Student Loan Refinance Calculator

Break-even on the fees

Start with the monthly payment difference. If the new loan saves $40 a month and the fees are $500, simple division gives 13 payments before the fee is repaid. That is the point where the decision stops being a bet on staying in the loan.

The lifetime number matters just as much: total payments on the old loan against total payments on the new one, plus the fees. A refinance that saves less over its whole life than it costs in fees is not a refinance, it is a longer payment plan.

Rate versus term: two different savings

The table separates them. "Lower rate, same remaining term" holds the term constant and prices the rate cut alone — that part is always a genuine saving. "Term change" prices the effect of paying for more or fewer months.

That second line is where most refinances go wrong. Dropping from 7.5% to 5% over 20 years instead of 10 lowers the payment sharply, and can still add thousands of dollars of interest. Reading only the payment drop therefore tells you nothing about whether the refinance wins; the term line is where the true cost hides.

What you give up by refinancing

Refinancing federal loans with a private lender is effectively permanent: income-driven repayment, Public Service Loan Forgiveness, federal deferment and forbearance, and federal death or disability discharge all disappear. Only refinance federal loans when you are certain none of those apply to you.

Private loans have none of those protections to lose, so rate and term are the whole question. Partial refinancing — only the private loans, or only the highest-rate graduate loans — keeps the federal protections on everything else.

When refinancing is not the move

The break-even is only real if the loan survives that long. If you might move, go back to school or pay the loan off sooner than the fee pays itself back, the saving never materializes, and a higher rate with fees has no break-even point at all — there is nothing to recover.

The other side of the trade is what you give up. Refinancing federal loans with a private lender is effectively permanent: income-driven repayment, Public Service Loan Forgiveness, federal deferment and forbearance, and federal death or disability discharge all disappear. The lower rate only wins if you are certain none of those will ever matter to you, and partial refinancing keeps the federal protections on everything you leave in place.

What the page cannot see

The payment here is principal and interest only. Servicing fees, late charges, escrow, and an autopay discount of 0.25% are all outside the model, so the two payments you compare are the ones the amortization formula produces rather than the ones printed on two different statements. An autopay discount applies to both sides and moves the saving by a few dollars a month, not by the verdict.

A variable-rate offer is priced as if its quoted rate never moved. If the rate resets after five years, the honest comparison is a fixed offer of the same length, because a refinance you have to redo in year six is a second round of fees and a second break-even. Treat the break-even on this page as a floor, not as a promise: it assumes you keep the loan to the end.

Every figure is computed in dollars and cents and rounded for display, so a cent of drift between this page and a servicer is expected. The balance to enter is the principal still outstanding, not the original amount borrowed, and not a payoff quote that includes accrued daily interest.