These Free Calculators Will Do Your Student Loan Forgiveness Math for You

Although it can take a long time to qualify for a student loan forgiveness program, getting your student debt canceled could be well worth the wait. To keep yourself motivated, try estimating your projected loan forgiveness with free online calculators.

Seeing how much you’ll save might not speed up your loan forgiveness timeline, but it will help you stay on track until that day finally comes. We’ll cover…

How to estimate your projected loan forgiveness

For some borrowers, calculating your projected loan forgiveness is easy and doesn’t require much math. Certain student loan forgiveness programs forgive flat amounts or a percentage of student loans.

For example, Perkins Loan cancellation is awarded on a percentage basis. You could have a maximum of between 50% and 100% of your Perkins Loans wiped away in five years or less, depending on your profession and circumstances.

For the more complicated types of loan forgiveness, though — like Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) and relief tied to income-driven repayment plans — a calculator might come in handy.

Whether you qualify for PSLF is dependent on your field of work, your loans and whether you make timely payments. You can confirm your eligibility by submitting an Employment Certification Form (ECF) to the Department of Education. As of March 31, 2020, more than 2.87 million ECFs were approved.

If you’re on an income-driven plan, you can still have your loans forgiven. Unfortunately, it will take 20 or 25 years of payments to have your loans canceled.

Let’s review free online calculators that determine your projected loan forgiveness. Each can help you see how much you’ll pay in interest, when you can expect your debt to be wiped away and how much you might owe in taxes on your forgiven loans.

1. StudentLoans.gov loan simulator
2. Student Loan Hero PSLF calculator
3. Student Loan Hero repayment plan calculators
4. Federal income tax calculators

1. StudentLoans.gov loan simulator

This nifty tool from the government was designed to help you choose a repayment plan for your federal loans. It pumps out your projected loan forgiveness if you’re pursuing PSLF, too.

To start, you can log in to your account with your Federal Student Aid ID or enter your information manually.

As you go through the tool, you’ll need to indicate information such as your income, loan balance and state of residence.

The estimator takes this information and shows your payment details for eight different repayment plans, from standard and graduated plans to income-driven plans.

For each plan that is eligible for loan forgiveness, you’ll be able to see your payoff date and how much relief you can receive.

Let’s say, for example, you’re a Michigan resident earning $50,000 per year and expect a 2% raise annually. You owe $34,722 at a 4.53% rate and are pursuing PSLF.

If you indicate that your main goal is to lower payments, the loan simulator tool will suggest the Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE) plan.

StudentAid.gov

In this example, the loan simulator shows that you’ll pay $33,326 toward your loan and receive $12,784 after 10 years.

Note that any changes in your life, such as growing your family or your salary significantly, could blow up these assumptions and affect how much relief you receive down the road.

Who is the loan simulator best for?

The Department of Education’s loan simulator is best suited for borrowers just entering repayment. If you’re already months into paying down your debt, the repayment figures might be less accurate, as will your projected loan forgiveness.

A borrower who has paid off $5,000 of a $20,000 loan under standard repayment, for example, might see inaccuracies for their loans under income-driven repayment plans. The total amount paid — and the total that can be forgiven — might be off.

Like all calculators, this one is designed to be used by many borrowers — that’s why it makes assumptions. For the most accurate telling of your loan situation, check in with your loan servicer.

2. Student Loan Hero PSLF calculator

Our calculators make the same assumptions with one significant exception: You can plug in your own rate of salary growth. We suggest 3.5%, which is based on historical data, as opposed to the Education Department’s 5% figure.

You might find yourself entering in a smaller or larger annual increase based on your career prospects. A teacher with guaranteed, incremental raises, for example, should be able to more accurately guess their future salary.

Our PSLF calculator is below. Use it to see how PSLF can help erase your debt.

3. Student Loan Hero repayment plan calculators

But even if you’re ineligible for PSLF, we still make it easy to project your loan forgiveness. There are calculators for estimating relief associated with these income-driven repayment plans:

Under these repayment plans, your projected loan forgiveness would arrive after 20 or 25 years of making payments.

If you owe $35,000, for example, switching from a standard repayment plan to an IBR plan would cost more over a longer period. You’d pay more in interest over time in exchange for smaller monthly payments.

Use the calculator below to see how IBR will affect your monthly payments and how much you can have forgiven.

4. Federal income tax calculators

Thankfully, there won’t be a tax hit for your projected loan forgiveness through PSLF or student loan forgiveness for teachers — but Uncle Sam might come calling if you take advantage of other forgiveness programs.

There aren’t online tools for estimating how much you’ll pay in taxes for loan forgiveness, but you can do some simple math to understand how your loan forgiveness will be taxed. If you earn $30,000 in a year and have a $30,000 student loan debt canceled in the same year, the IRS will tax you as if you earned $60,000.

Once you have your new income, as unfair as it might seem, you can plug it into any number of free online income tax calculators. There are lots of free income tax calculators out there, including those available on the websites of the IRS and various tax preparers.

The tax on your forgiven loan balance isn’t ideal. But it only dampens your situation if you don’t plan for it, so be prepared.

Why your projected loan forgiveness matters

Student loan borrowers are usually trying to get out in front of something bad, such as a late payment or a defaulted loan. But looking ahead to student loan forgiveness can make you feel better about your debt. Although forgiveness could be years away, seeing the number itself might inspire you to work toward it.

So get moving. Give these tools a spin to see what your future holds — it might be rosier than you imagined.

For additional loan forgiveness options, check out our complete list of student loan forgiveness programs.

Rebecca Safier contributed to this article.

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