Question about student loan repayment plans

[guywithaloanquestion]

I was wondering if anyone had any knowledge about or experience with student loan repayment. So I looked at all the possible payment plans. The two I like the most are Standard and Income-Contingent. I'm just a little confused by the numbers here. And I was wondering if anyone could help me. I'll just give exact numbers to make it easy to understand. On the "understanding the plans" page it says you'll pay more for your loan over time with Income-Contingent than you would with Standard over 10 years. But when I look at the numbers, that doesn't seem to be the case. Income-Contingent appears to be a better option than Standard when you make little money or a lot of money. Maybe I'm missing something but I can't see why anyone would do Standard over Income-Contingent. 

So my loan is $106,594 at 5.9% interest. With the Standard plan it's 120 payments of $1,147. After 10 years I'd end up paying $137,590 in total including $33,996 in total interest. 

So when I list my income as $50,000, for the Income-Contingent plan I get 157 payments (that's 13 years) of $637-838 for a total of $121,497 with $37,769 in total interest. As you see, it's a few years longer but you'll end up paying less over time. It also says $0 in projected forgiveness so it means I'd be paying off the entire loan. 

What surprised me was that the higher the income I listed, the better Income-Contingent appeared to be. When I list my income as $100,000, I get 103 payments (that's 8.5 years) of payments between $1003-1084 (that's still less than Standard) for a total of $106,866 with $23,138 in total interest. The confusing things are 1) it's lower payments for a shorter amount of time for Standard, and 2) it still says $0 expected forgiveness so that means I'd pay the whole loan, but it's strange because the total amount paid is about the same as my loan and it says I also pay $23,000+ in interest. I don't understand the math.

When I go even higher, it appears to get even better. When I enter $150,000 income, I get 84 payments (that's 7 years) of $1177-1263 (slightly higher than Standard but not by much) for a total of $102,405 with $18,677 in total interest. It also says $0 expected forgiveness. This total is even less than my loan amount and it includes interest. None of this makes sense. 

Can anyone help me make sense out of this?

 

[rising_star]

Honestly, no, I can't help you make sense of this because it strikes me like a calculation error happened somewhere. That said, one thing to keep in mind with income-contingent is that they're expecting your income to rise over the years, enabling you to pay more on your loan. I know several people who have chosen the standard repayment plan but dedicated extra money to paying down the principal on the loan each month, thereby enabling them to pay it off early.

[guywithaloanquestion]

Thank you. I think I found out the problem. Some loans are not covered under the Income-Contingent plan so those were not added into the amount. 

But one more question if you don't mind. Do you know how to view your remaining grace period on a loan? I graduated about 4 months ago so I should have about 2 months left but I can't find the exact date. 

[rising_star]

You should be able to find the date online. If not, you could call them to find out.