Teacher Loan Forgiveness Calculator
Your loan, your teaching, and the route you would otherwise take
Your result will appear here
Fill in the fields on the left and this updates as you type.
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- General mathematical model
- Scope and limitations
- Educational estimate only. Confirm the assumptions, current rules, fees, and rounding that apply to your situation before making a decision.
- Source links checked
- Jul 30, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
How to use
- 01
Enter your current loan balance and its interest rate. The page runs the balance forward to the end of your fifth year of teaching, because forgiveness is applied to what is outstanding then, not to what you owe today.
- 02
Enter the complete consecutive academic years you have already taught at a qualifying school. Years have to be consecutive and complete, though approved leave, military duty and a period of study do not break the run.
- 03
Set the amount you qualify for: $5,000, or $17,500 for a highly qualified mathematics or science teacher at an eligible secondary school, or a highly qualified special education teacher. Your school's chief administrative officer certifies which applies, not this page.
- 04
Enter your monthly payment under whatever plan you are on, so the balance runs forward at the right speed.
- 05
Answer whether your employment would also qualify for public service forgiveness — 1 for yes. The page then shows what the 120-payment route would write off instead, and how much service the choice consumes.
Formula
The balance is run forward to the end of the fifth year at your own payment, because forgiveness attaches to what is outstanding then: Each month: balance = balance + balance × (rate ÷ 12) − payment Run for (5 − years already taught) × 12 months Then the statutory amount is applied, capped by what is actually left: Forgiven = the smaller of (the amount you qualify for, the balance at year five) Left owing = balance at year five − Forgiven The public service comparison runs the same loan forward to 120 qualifying payments instead, counting any qualifying employment already behind you: Payments still needed = 120 − months of qualifying employment already served PSLF would forgive = whatever balance remains after those payments The difference between the two is the honest measure of the choice, and the service consumed is the other half of it: 34 CFR 685.217(c)(12) bars the same teaching from earning a benefit under both, so up to five years of service is committed to whichever route you take first.
Example
Take $38,000 at 6.52% with three complete consecutive academic years already taught, a $350 monthly payment, the $5,000 amount, and employment that would also qualify for public service forgiveness. Two years of teaching remain. Over those 24 months you pay in $8,400 and $4,731 of it goes to interest, so the balance falls only from $38,000 to $34,331. Teacher forgiveness then takes $5,000 off, leaving $29,331 still to repay. Set against that, staying on for the full 120 qualifying payments — 84 more from today, given the three years already served — would leave $22,772 to be written off, $17,772 more than teacher forgiveness delivers. The schedule shows exactly where each lands: forgiveness of $5,000 at year two, and PSLF writing off $22,772 at year seven. Two alternates were run. A mathematics teacher with a $60,000 balance qualifying for $17,500 has $59,387 outstanding at year five, so the whole $17,500 applies and leaves $41,887 — while PSLF would have written off $57,454, a difference of $39,954. And if the employment does not qualify for public service forgiveness at all, none of the three years counts towards the 120, so the PSLF route needs a full 120 months from today and would write off only $13,802 by then, which narrows the gap to $8,802 and makes the shorter route look far more attractive.
Definitions
- Teacher loan forgiveness
- The programme at 34 CFR 685.217 writing off up to $5,000, or up to $17,500 for certain subjects, after five consecutive complete academic years of full-time teaching at an eligible low-income school or educational service agency.
- Highly qualified teacher
- A statutory standard the school certifies, and the gateway to the $17,500 amount for mathematics, science and special education teachers. Whether you meet it is decided by your chief administrative officer, not by this page.
- Public Service Loan Forgiveness
- The programme at 34 CFR 685.219, which writes off whatever is left after 120 qualifying monthly payments made while working full time for a qualifying employer.
- Qualifying teaching service
- The period of teaching that earns forgiveness. Under 685.217(c)(12) the same period cannot earn a benefit under both teacher loan forgiveness and PSLF, which is what forces a choice.
- Academic year
- One complete year of teaching as the school defines it. The five required years must be consecutive and complete, though study, FMLA leave and military duty do not break the run.
Good to know
What the programme actually promises
Teacher loan forgiveness is one of the oldest federal forgiveness programmes and one of the most misunderstood, largely because its headline figure is quoted without the conditions attached to it. The rules live at 34 CFR 685.217 for Direct Loans, with a parallel provision at 682.216 for the older FFEL programme, and the combined total available across both is capped at the same amount so it cannot be collected twice. The basic benefit is up to $5,000 of forgiveness after five consecutive complete academic years of full-time teaching at an eligible low-income school or educational service agency. The larger figure of $17,500 is available to a much narrower group: a borrower employed for those five consecutive years either at an eligible secondary school as a highly qualified mathematics or science teacher, or by an eligible educational service agency teaching mathematics or science to secondary students, or as a highly qualified special education teacher of children with disabilities at an eligible elementary or secondary school whose training corresponded to those disabilities. Whether a particular teacher meets the highly qualified standard is certified by the chief administrative officer of the school, not decided by a calculator, which is why this page takes the amount as a field rather than trying to infer it. Two mechanical details shape the answer more than the headline figure does. First, the forgiveness is deducted from the balance outstanding after the fifth complete consecutive academic year, so what matters is not what you owe today but what is left then. Second, 34 CFR 685.217(d)(3) states that the Secretary does not refund payments already received from a borrower who qualifies. Paying the loan down aggressively in the years before the fifth therefore reduces what the programme can forgive rather than increasing what you keep — a genuinely counter-intuitive incentive that borrowers should understand before making extra payments while waiting.
The rule that forces a choice
The question this page exists to answer is whether a teacher should take the guaranteed smaller amount at five years or hold out for public service forgiveness at ten. The reason it is a genuine choice rather than a sequence is a single paragraph of the regulation. 34 CFR 685.217(c)(12) provides that a borrower may not receive loan forgiveness for the same qualifying teaching service under that section if the borrower receives a benefit for the same teaching service under subtitle D of title I of the National and Community Service Act of 1990, under 34 CFR 685.219, or under section 428K of the Act. The middle of those three is Public Service Loan Forgiveness. So five years of teaching can be spent earning one benefit or the other, and not both. This is worth stating precisely because it is often reported carelessly in both directions. It does not mean a teacher can never have both programmes: someone may complete five years for teacher loan forgiveness and then perform a further ten years of qualifying employment towards PSLF, and collect each in turn. What is barred is counting a single period of service twice. The practical effect is that taking teacher forgiveness at year five does not shorten the road to PSLF by five years — it resets that portion of it. On the page's example, where three of the five years are already behind the borrower, up to five years of service is committed to whichever route is taken first. This is also the reason the page asks whether your employment would qualify for public service forgiveness at all. If it would not, the comparison changes completely, because none of the teaching already done counts towards the 120 payments. Running that alternate shows it clearly: with no qualifying employment the PSLF route needs a full 120 months from today rather than 84, and would write off only $13,802 rather than $22,772.
Which route is worth more, and what the answer depends on
Public service forgiveness usually writes off more, and the reason is structural rather than incidental. Teacher loan forgiveness is a fixed dollar amount capped at $5,000 or $17,500, while PSLF cancels whatever remains after 120 qualifying payments — an amount with no ceiling at all. The larger the balance and the smaller the monthly payment, the more decisively PSLF wins. On the page's example of $38,000 at 6.52% with a $350 payment, teacher forgiveness delivers $5,000 against the $34,331 outstanding at year five, while continuing to 120 payments would leave $22,772 to be cancelled, a difference of $17,772. Raise the balance and the gap widens sharply: an alternate run at $60,000 with the $17,500 amount forgives $17,500 against $57,454 under PSLF, a difference of $39,954. But the comparison is not a straight arithmetic contest, and there are real circumstances in which the smaller, sooner amount is the better choice. The first is a small balance with a comfortable payment, where the loan is largely repaid by the time 120 payments are complete and PSLF has little left to cancel — the alternate with no qualifying employment shows the gap narrowing to $8,802 for exactly this reason. The second is uncertainty about the employer. PSLF requires qualifying employment for all 120 payments, and a teacher who may move to a private school, leave the profession, or change to a role that does not qualify is comparing a certain benefit against a conditional one. The third is time itself: 84 more months of payments on the example against 24, during which $4,731 of interest accrues on the way to year five alone. The page shows both figures side by side precisely because the right answer depends on facts a calculator cannot see, and it is worth noting that neither programme is guaranteed to survive unchanged for a decade.
Why neither amount usually shows up as income
Both of these routes are ordinarily described as tax-free, and for the same reason, which is quite separate from the reason income-driven forgiveness is not. Section 108(f)(1) of the tax code excludes from gross income any amount that would otherwise be included by reason of the discharge of a student loan, where the discharge was made pursuant to a provision of the loan under which all or part of the indebtedness would be discharged if the individual worked for a certain period of time in certain professions for any of a broad class of employers. Teaching for five years at a qualifying school, or working ten years for a qualifying public service employer, are the archetypal cases that language was written to describe. Crucially, §108(f)(1) was left entirely alone by section 70119 of Public Law 119-21, which narrowed only §108(f)(5) — the broad 2021 to 2025 exclusion — down to discharges on account of death or total and permanent disability. So the change that made income-driven forgiveness taxable again from 2026 did not touch the work-based exclusion these programmes rely on. Two cautions are worth carrying into a conversation with a preparer. The first is that the statutory test turns on a provision in the loan about working, rather than on the name of a programme, and the IRS materials that describe this exclusion — Publication 4681, which frames it as a cancellation due to meeting certain work requirements, and Tax Topic 431, which lists qualified student loans containing provisions for cancellation based on length of employment in certain professions for a broad class of employers — do not name either programme explicitly. The second is that states do not always follow. The one state treatment readable while this page was built, Indiana's Income Tax Information Bulletin #119, happens to be helpful on this point: it confirms that Indiana's student loan discharge addback does not affect discharges under §108(f)(1) to (4). Your own state may differ, and your servicer and preparer settle the real answer.
Frequently asked questions
Can I get teacher loan forgiveness and PSLF?
Not for the same teaching. The rule is in the regulation itself: 34 CFR 685.217(c)(12) says a borrower may not receive loan forgiveness for the same qualifying teaching service under that section if the borrower receives a benefit for the same teaching service under, among other things, 34 CFR 685.219 — which is the Public Service Loan Forgiveness programme. Nothing stops you doing five years for teacher forgiveness and then a further ten years of qualifying employment towards PSLF. What is barred is counting one period of service twice.
Which is worth more?
Usually PSLF, if you can reach it. On the page's example — $38,000 at 6.52%, three years already taught, $350 a month — teacher forgiveness writes off $5,000 against the $34,331 outstanding at the end of year five, while carrying on to 120 payments would leave $22,772 to be written off, which is $17,772 more. With a bigger balance the gap widens: rerunning at $60,000 with the $17,500 amount forgives $17,500 against $57,454 under PSLF, a difference of $39,954. The trade is time and certainty — PSLF needs 84 more qualifying payments here rather than 24 more months, and the employer has to keep qualifying for all of them.
Who gets the $17,500 rather than $5,000?
A narrower group than most people expect. Under 34 CFR 685.217 the larger amount goes to a borrower employed for five consecutive years either at an eligible secondary school as a highly qualified mathematics or science teacher, or by an eligible educational service agency teaching mathematics or science to secondary students, or as a highly qualified special education teacher of children with disabilities at an eligible elementary or secondary school. Everyone else who qualifies gets up to $5,000. The regulation also caps the combined total across the Direct Loan and FFEL programmes at the same figure, so you cannot collect it twice.
Is teacher loan forgiveness taxable?
It is generally not treated as taxable, for the same reason PSLF is not: §108(f)(1) excludes a discharge made under a provision of the loan cancelling the debt if the borrower works for a period in certain professions for a broad class of employers. That subsection was left alone by the 2025 act that narrowed §108(f)(5) to death and disability. This is quite different from a balance written off at the end of an income-driven plan, which is now ordinary income — the sibling forgiveness tax page prices that. Note that IRS Publication 4681 and Tax Topic 431 describe the exclusion in the statute's terms without naming any programme, so have a preparer confirm your own discharge.
What happens to the rest of my balance?
You keep paying it. Forgiveness is deducted from what is outstanding after the fifth complete consecutive academic year, so on the example $5,000 comes off the $34,331 balance and leaves $29,331 still to repay on your own terms. The regulation is also explicit at 685.217(d)(3) that the Secretary does not refund payments already received from a borrower who qualifies, so paying the loan down aggressively before year five can leave less for the programme to forgive rather than more in your pocket.
Do I have to teach five years in a row?
Yes, five consecutive complete academic years, but the regulation is more forgiving about interruptions than the word consecutive suggests. A period of postsecondary education, a qualifying condition under the Family and Medical Leave Act, or military active duty does not constitute a break, including the time needed to resume teaching by the start of the next regularly scheduled academic year. Teaching at more than one qualifying school in a year can combine into one academic year if the chief administrative officers certify the combined work was full-time equivalent.