Accuracy of Studentloans.gov payment calculator

I am currently in the SAVE repayment plan like many of us here and am trying to figure out what to do when SAVE goes away. I went to the Studentloan.gov website and used their payment calculators to estimate payments on the available plans.

First, I didn’t login and manually entered my loan information into the tool. I had a split screen of my loans so I entered all of the loans and interest rates correctly. This gave me an estimate of payments around $950 on the PAYE plan.

I then logged in and had all my loans automatically inputted into the calculator. This drastically changed the payments, going to around $1450ish on the same plan.

Does anyone have any advice on which figure would be a better representation of what my payment would be? It makes a big difference on whether or not I switch to PAYE now or wait and make them put me on RAP whenever that begins.

I have four direct consolidation loans, two at 6.7% and two at 3.4% with a total balance of close to $350,000 (thanks law school!). My income is on the higher side with an AGI of $135,000.

My options are to switch to PAYE before the deadline and be placed into that program now. This is where the calculator estimate is important. If my payment will be closer to the $950 mark, it makes a lot of sense to switch now. If it’ll be closer to the $1450, it makes sense to wait.

I know that RAP isn’t finalized and we really don’t know what payments would be, but based on what we know currently, the payment under RAP would be around $1200.

The payments calculated above are based on my current income.

To add another wrinkle into the mix, I haven’t had to certify my income since before COVID and my recertification date is April 2027. So if I wait and am forced into RAP, my first few payments would be based on my lower income from a few years ago, which is significantly less. It would take some time for the new higher income to work its way into the payment equation. Since most of the payment would go to interest, the less I can pay the better.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!