Student Loan Calculator
Two modes, for two different situations: pricing a loan you're considering, and working out what to do about one you already have.
Pick one with the Simple / Repayment switch at the top. Each mode keeps its own answer, so you can flip between them to compare.
Simple mode
For a loan you're evaluating, or one you're paying on the standard schedule.
Inputs:
- ›Loan Amount
- ›Rate: up to 20%
- ›Term: in years, up to 40
You get the Monthly payment and the month the loan is paid off, with Total payment, Total interest, and Term beneath it.
Use this when you're deciding how much to borrow, comparing loan offers, or want to see what a refinance would change. For a refinance, run it twice, once with your current terms and once with the proposed ones, and compare the totals rather than the payments.
Repayment mode
For a loan you already have and want to attack.
Inputs:
- ›Loan Amount: what you owe now
- ›Interest Rate
- ›Current Payment: what you pay each month now
- ›Additional Payment: what you'd add each month
If you ran Simple mode first, its monthly payment is carried into Current Payment when you switch, as long as that field is empty.
You get how long until the loan is Paid off, and the month that happens, with Total payment and Total interest. When you've entered an additional payment, you also see the Interest saved by the extra.
If your payment doesn't cover the interest the loan builds up each month, the result says This payment never clears the loan instead of giving a date.
Why the extra payment does so much
Interest accrues on your remaining balance, so every extra dollar against principal removes not just itself but all the future interest that dollar would have generated.
On a large balance at a high rate, even modest extra payments make a visible difference. This is the calculator that tends to surprise people most, in a good way.
Run it at a few different additional amounts. Seeing what $50 a month does versus $150 is often more motivating than any general advice about paying down debt.
Multiple loans
Most people with student debt have several, at different rates.
You can run this calculator once per loan, but that evaluates each in isolation, which is not how you should pay them. The order matters, and so does what happens when one clears and its payment becomes available for the next.
For that, use the Debt Payoff Calculator, which handles multiple debts and lets you compare strategies. Better still, put them all in the Budget Builder and let the algorithm sequence them against everything else you owe.
Income-driven repayment
If you're on an income-driven plan, your actual payment is set by your income rather than by your balance and rate. Enter your real payment in Repayment mode rather than the standard calculated one, or the timeline won't reflect your situation.
Some income-driven plans can leave you paying less than the interest accruing, which means the balance grows. That's when you'll see This payment never clears the loan. The calculator doesn't model the forgiveness rules that make those plans make sense.
Add To Budget
Add To Budget adds the loan to your Budget Builder as a debt named Student, confirming with Student loan added to budget. and a Go To Budget shortcut. In Simple mode the payment is the calculated monthly payment. In Repayment mode it's your current payment plus the additional payment.
The button doesn't appear when the payment never clears the loan.
The Builder is the more useful destination for an existing loan, because there it gets sequenced against your other debts rather than considered on its own. Rename it there if you have more than one. See Debts.