How long does it take to pay off $30,000 in student loans?

On the standard 10-year plan at 6.52 percent, 120 months at $340.95 a month, with $10,913.92 of interest, clearing in October 2036. A fixed $400 a month clears it in 97 months with $8,637.69 of interest.

How much extra do I need to pay to finish in 7 years?

An extra $100 a month, for a payment of $440.95, clears a $30,000 loan at 6.52 percent in 86 months, or 7 years and 2 months, with $7,554.74 of interest, saving $3,359.17 against the standard plan.

What is the standard payment on the average student loan?

The average federal balance of $39,547 costs $449.45 a month on the standard 10-year plan at 6.52 percent, with $14,387.09 of interest. The median balance of $20,281 costs $230.49 a month, with $7,378.17 of interest.

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The graduation ledger · Table No. 42

How Long Does It Take to Pay Off Student Loans?

The standard 10-year plan is the baseline every other repayment is measured against. This article works it out month by month on a $30,000 loan, prices the extra payment at four amounts, and shows why the first $25 of extra buys the most months.

Filed October 30, 2026 · figures checked against 2026 sources

The short answer, worked month by month

Take a $30,000 student loan at 6.52 percent, the rate on federal Direct loans first disbursed in the 2026-27 academic year, and repay it on the standard 10-year plan. The payment is $340.95 a month, fixed for 120 months. The first month's interest is $163.00, which is $30,000 times 6.52 percent divided by 12, so $177.95 of the first payment reduces the balance and the rest pays the month's interest. After a full year of on-time payments, the balance is $27,799.63, and the year has cost $1,891.02 in interest. After ten years the balance is zero, the interest total is $10,913.92, and the total paid is $40,913.92. The loan is gone in October 2036, ten years after repayment began. That is the standard plan in its entirety: a fixed payment, a shrinking interest charge, and a balance that falls faster every year, because the same payment meets less interest each month.

The standard plan is the baseline every other plan is measured against, and it is worth understanding why it is the cheapest way out. A fixed payment gets stronger every month. The interest charge falls as the balance falls, so more of the same payment reaches principal, which makes the balance fall faster, which makes the next interest charge smaller still. That compounding works in the borrower's favor for the whole ten years. Any plan that lowers the payment also weakens that compounding, which is why the income-driven plans cost more in total even when they charge less each month. And any plan that stretches the term, the extended 25-year plan, for example, costs far more, because it buys the lender fifteen more years of interest. The standard plan is not generous. It is simply the shortest honest term the loan was written on, and the shortest term is the cheapest one.

What extra payments buy

Four amounts above the standard $340.95 payment show the returns to paying extra, and the returns are steepest at the bottom, where the extra is smallest. An extra $25 a month, for a payment of $365.95, clears the loan in 109 months with $9,814.91 of interest, saving $1,099.01 and 11 months. An extra $50, for $390.95 a month, clears it in 100 months with $8,921.46 of interest, saving $1,992.46 and 20 months. An extra $100, for $440.95 a month, clears it in 86 months with $7,554.74 of interest, saving $3,359.17 and 34 months. An extra $200, for $540.95 a month, clears it in 67 months with $5,796.32 of interest, saving $5,117.59 and 53 months. The first $25 buys more than a fifth of what the full $200 buys, which is the fact that matters for a tight budget: the extra payment does not have to be large to be worth making. It has to be made, every month, from the start, because the dollars paid in year one stop charging interest for the nine years that follow, while the dollars paid in year nine stop charging interest for only one.

Extra per month	Payment	Time to clear	Interest	Saved vs standard
+$25	$365.95	9 years 1 month	$9,814.91	$1,099.01
+$50	$390.95	8 years 4 months	$8,921.46	$1,992.46
+$100	$440.95	7 years 2 months	$7,554.74	$3,359.17
+$200	$540.95	5 years 7 months	$5,796.32	$5,117.59

The table also answers the question people actually ask, which is whether the extra payment is worth it when the amount is small. Twenty-five dollars a month is a streaming subscription, and over the life of the loan it buys $1,099.01 of interest not paid and a payoff eleven months early. One hundred dollars a month is a dinner out, and it buys $3,359.17 and nearly three years. The comparison that makes the point sharpest is the $400 payment the calculator defaults to: $400 a month clears the loan in 97 months with $8,637.69 of interest, saving $2,276.23 against the standard plan, and the payoff date moves from October 2036 to November 2034. The extra $59.05 is the difference between a loan that ends in the borrower's late thirties and one that ends in their mid-thirties, which is the kind of difference that shows up in a mortgage application, not just in a spreadsheet.

The balance ladder: bigger loans, longer clocks

The same rate and the same ten-year term, applied to six balances, show that the standard plan scales cleanly. A $10,000 balance costs $113.65 a month and $3,637.97 in interest. A $20,000 balance costs $227.30 a month and $7,275.94. A $30,000 balance costs $340.95 a month and $10,913.92. A $50,000 balance costs $568.25 a month and $18,189.86. A $75,000 balance costs $852.37 a month and $27,284.79. A $100,000 balance costs $1,136.50 a month and $36,379.72. Interest is a little over a third of the balance at every size, because the term and the rate are fixed, so the interest total is roughly proportional to the amount borrowed. The payment, though, is what decides whether the standard plan is livable: $340.95 a month is about 7 percent of a $55,000 gross income, while $1,136.50 a month is about 25 percent, which is why large-balance borrowers are the ones the income-driven plans were built for, and why the average balance, $39,547, with its standard payment of $449.45 a month and $14,387.09 of interest, is a useful anchor for the typical borrower.

Balance	Standard payment	Interest over 10 years	Total paid
$10,000	$113.65	$3,637.97	$13,637.97
$20,000	$227.30	$7,275.94	$27,275.94
$30,000	$340.95	$10,913.92	$40,913.92
$50,000	$568.25	$18,189.86	$68,189.86
$75,000	$852.37	$27,284.79	$102,284.79
$100,000	$1,136.50	$36,379.72	$136,379.72

Read the ladder against the median balance, $20,281, and the picture changes. Half of federal borrowers owe less than $20,281, and the median borrower's standard payment is $230.49 a month with $7,378.17 of interest over ten years. That is a real bill, and it is a bill most working graduates can carry, which is the point the ladder makes in the other direction: the standard plan is not the problem for the typical borrower. The problem is the combination of a large balance and a low income, which is exactly the combination the income-driven plans address, and which the repayment-plans article in this series prices in full. A $100,000 balance on a $45,000 income is not a ten-year problem. It is a twenty-year problem, or a thirty-year problem with forgiveness at the end, and the standard plan's $1,136.50 a month is not the answer to it.

What stretches the clock, and what does not

Three things stretch a student loan payoff, and only one of them is the borrower's choice. The first is the balance itself, which is set by the degree and the borrowing, and which the ladder above prices. The second is the rate, which is set by Congress each year for new loans and fixed for the life of each loan, so a borrower with 2025-26 loans pays 6.39 percent and a borrower with 2026-27 loans pays 6.52 percent, and neither can change it without refinancing into a private loan and giving up the federal protections. The third is the payment, which is the only one the borrower controls outright, and which the extra-payment table prices. What does not stretch the clock, by itself, is a missed month that is caught up, because the standard plan's fixed payment resumes where it left off, though the missed month's interest is still charged and the late payment can damage the credit record. What stretches the clock badly is a payment below the month's interest, which does not reduce the balance at all: at $30,000 and 6.52 percent, any fixed payment below $163.00 a month leaves the balance growing, and the only plans in which a payment below the interest is survivable are the income-driven ones, where RAP waives the unpaid interest and IBR lets the balance grow toward forgiveness.

The new insight

The first $25 of extra payment is the best money in the whole payoff. It saves $1,099.01, which is 21 percent of what the full $200 saves, for one-eighth of the money, and the reason is timing: a dollar of principal removed in month one stops charging interest for 119 months, while a dollar removed in month one hundred stops charging it for 20. Extra payments are not linear. They are front-loaded, which means the borrower who can only afford $25 extra in the first year and nothing later still buys most of the benefit, and the borrower who waits for a raise before paying extra has already given away the cheapest months. Start small, start now, and let the early dollars do the long work.

When the standard plan is not the plan

None of this is an argument for staying on the standard plan when it is unaffordable. The standard plan is the cheapest way out, and it is also the most demanding month to month, and a payment that cannot be made on time every month is worse than a lower payment that can. A missed payment costs a late mark on the credit report, and a default, after 270 days without payment on a federal loan, costs the protections that make federal loans different from private ones: deferment, forbearance, income-driven plans, and rehabilitation. The income-driven plans exist for exactly the months when the standard payment is too much, and the right move in a tight month is to switch plans, not to miss the payment. The standard plan is the target to return to when income allows, because it is the cheapest route to zero, but the route to zero has to pass through every month's payment, and a plan that gets paid beats a plan that does not. The calculator on this site prices all three plans on the same loan, so the cost of the lower payment is stated in dollars before the switch is made, and the borrower can decide with the numbers in front of them.

Sources

Federal Student Aid, on 2026-27 Direct loan interest rates (undergraduate 6.52 percent, graduate 8.07 percent, PLUS 9.07 percent, fixed for loans first disbursed July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027) and on standard repayment terms. Education Data Initiative and Federal Student Aid portfolio data as of March 31, 2026 (average federal balance $39,547 per borrower, median $20,281). All payoff figures were computed month by month by this site's calculator under the stated model, and the $10,000 at 6.52 percent standard payment of $113.65 a month, with $3,637.97 of interest, matches the independently published figure of about $113.64 a month and about $3,637 of interest.