Newsroom
New calculators help student loan borrowers manage repayment
August 29, 2019
Although it's somewhat unpredictable at this point, interest rates continue to be low enough that some student loan borrowers are considering refinancing their student loans to a lower interest rate.
However, anyone considering refinancing should determine how a refinance will impact their repayment by using Mapping Your Future's new student loan refinance calculator.
Mapping Your Future's calculators enable students, parents, and others to manage their money and student loans. Two new calculators were recently released to help student loan borrowers determine if refinancing their students loans is good for them.
The Refinance calculator allows users to compare monthly payments and total interest paid for their current loan(s) to those amounts with a refinancing offer.- The Weighted average interest rate calculator is offered in conjunction with the Refinance calculator to allow users to first calculate the average interest rate of their loans.
Mapping Your Future calculators can be an important tool in a school’s default prevention plan or in-person loan counseling. The calculators include:
- Budget calculator
Individuals can develop a saving and spending plan - Bank balancing tool
Individuals can reconcile their checking account records with their bank’s records - Savings calculator
Individuals can see how valuable saving can be - Student loan debt/salary wizard
Borrowers can use this tool to understand how much they can afford to borrow in student loan funds (and calculate student loan payments) - Student loan repayment calculator
Borrowers can estimate their student loan payments - Loan consolidation calculator
Borrowers can estimate their consolidation loan interest rate and payment amount - Income-based repayment calculator
Borrowers are able to estimate their monthly payment amount under the Income-based repayment plan [for Direct Loan and Federal Stafford (subsidized and unsubsidized), Direct PLUS and Grad PLUS, and Direct Consolidation Loans which do not include any Parent PLUS or Direct PLUS loans]
Schools are encouraged to link to the calculators from the school’s website. Schools who are Participating Members or located in a Sponsored state can take the calculators to another level by integrating the calculators into their website, if desired.
Contact the Mapping Your Future staff at feedback@mappingyourfuture.org or (800) 374-4072 with any questions or to request documentation on integrating the calculators.