E-Mail IMAGE: The shaded areas denote situations in which income-based payments would minimize the cost for direct undergraduate, graduate, and PLUS loans, according to the time until loan forgiveness in an income-based... view more Credit: Figure courtesy of Paolo Guasoni, Yu-Jui Huang, and Saeed Khalili. The burden of student loans in the U.S. continues to grow unabatedly, currently accounting for a total of $1.7 trillion in household debt among nearly 45 million borrowers. "The introduction of income-based repayment over the past decade has made student loans rather complicated products," Paolo Guasoni of Dublin City University said. As borrowers navigate this complex process, they face long-term consequences; people with student debt are less likely to own homes or become entrepreneurs, and generally postpone their enrollment in graduate or professional studies. Though legislative reform is necessary to combat this problem on a grand scale, individual borrowers can take steps to repay their loans with minimal long-term costs.