Student Loan Repayment Calculator – Standard vs Income-Driven Plans Compared

Three plans, one loan, side by side

Every figure below comes from the same loan, run month by month under each plan’s own rules — interest first each month, the balance never allowed below zero, and any balance still standing when an income-driven plan reaches 20 years counted as forgiven.

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How it works, in 3 steps

How each figure is worked out

Deep dives

Three plans on the same loan — and what a bigger loan does to each

The calculator prices three federal repayment shapes on one loan, and the default loan is a $35,000 balance at 5.5%, on $55,000 of income with a family size of one. Nothing else moves in the first table: same loan, same rate, same income. Only the plan changes. That is the comparison that matters, because borrowers usually choose a plan by its monthly payment alone — and the monthly payment is the one number that most misleads.

Read the Standard row first, because it is the yardstick the other two are measured against. At $379.84 a month the loan is gone in exactly 10 years, the interest bill is $10,581.04, and the breathing room the income-driven payment buys is visible at once: $379.84 minus $262.71 is $117.13 a month less to find. What that $117.13 costs is the rest of the row — the income-driven plan runs 7 years and 3 months longer and collects $19,187.36 of interest, $8,606.32 more than Standard. The Extended plan is the same trade taken further: the gentlest payment, $214.93, and the dearest loan, $29,479.19 of interest over 25 years, nearly three times the Standard interest bill. Interest is rent on time, as the page’s own FAQ puts it, and every year added to the loan is another year of rent.

Now change only the balance, to $50,000, keeping the 5.5% rate and the $55,000 income. The Standard payment rises to $542.63 a month with $15,115.77 of interest — still finished in 10 years, still no forgiveness. The Extended payment rises to $307.04 a month. But the income-driven payment does not move at all: it stays at $262.71, because it is priced off income, not off the balance. That is the point of an income-driven plan, and it is also its trap. At $262.71 a month the $50,000 loan does not finish inside 20 years: after 240 payments totalling $63,050.00, about $35,388.33 would remain and be forgiven, and the interest added along the way reaches $48,438.33. A plan that feels identical month to month — same $262.71 — produces a completely different ending when the balance behind it is larger, because the payment that clears a $35,000 loan in 17 years cannot clear a $50,000 loan in 20. Always read the “forgiven” column alongside the payment: on a large balance, the income-driven plan is partly a forgiveness plan, not just a low-payment plan.

The income-driven payment itself is worth working through once, because its formula explains every other number on the page. The payment is 10% of discretionary income per year, divided by 12, where discretionary income is income above 150% of the federal poverty guideline for your family size. The page’s own guideline table gives the 2025 figures: a family of one has a guideline of $15,650, and 150% of it is $23,475. On $55,000 of income, discretionary income is $55,000 minus $23,475, which is $31,525; 10% of that is $3,152.50 a year, or $262.71 a month. The payment is also capped at the Standard payment — it can never exceed $379.84 on this loan — so the income-driven figure is the lower of the formula result and the Standard payment. That cap is why a high income does not produce an absurd income-driven payment, and why the payment stops rising once income is high enough for the formula to pass the Standard figure.

When the payment does not cover the interest

Family size moves the income-driven payment more than most borrowers expect, because it moves the line income is measured from. The table below keeps the loan at $35,000 and the income at $55,000, and changes only the family size. The guideline and the 150% line come from the page’s own table; the payments and forgiveness figures are the calculator’s own outputs.

The family-of-four row is the one to understand before choosing anything. A payment of $56.46 a month is less than the first month’s interest alone, which is $160.42 on a $35,000 balance at 5.5%. Each month the shortfall is added to the balance, so the loan grows toward its 20-year forgiveness date instead of shrinking — here about $80,287.10 would be forgiven, after only $13,550.00 of payments across the 20 years. That is not a mistake in the calculator; it is the arithmetic of a payment set by income rather than by the loan. Whether it is a good outcome depends on what forgiveness is worth to you after tax, and on whether you would rather pay more now to owe less later — but it must be chosen with open eyes, because a growing balance surprises borrowers who assumed every payment shrinks what they owe.

The family-of-two row sits between the two extremes and shows the same effect in milder form. At $193.96 a month the loan does not quite finish inside 20 years: after 240 payments totalling $46,550.00, about $20,388.33 would remain and be forgiven. Compare that with the family-of-one row, where the same loan on the same income finishes with nothing forgiven. The difference is one extra person in the family-size field, which lifts the 150% line from $23,475 to $31,725 and cuts the payment by $68.75 a month. Small input changes, large outcome changes — which is why the family-size field should reflect the household the federal definition counts, not a guess, and why re-running the calculator after a genuine change in household size is worth doing.

Two cautions close the comparison. First, the income-driven payment shown here is a starting payment, not a 20-year promise: it is recalculated from income and family size, so a raise, a job change or a change in household size moves it, and the page’s own deep dive says the estimate is a shape, not a promise. Second, forgiveness is not free money in the tax sense: the page’s own FAQ states that the federal exclusion that kept forgiven student loan debt out of taxable income ran through the end of 2025, so under current law amounts forgiven after that may be taxed as income by the IRS, with states having their own rules. Treat every forgiven figure on this page as before-tax, and do not spend it twice.

The SAVE question, and what this page does not model

Borrowers arriving here in late 2026 will rightly ask where the SAVE plan is, and the page answers that question in its own FAQ rather than pretending otherwise. As that answer states, SAVE was blocked in court: injunctions in 2024 stopped key parts of it, borrowers on it were placed in forbearance, and its long-term future is uncertain. Because of that, this calculator does not promise SAVE terms. It uses the older, long-standing income-based shape — 10% of discretionary income above 150% of the poverty guideline, forgiveness after 20 years — which the page calls the safer planning assumption. This guide adds nothing to that account and dates it honestly: program statuses change, and the plans actually open to you, on your loans, are listed at studentaid.gov and confirmed by your servicer. If a plan’s terms have changed since this page was written, the servicer’s terms govern, not this estimate.

Two things this page deliberately does not model should also be stated, because borrowers often assume they are included. First, there is no extra-payment input: the three plans are priced as written, month after month, with no additional amount on top. An extra $100 a month would shorten every plan and cut its interest bill, but the size of that effect is not computed here, and no figure in this guide claims it. Second, there is no Public Service Loan Forgiveness track: the 20-year forgiveness in the income-driven column is the plan’s own forgiveness after 240 payments, not the 120-payment public-service route, which has its own employer, payment and application rules. A borrower pursuing public-service forgiveness needs that program’s own accounting, and should not read this page’s 20-year figures as a substitute for it.

With those limits marked, the choice itself becomes clearer. The Standard plan is the cheapest way out in total interest on every case this guide ran — $10,581.04 against $19,187.36 income-driven and $29,479.19 Extended on the default loan — and it is finished in a known 10 years. It is also the highest monthly payment, and a payment you cannot make helps nobody. The income-driven plan is the right answer when the Standard payment would break the monthly budget, provided you accept the longer term, the larger interest bill, and the possibility of a taxable forgiven balance at the end. The Extended plan is the gentlest payment and the dearest loan; it makes sense mainly when even the income-driven payment is out of reach or when the borrower does not qualify for an income-driven plan. Choose by the total cost and the ending, not by the monthly figure alone — and re-run the numbers whenever income, family size or the loan balance changes, because on this page, all three move the answer.

Consolidation: what it does, and what it costs

Direct Consolidation combines multiple federal loans into one, with a single payment and a single fixed interest rate that is the weighted average of the consolidated loans’ rates, rounded up to the nearest one-eighth of a percent. It simplifies administration and can open access to repayment plans and forgiveness programmes that some loan types (notably Perkins loans and older FFEL loans) do not qualify for on their own. It does not lower the interest rate — the weighted average rounded up is, if anything, a fraction higher than the average — and it does not reduce the balance. The benefit is access and simplicity, not cost.

Consolidation has costs that should be weighed. It restarts the clock on the repayment term in some circumstances, which can increase the total interest paid even as the monthly payment falls. It can capitalise outstanding interest, adding it to the principal. And it can forfeit benefits attached to the original loans — Perkins cancellation provisions, interest-rate discounts, and the remaining grace period on loans not yet in repayment. Consolidate for a reason — access to a plan, a single payment, a forgiveness programme — not as a reflex, and confirm which benefits survive before signing. Private refinancing is a different act entirely: it replaces federal loans with a private loan, forfeiting all federal protections, and it is discussed in the companion article.

Default, delinquency, and rehabilitation

A federal loan becomes delinquent the first day a payment is missed, and it enters default after 270 days without payment — 360 days for some older loan types. Default has consequences beyond the credit report: the full balance becomes due immediately, wages and tax refunds can be garnished, collection costs of up to about a quarter of the balance can be added, and eligibility for further federal aid, deferment, forbearance, and income-driven plans is lost. The credit-report damage lasts up to seven years. Default is a legal status, not a synonym for being behind, and it should be avoided by contacting the servicer at the first missed payment, not at the 270th day.

Rehabilitation restores a defaulted Direct loan to good standing: nine voluntary, on-time payments in ten consecutive months, in an amount the servicer agrees is reasonable and affordable, after which the default notation is removed from the credit report (though the late-payment history remains) and eligibility for aid and income-driven plans returns. Consolidation out of default is the faster route — three consecutive voluntary payments, or agreement to repay under an income-driven plan — but it does not remove the default notation from the credit report. Either route is better than remaining in default, and both require contacting the loan holder and making the agreed payments: the status does not cure itself with time. Private loans have no rehabilitation programme; their default terms are contractual and generally harsher.

Student loan repayment questions, answered

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