I borrowed $163k (not counting interest that accumulated during school) to pay for pharmacy school. I graduated in 2013. I intended on either getting a residency and then hospital job that qualifies for 10 year forgiveness or landing in retail and being super aggressive and paying them off ASAP. It took a long while to finally find employment and interest accrued and capitalized and my principal ballooned. All of my loans are federal loans, no private. I am at $227k now, in my mid 30s and have 2 kids and a wife that is staying home for another year (already has for 2 years) to take care of them but will make $60-70k/year when she goes back to work. I think I was at $205k when I started working. I did income-based repayment when I was unemployed and until now. I did the standard income-based repayment plan for the first 4 years and then I got on the REPAYE plan last year (I did not qualify for the PAYE plan because of a $6000 loan I took out in undergrad
). So I have 20 years of income-based repayments left, unless I get lucky enough to find a job that grants me 10 year forgiveness soon. I max out my 401k. My rate is 7% right now (not counting the REPAYE interest subsidy, which probably brings it down to ~4% to 4.5%. I thought about refinancing and attacking them when I started working, but I did not want to lose the protection that comes with the federal loans in this saturated market.
After having a couple kids and factoring in their expenses with other bills, it just seems unrealistic to pay these off aggressively. The tax bomb will suck in 20 years and will end up costing me roughly what I owe now, if not more, but I just don't see any other way right now. We have 1 vehicle for now, $290/month payment. Mortgage/property taxes are $650/month.