<prompt> Human: My wife and I both have jobs and student loans. Shes in a 501c3, and will very likely be for the rest of her career, so shell qualify for loan for loan forgiveness after 120 payments. Right now, she is on Income Based Repayment IBR and pays just under 600 per month. She called yesterday to confirm that if we file separately, my income will no longer be used to calculate her payment. Her new payment will be about 230. Over the year, thats 4300 that we will save on her payments. The amount we save will increase as my income does.  <response>: I had the same issue with my IBR, and was told by the loan people that I could simply reapply with pay stubs instead of my taxes and that would eliminate my husband from their calculations. Have had no recourse from this since, and my payments were lowered. 