Student Loan Forgiveness Calculator

This calculator runs two genuinely different paths depending on the Repayment Plan selector. Standard Monthly Payment is always a fixed 10-year, 120-payment amortization of Loan Balance at Interest Rate (lines 63-71), computed the same way regardless of which plan you pick — but selecting "Standard (10-Year)" reports that as the whole story: the loan is fully paid off by month 120, so Months to Forgiveness, Total Paid Under IDR, and Forgiven Amount all report 0 (lines 84-118), because nothing is ever forgiven on a standard amortization. Selecting "Income-Driven (IDR/PSLF)" instead runs a separate simulation: IDR Monthly Payment comes from the federal Pay As You Earn / post-2014 Income-Based Repayment formula (discretionary income is annual gross income minus 1.5 times the HHS poverty guideline for Family Size — this calculator uses the 2024 guideline of $15,060 for one person plus $5,380 per additional person, lines 73-76 — and the payment is 10% of that divided by 12, line 79), then the loan is simulated for the Department of Education's fixed 120-qualifying-payment Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) timeline (line 121), with any balance still outstanding at month 120 reported as Forgiven Amount. The Repayment Plan selector itself is the single biggest driver of Forgiven Amount overall — switching it from "Income-Driven (IDR/PSLF)" to "Standard (10-Year)" zeroes Forgiven Amount outright (lines 84-118), a bigger swing than any continuous input can produce.

Among the continuous inputs, though, and holding to the IDR/PSLF path (this calculator's default), Loan Balance dominates Forgiven Amount: nudging it 10% either direction moves Forgiven Amount by roughly 32%, well ahead of Monthly Gross Income (about 20%) and Interest Rate (about 14%), because a bigger starting balance simply leaves more principal outstanding after 120 fixed IDR payments chip away at it. Raising Monthly Gross Income actually lowers Forgiven Amount under IDR/PSLF, since more income raises the IDR payment itself (line 79), retiring more principal before the 120-payment window ends. This calculator does not model income growth over time, a changing family size, loan servicer fees, or the tax treatment of a forgiven balance.