Calculate student loan repayment schedules across standard, graduated, income-driven, and extended plans with forgiveness timelines.
Federal student loans can be repaid on several different schedules, and this tool shows them side by side: standard, graduated, extended, and the income-driven plans that tie the payment to income and forgive whatever remains after 20 or 25 years. You enter balance, rate, income, and household size, and it returns monthly payments, payoff dates, and forgiveness timelines. The surprise for most borrowers is that an income-driven payment is set by income, not by how much you owe, so a small loan can carry a larger payment than a big one. Everything runs in the browser; your numbers never leave it.
A concrete input and expected output from the current implementation.
Input
Loan balance $10,000, fixed interest 5.0%, Standard Repayment Plan (10-year term)
Expected output
Monthly payment $106.07. 120 monthly payments. Total paid about $12,728, of which about $2,728 is interest. Balance reaches zero after 120 months; no forgiveness event.
Standard repayment is a level-payment amortization: month one is $41.67 in interest plus $64.40 in principal, and the split shifts each month so the loan ends at exactly 120 payments. The payment solves the amortization formula for these inputs; 106.07 times 120 minus the $10,000 balance leaves about $2,728 in interest.
Standard repayment is ordinary amortization: the balance and rate fix one equal payment for each of 120 months, each split between interest and principal so the loan ends exactly on schedule. Graduated uses the same math on a step-up schedule that rises every two years, keeping early payments small. Extended stretches the term to up to 25 years for balances over $30,000, at the price of far more interest.
IDR plans set the payment as a percentage of discretionary income, defined as adjusted gross income minus a multiple of the federal poverty guideline for your household size, paid monthly and recalculated at each annual recertification. The calculator projects that formula to the forgiveness month: 240 qualifying payments (20 years) under PAYE and, for most newer borrowers, IBR, and 300 payments (25 years) under ICR. Balances left at that point are discharged.
It is real and statutory. Income-driven plans discharge the remaining balance after 240 or 300 qualifying payments, and Public Service Loan Forgiveness can do it after 120 payments under a qualifying employer. The caveats: only qualifying months count toward those counts, and forgiven amounts are usually taxable income, so the discharge can arrive with a tax bill attached.
Probably not. IDR payments are a percentage of discretionary income, so when income is high relative to the debt, that percentage can exceed the standard 10-year payment. The plan is designed for borrowers with high debt relative to income. The side-by-side comparison exists precisely because neither plan wins for everyone.
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