Student Loan Payoff Calculator

This tool projects when your student loans will be paid off, how much interest you'll pay in total, and exactly what extra monthly payments save you — in both dollars and time.

1. 1
   Enter balance and rate

   Your current loan balance and annual interest rate.

2. 2
   Set your monthly payment

   Your required payment, or a higher amount you plan to pay.

3. 3
   Add extra payments

   Any additional amount toward principal each month.

4. 4
   Compare scenarios

   Payoff dates, total interest, and savings from extra payments.

• ▸Avalanche method: extra payments to the highest-rate loan first — minimizes total interest.
• ▸Snowball method: extra payments to the smallest balance first — fastest psychological wins.
• ▸Round up payments: rounding a $347 payment to $400 adds $53/month to principal painlessly.
• ▸Windfalls to principal: tax refunds and bonuses applied directly to principal skip years of interest.
• ▸Refinance carefully: lower rates help, but don't trade federal protections for a slightly lower private rate unless you're sure.

Standard 10-year repayment plans are designed so the loan amortizes evenly — but many borrowers pay only minimums for much longer, especially on income-driven plans. The math is sobering: a $35,000 loan at 6.8% costs about $13,300 in interest over 10 years. Stretch that to 20 years of minimum-ish payments and interest can exceed $28,000 — nearly doubling the cost of the education.

This is why extra payments early matter so much. In the first years of a loan, most of each payment is interest. An extra $100/month on that same $35,000 loan cuts roughly 3 years off the term and saves over $5,000 in interest. The earlier the extra payments start, the larger the effect, because every principal dollar removed stops generating interest for the rest of the loan's life.

Before accelerating payments, make sure the fundamentals are covered: an emergency fund (so you don't borrow at higher rates later), any employer 401(k) match (free money beats debt payoff), and higher-interest debt like credit cards. Then attack the student loans with whatever's left — and use the Paycheck Calculator to see exactly how much of each paycheck is available for the attack.

Illustrative figures for a $35,000 loan at 6.8% with a ~$403 base payment. Your exact numbers will differ — run your own scenario in the calculator above.