PSLF versus refinancing
Refinancing ends Public Service Loan Forgiveness permanently and takes your qualifying payments with it. This works out what that is worth.
Estimates, not financial advice. Check anything that matters with your loan servicer before you act.
Why this comparison is different from a normal refinance comparison
For most borrowers, refinancing is a question about interest. For someone on a public service forgiveness track it is a question about a much larger number, and the interest is close to irrelevant.
Consider a nonprofit employee with $180,000 in Direct Loans at 7.2 percent, earning $62,000, who has made 48 qualifying payments. Seventy-two payments remain. On an income-driven plan those payments are calculated from income rather than balance, so the total they will ever pay is a fraction of the balance, and the rest is cancelled tax free at the end.
A refinance offer at 5.5 percent looks like a saving on paper. Run it through this tool and the forgone forgiveness runs to six figures in present-value terms. The interest saving is real and it is not close.
The thing to check before anything else
PSLF requires payments under a qualifying repayment plan. RAP, IBR, PAYE, ICR and the ten-year Standard plan all qualify. The Tiered Standard plan does not, unless your balance is under $25,000, and Tiered Standard is where a post-2026 borrower is placed by default if they never choose a plan.
So it is possible to work for a qualifying employer, make every payment on time for years, and accrue nothing. If that describes you, the fix is to change plan, and it is available today. It is not available after refinancing.
What refinancing actually ends
Every qualifying payment already made stops counting. There is no transfer, no partial credit, and no route back: a private loan cannot be converted into a federal one at any price. A borrower a hundred payments in who refinances is not twenty payments from forgiveness. They are at zero, permanently.
The forgiveness itself is also worth more than an equivalent amount forgiven under an income-driven plan, because PSLF is not taxable federally while income-driven forgiveness became federally taxable on 1 January 2026. Calculators that value all forgiveness identically understate PSLF's advantage.
When refinancing can still make sense in public service
It sometimes does. The honest cases:
- You hold private loans as well. Refinance those and leave the federal ones alone. The calculator models this as a separate column.
- Your loans are not PSLF-eligible, for example Parent PLUS loans consolidated in a way that cannot qualify, and no consolidation route fixes it.
- You are leaving public service and are confident about it. Note that "confident" is doing real work in that sentence, and the option to return has value.
- Your balance is small relative to income, so little or nothing would be forgiven at payment 120 anyway. Then PSLF is worth close to zero and a lower rate is worth real money.
Notice that the last case depends entirely on the projected balance at payment 120, which is exactly what this tool computes.
Related: the full inventory of what refinancing gives up, andthe status of the vacated employer rule.
Common questions
How much is PSLF actually worth?
It depends on the balance you would still owe at your 120th qualifying payment, not on your current balance. A borrower on an income-driven plan with a large balance and a modest public-service salary can have a very large remaining balance forgiven, and because PSLF forgiveness is not taxable federally, the whole amount counts. The calculator projects that balance from your inputs and discounts it to today.
I am 40 payments in. Is it too late to refinance?
It is not too late, but those 40 payments have no value on a private loan. They cannot be transferred and cannot be restored if you change your mind. The calculator treats payments already made as reducing the time remaining to forgiveness, which usually makes staying federal look considerably better the further along you are.
What if I am not sure my employer qualifies?
Use the Department of Education PSLF Help Tool, which checks a specific employer. This calculator takes your answer at face value and cannot verify it. If you are unsure, run the numbers both ways and see how much the answer moves.
Does the 2025 rule about employer eligibility affect me?
No. That rule was vacated by two federal district courts on 30 June 2026, one day before it was due to take effect, and Federal Student Aid states the Department cannot enforce it. The pre-existing definition of a qualifying employer still applies. This calculator models no employer disqualification.
Does the Tiered Standard plan count toward PSLF?
Only if your balance is under $25,000. Qualifying plans include any plan whose monthly payment is at least the ten-year standard amount, and Tiered Standard runs ten years only below $25,000. Above that its payment is lower, so it earns no PSLF credit. This matters because Tiered Standard is the default a borrower lands on by doing nothing.