Making Repayment Decisions?
Studentaid.gov has a loan repayment tool, which can be very helpful in calculating monthly payments and exploring repayment options. You can manually enter you own loan data OR you can log in and it will automatically import your actual loan data.
Make Sure to Heed the Warning
Several loan payments amounts for various payment plans (e.g. IBR, PAYE, and ICR) depend not only on loan balance, but also on the loan interest rate. Currently, interest rates on all federal loans have been set to zero percent by the CARES act. Thus, if you are logged in while using the tool, the results will not be accurate because they assume your rates are zero percent. However, your actual loan interest rates are NOT zero percent. There is a now a new warning at the top of the page which states “repayment plans displayed in the Loan Simulator may provide estimates that are lower than they will be once the 0% interest rate ends”. This warning is easy to overlook. So please heed the advice to enter your loans (and interest rates) manually for accurate calculations. And of course, feel free to use our payment calculator. Not only will it calculate your current payments, it will calculate your future maximum payments on the PAYE/ICR/IBR plans. And for a complete detailed analysis on determining your best PSLF strategy, use our detailed calculator.