Student Loan Payment Calculator

The student loan payment calculator is a simple tool that computes the monthly payment or final payoff date of your student loan. It also includes extra payment options, in case you come into some additional money and like to pay off your loan sooner. This calculator's main use is to find one of these three things:

• Loan term: by setting the time remaining between a given day and the final payment, you will receive the monthly payment, with the exact day you pay off the loan.
• Monthly payment: by providing the amount of money you would devote monthly towards refinancing your student loan, you will get the precise day you pay off the loan.
• Desired payoff date: by choosing a particular day you wish to finish paying off your student loan, you will obtain the monthly payment required to meet such a date.

Besides these main outputs, you will also receive complimentary results - the total payment amount and the interest charged. What's more, you have an option to set extra payments from a given date, or a one-time extra payment on a particular day, and check their effect on the figures. In this way, you can easily compare different payment scenarios. The additional dynamic graphs and payment schedules provide other details, and further facilitate your assessment of each style of repayment.

If you read further, you can learn how to calculate student loan interest, as well as find some information on the average student loan debt and average student loan interest rate.

In case you are considering taking a student loan, or would like to use a more sophisticated tool on saving for college cost, check out our student loan calculator and 529 plan calculator.

As you probably already know, student loan debt is a form of debt that is owed by a current or former student to a lending institution, or a financial institution. In this section, we collected some facts that give you insight into the current state of the U.S's student loan market:

1. There are around 44.7 million student loan borrowers, from which 5.2 million are federal student loan borrowers in default (as of 2019 Q1);
2. The aggregate student loan is over 1.59 trillion dollars, which is more than both the total auto loan and credit card debts;
3. Around the 92 percent of student loans are federal loans;
4. The average student loan borrower in 2017 graduated college with $28,650 in student loan debt;
5. While borrowers graduated in the early 90's were able to manage their student loan repayment easily from their income, the average debt increased by 58% from 2005 to 2012, and nowadays represent more a significant burden on debtors;
6. The interest rates on Federal student loans are, on average, 4.45% for undergraduates and 6% for graduates programs; and
7. The average student loan interest rate for private loans is 7.99%.

The price of a loan, putting aside any extra fees, is the interest you pay. In other words, you need to repay the loan you received, plus the accumulated interest.

The main factors that drive your total payment are the following:

• borrowed money: the higher your loan balance, the more interest is charged;
• interest rate: the higher the rate, the more expensive it is to borrow; and
• the time frame over which you repay the loan: the longer the loan term, the more periods there are where your lender can charge interest on the balance of the loan.

As you can see, the interest that will accumulate on your loan's balance is usually your primary concern when borrowing money. For this reason, it's essential to know how to calculate student loan interest. Through the following simple example, you can easily learn the process of interest computation. Let's assume that you borrow $10,000 at a 6% annual interest rate. On a 10-year standard repayment plan, your monthly payment would be about $111:

1. Calculate the daily interest rate, also called interest rate factor:

interest rate / number of days in a year = 0.06 / 365 = 0.000164 = 0.019%

2. Calculate the daily accrued interest:

loan balance / interest rate factor = $10,000 * 0.000164 = $1.64

3. Find your monthly interest payment. Multiply your daily interest amount by the number of days in a month:

daily interest * number of days in a month = $1.64 x 31 = $50.84

For a student loan, interest accrues daily but generally doesn't compound daily. More specifically, you pay the same amount of interest per day for each day of the payment period (a month), but you don't pay interest on the interest accrued the previous day. The accrued or accumulated interest is added to your loan balance (principal) in every new payment period. If you would like to get more familiar with the process, check out our amortization calculator.

As the first step, you need to choose the available data you have for the calculation.

• Remaining or original loan term - requires the monthly payment with the final payoff date;
• Monthly payment - requires the precise date of payoff; or
• Desired payoff date - requires your monthly payment.

After this, you need to set the values in the student loan specification.

• Existing loan balance on a given date;
• Payback period - the original or the remaining time given for the loan repayment;
• Interest rate - annual rate of interest; and
• Interest capitalization - the regularity with which the accrued interest is added to the loan principal.

Finally, in the extra payment section, you can specify any additional payments.

• Extra monthly payment from a given date; and
• One-time extra payment on a particular day.

After setting the above parameters, you will receive the payment summary immediately, along with two charts and a table.

• Payment summary - you can read the details of your loan, including a comparison with the extra payment schedule (if you set an additional payment);
• Balances - you can follow the progress of the payable loan amount and the charged interest;
• Loan breakdown in percentage - gives you a visual representation of how the interest expenses related to the loan amount; and
• Repayment schedules - you can check the monthly and the yearly amortization schedule.

The results of the student loan calculator should be considered as a close approximation financially. All monthly payment figures, loan balances, and interest figures are estimates based on the data you provided in the specifications. Because of potential shortcomings (varying interest rates, your payment habits, type of loan), the calculator is created for instructional purposes only. Despite that, if you spot any drawback or encounter any inaccuracy, we are always pleased to receive useful feedback and advice.