The Biden Administration’s income-driven student loan repayment plan, Saving on A Valuable Education (SAVE), has already enrolled more than four million people, including 212,800 in New York, since its launch on Aug. 22.

The total number of enrollees to date included those who were transitioned from the previous Revised-Pay-As-You-Earn (REPAYE) plan.

Under the SAVE plan, a single borrower who makes less than $15 an hour will not have to make any payments, and borrowers earning above that amount would save more than $1,000 a year on their payments compared to other income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, the Administration said in its Aug. 22 announcement. The SAVE plan also ensures that borrowers never see their balance grow due to unpaid interest as long as they keep up with their required payments.

SAVE was introduced after the president’s previous mass debt cancellation plan, which would have forgiven as much as $20,000 for qualified borrowers, was struck down by the Supreme Court on June 30. In May, President Biden agreed not to extend the pause, which ends on Oct. 1, in exchange for suspending the debt ceiling, the New York Times reported.

“We’re highly confident that this [SAVE] plan is legally authorized,” Bharat Ramamurti, the deputy director of the National Economic Council, told CPA Practice Advisor.

The U.S. Department of Education and its servicers have reached out directly to nearly 30 million borrowers to invite them to use the new IDR application to apply for the SAVE Plan, the recent statement said.

The plan has engendered opposition from 17 Senate Republicans, who plan to introduce a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to overturn the rule. Led by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), John Thune (R-S.D.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas), they claimed that the rule “will result in a majority of bachelor’s degree student loan borrowers not having to pay back even the principal on their loans, costing taxpayers as much as $559 billion.”