Calculate your student loan payoff timeline across five repayment plans — Standard 10-Year, Extended 25-Year, Graduated, Income-Driven (IBR), and Custom payment. Compare monthly payments, total interest, and see how forgiveness works under income-driven repayment.
Pro tip: Income-driven repayment plans lower your monthly payment but often double or triple total interest. A $50,000 loan at 6% costs $66,600 total on Standard 10-year but can cost $90,000+ on IBR over 20 years — even with the remaining balance forgiven (which is taxable).
Plan Comparison
Principal vs Interest Over Time
Multi-Loan Manager
Enter each loan separately to see optimal payoff order using avalanche vs snowball methods.
Refinancing Analyzer
Enter a refinancing offer to compare total cost against your current loan.
PSLF Tracker
Track qualifying payments toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness (120 payments required).
Student Loan Repayment Plans Compared
Federal student loan borrowers have access to several repayment plans, each with trade-offs between monthly affordability and total cost. The Standard 10-Year plan amortizes the balance over 120 fixed monthly payments and minimizes total interest paid. The Extended 25-Year plan stretches payments over 300 months, cutting the monthly amount significantly but roughly doubling total interest. Graduated plans start payments low and increase them every two years, targeting early-career borrowers who expect income growth. Income-Driven Repayment plans (IBR, PAYE, REPAYE/SAVE) cap payments at a percentage of discretionary income and forgive any remaining balance after 20 or 25 years of qualifying payments. Understanding how each option affects both your monthly budget and long-term cost is the first step toward choosing the right strategy.
How Income-Driven Repayment Is Calculated
Under Income-Based Repayment (IBR), your monthly payment equals 15 percent of the difference between your adjusted gross income and 150 percent of the federal poverty guideline for your family size, divided by 12. The poverty guideline for 2026 starts at $15,060 for a single-person household and increases by $5,380 for each additional family member. If your income is low enough that the calculated payment would be zero, you owe nothing that month but interest continues to accrue. Under newer plans like PAYE and the SAVE plan, the percentage drops to 10 percent of discretionary income for undergraduate loans, with separate rules for graduate borrowers. Each plan recertifies your income annually, so payments can rise or fall as your earnings change. The calculator on this page uses the IBR formula to estimate payments and projects the remaining balance at the forgiveness horizon to give you a realistic picture of what income-driven repayment truly costs.
Student Loan Forgiveness: What Gets Forgiven (and Taxed)
After 20 years of qualifying payments (undergraduate loans) or 25 years (graduate loans), any remaining balance on an income-driven plan is forgiven. This forgiveness is not free money — the IRS currently treats the forgiven amount as taxable income in the year it is discharged. A borrower who has $40,000 forgiven while earning $60,000 that year would report $100,000 in adjusted gross income, potentially pushing them into a higher tax bracket and creating a five-figure tax bill. The SAVE plan temporarily offered tax-free forgiveness for small balances, and PSLF forgiveness is always tax-free, but standard IDR forgiveness remains taxable under current law. When comparing repayment strategies, always factor in the potential tax liability to understand the true cost of forgiveness versus simply paying the loan off on the standard timeline.
Snowball vs Avalanche: Paying Off Multiple Student Loans
Borrowers with several student loans face a sequencing decision. The avalanche method targets the loan with the highest interest rate first while making minimum payments on everything else, minimizing total interest paid. The snowball method targets the smallest balance first, generating quick psychological wins that keep motivation high. Mathematically, avalanche always wins on total cost, but behavioural research shows that borrowers using snowball are more likely to stay on track and finish paying off all their debt. The optimal approach depends on discipline: if you can stay motivated on your own, avalanche saves money; if you need visible progress, snowball gets you there. Subscribers can use the multi-loan manager above to model both strategies with their actual loan portfolio and see the exact dollar difference.
Should You Refinance Your Student Loans?
Refinancing replaces one or more existing loans with a new private loan at a different rate and term. It makes sense when you can secure a meaningfully lower interest rate and do not need access to federal benefits like income-driven repayment, PSLF, or deferment. Refinancing federal loans into a private loan permanently eliminates eligibility for those programs, so the savings must be large enough to justify that trade-off. A good rule of thumb: if your current rate is above 6 percent and you qualify for a private rate below 5 percent with a similar or shorter term, the math usually favours refinancing — provided your income is stable and you have an emergency fund. Use the refinancing analyzer above (subscribers only) to compare your current total cost against a refinanced scenario and make the decision with real numbers.
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