that might no longer be possible.
"I know it's got to be even harder for younger people who aren't as established. So it would help other people a lot more than it would help me, but everybody would benefit from this," Pedrick said. "I'm not saying that everybody that took out student loans should get their loans wiped out, but I think we need to offer some help."
Are you on the SAVE plan? Are you concerned about the future of your student-loan payments? Share your story with this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.
