USA Funds Borrowing for College Calculator Helps Students Manage Their Student Loan Borrowing Responsibly
How can student loan borrowers determine when they’re getting too deeply in debt? USA Funds® is testing a new calculator for mobile devices that offers student loan borrowers a rough estimate of their “maximum affordable” student loan debt and monthly loan payments, based on the student’s projected starting income.
A free download for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, the Borrowing for College calculator asks users to provide their projected starting salaries. The calculator also provides a link to Salary.com to help users provide a salary estimate.
Based on the percentage of income devoted to student loan payments, the loan interest rate and repayment term of the loan, the calculator returns a projected maximum affordable total student loan debt and monthly payment for the user.
The calculator encourages borrowers to compare their actual student loan debt to the results provided by the calculator, and it offers advice for controlling student loan debt.
USA Funds invites financial aid administrators to test the calculator and provide feedback through a brief online survey at www.surveymonkey.com/s/iPhoneAppSchoolSurvey.
Financial aid professionals also may share information about the calculator with their student borrowers, whose comments on the Borrowing for College calculator are welcome at www.surveymonkey.com/s/iPhoneAppStudentSurvey.