Paying back loans

[kedhegard]

Can somebody help me with this? Sorry if there has been thread on this recently, I didn't see one.


I'm an MS3, and I will be graduating with around 75-80k worth of loans. Add in a car payment, house payment, and putting food on the table...will I be able to survive during residency? I am in the military, and will be making around 50k a year for residency, but once I graduate, I'll only make around 100k/year.

How long can you defer/claim hardship for? Any idea how much loan payments are per month? Sorry if I'm making this confusing, I've just been worrying about this lately. Thanks for any advice or help.

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[lawmd]

in 4 months of residency I hav epaid probably 5K in credit cards off, own my own home, car payment and am doing fine. dont worry about residency. afterwards-you will be making more than most people who have the same amount for their college loans. you will pay 1K a month for 3o years-dont sweat it at all. finish med school, relax and pay it as you go. also-as soon as you can, start investing it-your residency will have a 401k-use it, as much as you can put into it. the military probably has some good savings programs. live like youa re a med student and dont go nuts pimping your ride and you will be OK. remember you will be in the top 2% of salaries in ayear or two. with Bush in office, you wont lose it all to taxes!!!!

 

[mpp]

There might be some good advice in the Financial Aid forum.

You can claim a financial hardship on federal loans for a maximum of 3 years (however, with a $50,000 salary and only $70-$80k in loans, you may not qualify for the hardshp deferment...check a deferment calculator or talk to a financial aid counselor at your school). There is no longer an automatic residency deferment like there used to be. During hardship deferment, any subsidized Stafford loans remain subsidized.

After the 3 years of hardship deferment you may be eligible for 3 years of forbearance. Forbearance has more stringent requirements than hardship so once again if your income is too high, you may not qualify. During forbearance all your loans (including subsidized loans) will accrue interest.

lawmd's advice is good. Your monthly loan payment should be around $800 per month and affordable on income of over $4,000 per month as a resident. Live frugally and you should be fine. Be sure to consolidate as soon as you leave school to lock in today's low rates (especially since fixed-rate consolidation may go away sometime soon). With a 6-figure salary in practice, you shouldn't have a problem paying off those loans (although you're not going to live like a king).