The long awaited Income Based Repayment Program for student loans has officially begun accepting applications as of July 1st, 2009. Even if you're already making repayments under another Federal program, you're still eligible.

Best of all, under the Income Based Repayment Program (IBR), your remaining loan balance is forgiven after either 10 or 25 years, depending on your career choice.

Here are a bunch of links to get you up to speed on the Federal Income Based Repayment Program:

• What is the Income Based Repayment Program?
• The Benefits of Income Based Student Loan Repayments
• The Disadvantages of Income Based Student Loan Repayments
• Loans and Student That Qualify For the IBR
• The Income Based Repayment Formula
• Applying for Income Based Loan Repayments

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Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, announced the impending arrival of a new FAFSA form. This move is seen as partial fulfillment of President Obama's promise to greatly simplify the intimidating financial aid application process. While many parents and educators have welcomed the change, it still falls short of previous discussions that included simply checking a box on your annual tax return in order to apply for financial aid.

The new FAFSA form will use "skip-logic" in its online version, which promises to greatly cut the amount of time parents and students spend navigating unnecessary questions. Even better, starting in January 2010, financial aid applicants will be able to use an "auto-complete" feature that pre-loads the new FAFSA form with most of the relevant financial information reported on their tax return to the IRS.

For more information on the new FAFSA form, you can read the Department of Education's official press release.

To learn how to apply for financial aid in just a few easy steps, visit our Financial Aid Tutorial.

The new Income Based Repayment program for Federal student loans kicks into gear on Wednesday, July 1st. Like the previous income sensitive programs offered by the government, the Income Based Repayment (IBR) program will significantly reduce the monthly payments of many lower income graduates.

To estimate how much this program could save you or your child, the Department of Education has set up a new Income Based Repayment calculator.

Of course, the calculator doesn't estimate the best benefit of the IBR program, which is potential loan forgiveness in as little as ten years!

To learn more about this new program, check out this detailed overview of the Income Based Repayment Program.