Income of $10k/yr is $5/hr full time. Less than minimum wage. It's below the Federal poverty level for a single person. Even if you had zero loans this would be a big problem.

I make a little over that, but for the purpose of keeping the calculations simple, I rounded down. If I had zero loans it wouldn't be a problem for me at all. I'm sure it's bad for all the companies that need people to have a certain amount of disposable income to buy stuff, but they should lobby the federal government to raise the minimum wage if it's bothering them.

not on trying to project your REPAY payments (which BTW will cost you more overall than the standard plan).

I don't see how REPAYE will cost me more. $621 dollars paid in by me (with their assumption that my income will grow at 5% annually) + the tax repayment on the total amount forgiven. The tax payment should be $6,215, given that I'm in the 15% income tax bracket.

I could be wrong but I don't see how $7,000 is going to cost me more than $30,000.