Good Loan Calculator

[dillydally]

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I'm looking for a good loan calculator that can actually tell me how much I interest I will accrue during and after school. My cost of attendance will be about 65K a year. I then plan on doing a 2-3 year fellowship after residency. Because I will have 3-4 kids by then, I am estimating that IBR will be close to 0 and similar to forbearance.

Without interest, 4 years of school will put me at about 260K in debt. However, I know it will be more than that because of interest, but I'm not really sure how to calculate that. How much would I rely owe at graduation?

After graduation, a standard loan calculator says that 260K will turn into 359K with 6.8% interest after 6 years of residency/fellowship, but that is not including the lack of interest I will pay on 34K of subsided loans for 3 years because of IBR.

I know my numbers are not very accurate, but I don't know how to do better. Can anyone help? It seems that I will have about 360K in debt after I am fully trained, and if I pursue a low paying specialty, that seems pretty crippling.

I also don't think it is wise to rely on PSLF, since who knows if it will actually work.

 

[dillydally]

Seriously, does anyone have a good calculator for how loans accrue interest during school and residency? I had to enter in each loan for each year manually into a forbearance calculator and add them up. Here's what I got, taking out 65.5K a year.


Year 1
32,000+4,245=34,245 (Unsubsized at 6.8% interest)
25,000+2,048=27,048 (Grad plus at 7.9% interest)
8,500 (Subsized loans, no interest)
----
34,245+27,048+8,500=69,793


Year 2
34,245+32,000+4,647=70,892
27,048+25,000+4,264=56,311
8,500+8,500=17,000
----
70,892+56,311+17,000=144,203


Year 3
70,892+32,000+7,219=110,111
56,311+25,000+6,661=87,972
17,000+8,500=25,500
----
110,111+87,972+25,500=223,583


Year 4
110,111+32,000+9,970=152,081
87,972+25,000+9,255=122,227
25,500+8,500=34,000
----
152,081+122,227+34,000=308,308


Total interest accrued during medical school= 308,308-(65,500*4)= 46,308
Does this seem accurate?





At about 20K in interest per year, there is no way I could pay off the interest during residency. With a family of about 5, IBR would put my payments in the $0-$400 range. This is basically forbearance.

Now, assuming a 4 year residency with 2 year fellowship, forbearance would yield the following loan totals:

152,081+76,356=228,437
122,227+73,814=196,041
34,000+7,670=41,670 (I did not add interest for 3 years due to IBR)
----
228,437+196,041+41,670=466,148


Total interest accrued during medical school, residency, and fellowship= 466,148 -(65,000*4)= 206,148




Do these number seem accurate and am I right to assume that a low-paying specialty is out of the question??

 

[TooMuchResearch]

Making the same assumptions as you, I came up with roughly $475k owed after a 6 year residency/fellowship. Using your numbers, your effective simple interest rate while in school is about 6.4%, but once you enter repayment, it is closer to 7.3%. Once in repayment (post-IBR), with a 10 year term, you're looking at about $5600/month, which is closer to $9k in pre-tax dollars. A 30 year term drops it to about $3250/month, or $5400 in post-tax dollars. Keep in mind that $8.5k and $32k Stafford limits are per nine months, not per year (though they do max out, so you might be stuck with just Grad Plus somewhere down the line), so you can hopefully get a bit more subsidized and unsubsidized 6.8% loans. There are many programs available to either 1) keep you out of debt by paying for all/part of your education or 2) help pay off your debt once you graduate. Some are government sponsored; others are not.

Edit: And I don't know of any calculator that can do the math for you. I used a combination of "close enough" assumptions, a personal calculator, compound interest calculator, and mortgage payment calculator.

 

[dillydally]

Thanks for the verification on my math. It's weird to me there's not a better web calculator that will figure out med school loans for you.

Is there a sticky anywhere that lists programs which help pay off debt? I feel like almost everyone knows about FAP, HPSP, and NHSC, but I haven't really heard much about anything else.

 

[TooMuchResearch]

Thanks for the verification on my math. It's weird to me there's not a better web calculator that will figure out med school loans for you.

Is there a sticky anywhere that lists programs which help pay off debt? I feel like almost everyone knows about FAP, HPSP, and NHSC, but I haven't really heard much about anything else.

It takes a combination of types of calculators. Maybe someone could program a nice meta-calculator for SDN. Not me, though 🙂

Aside from what you listed, the Air and Army National Guard have programs with federal benefits + state benefits that vary from state to state. See the military med forum for more info. Other than that, I know some hospitals and groups will offer loan repayment as part of a sign on package, but I really don't know enough about that to comment any further.