🧭 Repayment Planner

Compare the major federal repayment plans currently modeled here side by side. Model your income year by year, schedule irregular extra payments, and review a long-range repayment estimate based on current rules and your inputs.

📋 Your Loan Details
1
Set up your loans Choose Basic or Advanced, then enter or import the portfolio.
2
Add household assumptions Income, filing status, timing, and future planning assumptions.
3
Run and compare Review plan cards, comparisons, schedules, and guidance.
Step 1 · Modeling Mode
Choose how you want to model your loans

Basic is the quick weighted-average version.
Advanced lets you enter each loan separately so eligibility and payment math can follow the federal repayment rules more closely for the plans currently modeled here.

Portfolio Inputs
$
Federal loans only. Combine all balances if you have multiple loans.
%
Use a weighted average if you have multiple loans at different rates.
Basic mode is a summary view of your portfolio. If you edit these numbers, your detailed loan list becomes one summarized loan.
Detailed Loan Inputs
Primary Import

Import from StudentAid.gov export

This file can contain sensitive personal information like your name, address, email, phone number, and loan identifiers. StudentLoanCompass does not need that personal information to build your loan list.

For privacy, the import is processed locally in your browser. This site does not upload, store, or send your file anywhere. If you want, you can delete personal lines from the file before importing it.

Recommended source: the official MyStudentData.txt export from StudentAid.gov.

How to get your file from StudentAid.gov
  1. Log in at StudentAid.gov.
  2. Open the Loans drop-down menu and select My Loans.
  3. On the My Loans page, use Download My Aid Data in the top-right area to download the text file, usually named MyStudentData.txt.
  4. Come back here and import that file, or paste its contents into the text box below.
No file chosen

Import Preview

No file loaded yet.
Optional Add-On

Import payment counter JSON Experimental

Use this only if you also want to bring in prior payment-credit progress for matching loans and matching repayment plans.

How to get the optional counter JSON
  1. Log in to StudentAid.gov in your browser first.
  2. In that same logged-in browser, open the hidden payment-counter summary endpoint.
  3. If the page shows raw JSON text, either copy all of it and paste it below, or save it into a file ending in .json such as Summary.json.
  4. Then import or paste that raw JSON here so this planner can match prior payment-credit counts to your loans.

This works only if the endpoint opens in the same logged-in browser session. If the browser shows formatted JSON, copy the full response body or save the raw response as a .json file. This endpoint is unofficial and may change or disappear.

No counter file chosen

Counter Import Summary

No payment counter JSON loaded yet.
Important: mixed per-loan counts are normal. Older loans may show more progress than newer loans, and consolidation is not a simple reset-or-keep-everything decision. Current federal rules are more nuanced and can involve weighted-average carryover plus plan-eligibility tradeoffs.
Loans Entered0
Total Owed$0
Weighted Avg Rate0.00%
Advanced mode uses official repayment-plan formulas plus per-loan balances and rates for the plans modeled here: Standard, Graduated, Extended, ICR, IBR, and PAYE. Direct Consolidation loans now use the current official Standard / Graduated term brackets. Results are educational estimates, not individualized advice, and some real-world servicing details can still vary. Some paths on the Repayment Plans page, including Extended Graduated, Income-Sensitive, Alternative Repayment, and SAVE, are not all modeled here because they are either inactive, legacy, or not transparent enough to support responsibly with one universal formula. Current rules source links: Standard, Graduated, Extended, Income-Driven, 34 CFR 685.208, 34 CFR 685.209, and the 2026 HHS poverty guidelines.
Household Inputs
$
Enter your gross salary or, if you already know it, your AGI. If entering gross, use the deduction expander below to arrive at the AGI your servicer will use. Best: AGI from your most recently filed federal tax return. Do not use take-home pay.
Above-the-line deductions (optional)
$
Annual total (or use % of gross above). 2025 limits: $23,500 (401k/403b/457b), $7,000 (IRA). Roth contributions do not reduce AGI.
$
Annual total. 2025 limits: $4,300 (self-only), $8,550 (family). Payroll pre-tax HSA contributions are already excluded from your W-2 — only enter amounts contributed directly outside of payroll.
$
Self-employed health insurance, SEP-IRA, alimony (pre-2019 decrees), educator expenses, etc.
AGI used in calculations: $55,000
$
Leave at $0 if single. Enter gross salary or AGI. Use the deduction expander if entering gross. Counts for IBR, PAYE, and the current ICR estimate only when filing status below uses combined income.
Above-the-line deductions (optional)
$
Annual total (or use % of gross above). 2025 limits: $23,500 (401k/403b/457b), $7,000 (IRA). Roth contributions do not reduce AGI.
$
2025 limits: $4,300 (self-only), $8,550 (family). Only direct contributions not already excluded from W-2.
$
Self-employed health insurance, SEP-IRA, alimony (pre-2019 decrees), educator expenses, etc.
AGI used in calculations: $0
For IBR and PAYE, joint filing normally uses combined income. Separate filing or joint-but-separated handling uses borrower income only.
$
Used only for IBR and PAYE when joint filing includes spouse income. Enter the spouse's eligible Direct / FFEL principal plus outstanding interest.
Per StudentAid.gov: include yourself, your spouse (if married), your children — including unborn children if you are currently pregnant — and any other dependents you'll claim on your taxes.
Alaska and Hawaii use higher federal poverty guidelines, which lowers your IDR payment.
Pick the next actual month and year when your IDR recertification should hit. The current payment stays in place until that date, then the planner rolls into the next annual IDR recertification cycle from there.
Eligibility History Checks Optional
These optional history checks help the calculator avoid overstating IBR and PAYE eligibility. If you are unsure, leave a field at Not sure and treat those plans as scenarios to verify with StudentAid.gov or your servicer.
How to answer these accurately
  • For IBR Borrower Status, choose New borrower on/after July 1, 2014 only if you had no earlier federal student loan debt before that date.
  • For PAYE Borrower History, choose Meets PAYE borrower-history rule only if you were a new borrower on or after Oct. 1, 2007 and you received a Direct Loan disbursement on or after Oct. 1, 2011.
  • For Already On IBR Or PAYE, choose Yes only if you are already enrolled in one of those plans and want the calculator to avoid blocking the plan just because your current income may no longer show a partial financial hardship.
  • If you do not remember the dates or your prior plan history, leave the field at Not sure. That is safer than guessing.
This is about when you first had federal student loan debt. If you borrowed before July 1, 2014, choose the older-borrower option. If you are unsure, leave Not sure.
PAYE generally requires that you were a new borrower on or after Oct. 1, 2007 and received a Direct Loan disbursement on or after Oct. 1, 2011. If you are unsure, leave Not sure.
Use this only if you are already on IBR or PAYE and want the calculator to avoid blocking the plan just because your current income no longer shows a partial financial hardship. If you are not already on one of those plans, choose No.
Married-borrower ICR note: the current ICR estimate uses combined income for joint-filing scenarios, but it does not model the formal joint ICR election or spouse-loan payment proration. Treat married-borrower ICR results as directional planning estimates. IBR and PAYE caps currently use a new-entry assumption based on today's outstanding balance because historical plan-entry balances are not collected separately.
Income Used For The Current Payment Estimate $55,000
This calculator currently shows Standard, Graduated, Extended, and IBR-family comparisons by default. PAYE and ICR remain available as optional legacy comparisons, while SAVE is not shown in the active comparison flow. Results are educational estimates based on current rules and the information you enter. Long-range projections use current poverty-guideline and repayment-rule baselines. Forgiveness timelines start from a fresh modeled path unless matching prior credit is brought in through the optional experimental counter import, and even then the site does not yet fully model every carry-in-credit or consolidation scenario. For the broader federal plan landscape, including legacy and inactive options, see Repayment Plans.
🧭 Plan Cards
⚖️ Side-by-Side Comparison
PlanTypeStarting Pmt/mo Total PaidTotal Interest Amount ForgivenPayoff / Forgiveness
📅 Year-by-Year Breakdown — Select a Plan
Click a payment-year row to open its month-by-month detail.
Payment YearIncome UsedBase Pmt/mo Extra PaidTotal PaidInterest Accrued Applied to Current InterestPaid Down Older Interest Applied to PrincipalBalance (year end)
🟡 Yellow rows = extra payments applied  |  🔴 Red rows = balance growth in some months  |  `Interest accrued`, `Applied to current interest`, `Paid down older interest`, and `Applied to principal` now add up to explain where the payment went
Copy the current inputs and plan outputs as JSON for debugging.
Download this scenario
Save the current calculator inputs and outputs locally as a spreadsheet-friendly CSV or a standalone HTML report.