Student Loan Payoff Calculator
See your monthly payment, total interest and payoff date on standard repayment — and exactly how much time and money extra payments cut from a student loan.
Weighted average if you have several loans.
Federal standard repayment is 10 years.
About $189.58 of your first payment is interest. Extra payments skip that line entirely — every additional dollar goes straight to principal.
The 10-year default, and what moves it
Federal student loans land on the standard plan: a fixed payment that retires the balance in 10 years. That is the baseline this calculator models, and it is worth knowing even if you are on a different plan, because it is the yardstick everything else gets measured against.
What most borrowers never see is how much of the early payments is interest. On a $35,000 balance at 6.5%, the first month’s payment includes about $190 of interest — the calculator shows your figure — and that is the number an extra payment gets to skip entirely.
Extra payments, and the servicer trap
Every extra dollar goes straight to principal, which is why small amounts move the payoff date so much. Fifty dollars a month on a typical balance removes roughly a year and a four-figure sum of interest; the exact effect shows in the results the moment you enter it.
But there is a trap worth naming plainly: servicers often apply extra money as “paid ahead” status — advancing your next due date rather than reducing principal. Paid-ahead status saves you nothing at all. Instruct your servicer in writing to apply overpayments to principal (on the highest-rate loan, if you have several), then verify on the next statement. The same avalanche-versus-snowball logic from credit card payoff applies when juggling multiple loans.
When early payoff is the wrong move
Prepaying a student loan is a guaranteed return equal to the loan’s rate. That framing settles most of the debate:
- A 401(k) match beats prepaying any student loan. Fifty-percent-instant-return money comes first, always.
- High-rate debt — cards, personal loans — beats prepaying a 6% student loan.
- Against ordinary investing, compare the loan rate to a realistic long-run return (~7% real for stocks, per the assumptions in the compound interest calculator). Prepaying a 3% loan while skipping investment is usually a loss; prepaying a 8% private loan is usually a win.
Also worth protecting: federal loans carry death and disability discharge, deferment rights and IDR access. Refinancing them into a private loan for a lower rate trades those away permanently — a fair trade sometimes, but a trade.
If your payment doesn’t fit
This page models the mathematics of fixed repayment. If the standard payment is genuinely unaffordable, the answer is not arithmetic — it is the federal income-driven plans, which cap payments at a share of discretionary income. Run your actual loans through the loan simulator at studentaid.gov before missing a payment; delinquency costs far more than any plan’s downsides.
How this is calculated
Standard payment = balance × r ÷ (1 − (1 + r)^−n), r = rate ÷ 12 With extra payments, the loan is amortized month by month: interest = balance × r principal = (payment + extra) − interest until the balance reaches zero.
Frequently asked questions
- How long does it take to pay off student loans?
- The federal standard plan is 10 years, and that is what the default here models. In practice many borrowers take longer through income-driven plans, deferment and consolidation — or shorter, since even modest extra payments cut years off a 10-year schedule.
- Do extra payments actually go to principal?
- They should, but servicers commonly apply extra money as "paying ahead" — advancing your due date instead of reducing principal. That saves you nothing. Tell your servicer in writing to apply overpayments to principal on the highest-rate loan, then check the next statement to confirm it happened.
- Should I pay off student loans early or invest?
- Compare the loan rate to what you would plausibly earn. Capturing a 401(k) employer match beats prepaying any student loan. Beyond the match, prepaying a 7% loan is a guaranteed 7% return — hard to beat safely — while prepaying a 3% loan ahead of investing usually costs you money long-term.
- Does this work for income-driven repayment plans?
- No. IDR plans set your payment from income and family size rather than amortization, and balances can grow before forgiveness applies. This calculator models standard fixed-payment repayment — for IDR projections, use the loan simulator at studentaid.gov, which has your actual loan data.
- Is student loan interest tax deductible?
- Up to $2,500 a year of student loan interest is deductible above the line, subject to income phase-outs. It reduces taxable income rather than the loan itself, but at typical brackets it is worth a few hundred dollars a year — claim it if you qualify.