Huge undergraduate debt

[gumbyj]

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[DrMidlife]

Does anyone have experience with astronomical undergraduate (and/or post-bacc) student loans (~$100,000)?

Yes. More in a moment.

I am beginning to feel worried that, although I love medicine, I am choosing this career path because I feel suffocated by my loans and feel it is the only option.

Are you saying you think you have to be a doctor or you can't afford to pay off your undergrad debt?😕

Not sure you realize this, but you'll likely accumulate another $250k in student debt during med school, and nearly the whole pile will accumulate interest while you're in med school. You will be wistful and nostalgic for the wee problem of only $100k debt.

In other words, you should run in the opposite direction of med school if you want to ever get out from under astronomical student loans.

So, about carrying undergrad debt into med school.

First thing is to make sure we're talking about federal loans. If you have private loans, you have a whole 'nother battle to take on. Private loans make their own rules. For instance, if you used a year or more of your deferral "budget" for a private loan by doing a postbac, you may be on the hook to make payments on that loan before you're done with med school.

Point being, if some of that $100k is private debt, it would be worth it to consider getting that portion paid off before you are in med school, by any means necessary.

Second thing is to get your brain around how federal loans work in a med school scenario. Federal loans are deferred while you're in school - what does that mean? You get a grace period after you graduate - what does that mean? During residency, you can do IBR or ICR - what does that mean?

Some good sources for getting up to speed are finaid.org (a non-profit group that assesses everything having to do with educational funding) and studentloans.gov (the official source of info on federal loans).

Third thing is to focus on getting into a public med school. Which, if you have a 3.2 and you're in California, for instance, means you need to look into moving to another state and working for a couple years before you apply to med school.

Best of luck to you.