People who have a federal student loan can apply for program from the Department of Education that is intended too give relief to former students with moderate incomes by sketching the payments out over a longer period. The program calculates monthly payments on the basis of income. In addition, the program forgave balances after 25 years (10 years if the the person chooses employment in public service). The monthly-payment calculation, called incomebased repayment (IBR), determined by the size of the loan and the persons income. For some 90 percent of the more than one million people who have already enrolled, the IRB works out to less then 10 percent if their income. The program also caps the payments at 15 percent of a peron's income over $16, 000 a year (and eliminates payments for people who earn than $16, 000).