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.
Simple mode
For a loan you're evaluating, or one you're paying on the standard schedule.
Inputs:
- ›Loan Amount
- ›Interest Rate
- ›Loan Term (Years)
Gives you the payment and the cost over the life of the loan.
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, 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
- ›Interest Rate
- ›Current Payment — what you're paying now
- ›Additional Payment — what you'd add
Shows what the extra payment does to your timeline and your total cost.
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's evaluating each in isolation — and in isolation is not how you should be paying 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.
Be aware that some income-driven plans can leave you paying less than the interest accruing, meaning the balance grows. If your balance is going up while you pay, that's what's happening, and the calculator's projection won't capture the forgiveness rules that make those plans make sense.
Add To Budget
Add To Budget pushes the loan into your Budget Builder inputs, confirming with Student loan added to budget and a Go To Budget shortcut.
That's the more useful destination for an existing loan: in the Builder it gets sequenced against your other debts rather than considered on its own. See Debts.