United States and Canada
What student debt actually costs
Calculators and guides for borrowing, repaying and forgiving student loans on both sides of the border. Every figure comes from the authority that published it and carries the date it was checked. Nothing here tells you that you qualify for anything, because this site does not underwrite and has no standing to.
Start with capitalization
It is the mechanic people get wrong most often, and it runs in both directions. Someone who borrows $27,000 across four years at 6.52% accrues $7,921.80 of interest before the first payment is due. That amount is owed either way. Letting it capitalize costs an extra $2,881.93 over a ten-year term, and that smaller figure is the real answer.
On a US federal loan today it happens on two events, not the six it used to. Most advice written before July 2023 still lists all six.
Where to start
What does capitalized interest actually cost me?
Interest that accrues while you are not paying is owed either way. What costs extra is the moment it joins your principal and starts earning interest of its own. This separates the two.
What will my monthly payment be?
A fixed payment over a fixed term, with the interest it costs over the whole loan, and what putting anything extra against the principal does to both.
What would I pay on an income-driven plan?
The Repayment Assistance Plan against Income-Based Repayment and the ten-year Standard plan, with the bracket cliffs RAP introduces shown rather than smoothed over.
Would I qualify for a reduced payment in Canada?
What the Repayment Assistance Plan asks for at a given family income and household size, federally and, in Ontario, on the provincial half of the same loan.
By country
United States
The rules changed on 1 July 2026. The Repayment Assistance Plan and Tiered Standard replaced most of what came before, Grad PLUS is gone, and income-driven forgiveness is taxable again.
Canada
The federal half of the loan carries no interest and has not since 2023. The provincial half depends entirely on where you live, and in Ontario, Alberta and Quebec it still charges you.
What it costs to attend
Published cost and net price for 2,434 American institutions, and tuition by province and field of study across Canada.
How this site handles figures
Every number is transcribed from the authority that published it, is a convention that says so, or is something you typed. There is no fourth category. Where a figure is not known, the page says so rather than filling the space with a plausible guess.
Hand-checked rules carry the date a person opened the source and read them. Bulk data, like the institution figures, is labelled as machine-collected and names the year it describes, because nobody checked two thousand rows by hand and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise.
Federal rules last checked on . Hosted at studentloans.naborio.com.