How Clevara works, and who is behind it
Clevara sells one thing: a calculation. This page is the evidence behind it — who runs it, which federal sources the engine implements, when they were last read, how the figures were checked against the Department of Education’s own calculator, and what remains unresolved.
Federal rules last reviewed
Who operates Clevara
Clevara LLC, a North Dakota limited liability company.
Clevara is a small, independently owned business. It is not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Education, with any loan servicer, or with any lender, and it receives no payment from any of them. The only money Clevara takes is the one-time fee you pay for your own report.
Clevara is not a law firm and not a debt-relief or debt-settlement service. It shows program criteria next to the information you provide; the Department of Education and your servicer determine what you can enrol in and what you finally pay.
Contact a person →What the engine is built from
The engine uses federal statutes, regulations, published tables, and official guidance. Its assumptions identify the formula and important limitations. Some estimates require modeling choices; they are not a servicer quote.
- P.L. 119-21, which created the Repayment Assistance Plan and the Tiered Standard plan effective July 1, 2026
- 34 CFR 685.208 and 685.209 — the repayment plans, their eligibility criteria, and their payment formulas
- 34 CFR 685.219 — Public Service Loan Forgiveness, its three conditions, and the weighted count on consolidation
- 20 U.S.C. 1087e(q) and the RISE final rule at 91 FR 23768 — how payments count between plans
- Federal Register 2026-11540 — the 2026–27 ICR income percentage factor table
- The annual HHS poverty guidelines, including the separate Alaska and Hawaii tables
When the rules were last read
The date below is the last full pass over the primary sources above, not the date this page was edited and not the date the site was last deployed. Federal repayment rules are in the middle of an overhaul, so a review date that is months old is itself information.
Targeted corrections may be more recent than this full review. Every change the engine has made to its reading of the rules is listed underneath, with the source that drove it.
How the figures were checked against the Department of Education
On July 7, 2026, once the Department’s own repayment calculator carried the July 2026 plans, a single reference borrower was entered into both it and the Clevara engine and every figure compared: one Direct Subsidized loan of $8,100 at 4.99%, disbursed September 2021, a single filer with an adjusted gross income of $45,000, two dependents, family size three, in California.
Six of the seven figures matched: the Repayment Assistance Plan at $50 a month, Standard at $86, IBR at $34, Graduated from $49 to $146, Tiered Standard at $86 over a 120-month tier, and the Repayment Assistance Plan’s bracket boundary falling exactly between an income of $20,000 and $20,001. The plan menus matched too, including the collapse to two plans for a borrower taking a new loan after July 1, 2026.
The seventh did not. ICR was quoted at $294.67 against the Department’s $62, because the engine implemented only one branch of the rule. That figure carried an “approximate” flag in the report from the day it shipped, and the 2026–27 income percentage factor table replaced it on July 18, 2026. It is listed in the log below rather than left out of it.
What we know we do not know
The following limitations remain. Confirm actual enrollment, payment schedules and credit counts with the Department of Education or your servicer.
- Direct and FFEL Consolidation terms use current balances in the file as a proxy for repayment-entry balances. Other education debt, earlier payments and Direct repayment entry before July 2006 can change the actual term. Defaulted other debt is excluded because this file does not establish satisfactory repayment arrangements. A $60,000 consolidation at 6% produces a modeled 30-year Standard payment of $359.73; this case has not been reconciled against an existing-loan account in the current ED calculator.
- Graduated payments use modeled two-year stages, including a shorter final stage on 15- and 25-year terms. The longer consolidation schedules have been checked for amortization and payment limits, but have not been reconciled to an ED or servicer schedule.
- How a partial month is rounded in a PSLF payment count. 34 CFR 685.219 does not say, and neither does either of its preambles. Clevara reports the count the Department’s own records show and does not invent a rounding rule.
- Which income percentage factor table applies to a borrower who is married and files separately. The regulation no longer keys the multiplier to filing status, so the routing Clevara uses is a reasonable reading, not a cited rule. ICR is closed to new enrollment and ends June 30, 2028.
Where your data goes
Your “Download My Aid Data” file is read and analyzed entirely inside your own browser. It is never uploaded to Clevara, never written to a Clevara server, and never stored in a server-side database. There is no account and no login. Checkout creation and payment verification requests carry payment references, not your loan file or questionnaire answers.
Your report is saved in your own browser for 30 days so that you can reopen it, and you can delete it yourself at any time from the privacy page.
Read the full privacy page →The same information, free
Everything Clevara computes is derived from public federal rules and from a file the Department of Education gives you at no charge. The Department publishes its own repayment calculator, and it is free. What Clevara sells is the comparison across both plan menus, the lifetime cost of each plan alongside its monthly payment, and the stated assumptions behind every figure — in one document you can keep.
studentaid.gov →Rule-update log
Every change to how the engine reads the federal rules, newest first, with the source behind it.
FFEL Consolidation estimates now use the 10–30 year term brackets, and unconfirmed defaulted other debt is excluded from consolidation term estimates. Direct Parent PLUS is assessed separately for the Direct-loan criterion and repayment-plan restrictions in PSLF. Tiny remaining balances show the capped final payment.
34 CFR 682.209(c), (e); 685.219(b)(7), (28); Federal Student Aid Parent PLUS PSLF help page
Direct Consolidation Standard and Graduated estimates now use the 10–30 year term table. Fixed-plan totals stop at each loan’s payoff, and PAYE/ICR cost projections stop at June 30, 2028 with remaining debt labeled as owed.
34 CFR 685.208(b)(2), (b)(7), 685.220(i); StudentAid.gov Repayment Calculator plan-end notice
Extended was being quoted to borrowers who took a Direct Loan on or after July 1, 2026, and its $50 monthly minimum was missing. The per-plan payment floors were corrected: IBR and PAYE had none, ICR and RAP were already right.
34 CFR 685.208(b)(4) and 34 CFR 685.209(g)
On a joint return the income entered is the couple's combined income, so the income-driven payments other than ICR are now prorated by the borrower's share of the couple's combined federal student loan debt when a spouse balance is provided.
34 CFR 685.209(g)(1)(i) and (g)(3)(i)
The grandfather clause for a consolidation loan that repaid a Parent PLUS loan was implemented: a payment made under ICR, PAYE or IBR on or after July 4, 2025 keeps IBR and RAP open.
34 CFR 685.209(b)(6)(ii)
The 2026–27 ICR income percentage factor table was added, replacing the single-branch approximation that was the one figure not reconciling against the Department of Education’s own calculator.
Federal Register 2026-11540
Forgiveness timelines and the credit-counting rules between plans were added: payments under IBR, PAYE, ICR or SAVE count toward RAP’s 360, and payments under RAP do not count toward IBR, PAYE or ICR.
20 U.S.C. 1087e(q) and the RISE final rule, 91 FR 23768 (May 1, 2026)
A loan-type by plan eligibility matrix replaced a flat plan list, so a Parent PLUS or FFEL portfolio is no longer quoted plans its loan types cannot enter.
34 CFR 685.209 and 34 CFR 685.208
The Repayment Assistance Plan and Tiered Standard were reconciled against the Department of Education’s own repayment calculator once it carried the July 2026 plans.
P.L. 119-21 and studentaid.gov/repayment-calculator