Total indebtedness

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great job on the excel program. does this include the amount the sum will become after 10 years of repayment including interest?
Okay I'm back on a computer and now see that your question would depend on the type of repayment plan you choose...namely, the length of repayment period. There are some more calculations to figure in if it's a repayment program that's time-limited or based on income level. Give me some info on how you plan to repay and I'll try to come up with an appropriate update to the spreadsheet.
 
Okay I'm back on a computer and now see that your question would depend on the type of repayment plan you choose...namely, the length of repayment period. There are some more calculations to figure in if it's a repayment program that's time-limited or based on income level. Give me some info on how you plan to repay and I'll try to come up with an appropriate update to the spreadsheet.

I was thinking 10 year repayment.
 
I was thinking 10 year repayment.
Here is the updated worksheet with repayment figured in. This assumes you pay off all of the loan in X years (I put 10 in for you but you can change it). Which means no government 'forgiveness' or anything like that. Feel free to change any amounts in green highlighted cells for different scenarios...changing other cells may mess up the formulas.

If I misunderstood what you were looking for, let me know.

**Edit: I read your original post again and saw that you want to defer all payment during residency. This worksheet is assuming you start payment as soon as you graduate (PGY-1). If you notice the effect of compound interest, I would highly recommend you do not defer payment until after residency. But I can modify the worksheet to calculate that as well if you wish.
 

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What I don't understand is why people would choose a 10 year repayment? Or even longer in some cases.

I feel like I would want to sacrifice as much of my salary as I can to live comfortably to get it all paid off asap. Is this some type of fantasy world I'm talking about?
I know I could live just fine just off 60-70k until I pay it off. I don't understand why people just make minimum payments and fall into the interest rate trap and end up paying way more than they should have if they just take out that extra amount every month.
 
What I don't understand is why people would choose a 10 year repayment? Or even longer in some cases.

I feel like I would want to sacrifice as much of my salary as I can to live comfortably to get it all paid off asap. Is this some type of fantasy world I'm talking about?
I know I could live just fine just off 60-70k until I pay it off. I don't understand why people just make minimum payments and fall into the interest rate trap and end up paying way more than they should have if they just take out that extra amount every month.

Do you find it weird that not everyone thinks like you?

For the record my plan is to pay off my loans ASAP but things change. My mindset might change after 4 + whatever years of residency.
 
If you started taking any student loans prior to July 2015(medical school or undergrad) this budget proposal would not apply to you. Again this proposal was rejected. I don't deal in speculation of how the bad guy government is going to screw me over in the future. The facts as we have it now is that this budget won't pass. We've had no budget pass for the past six years because of obstruction and they don't mind not having budgets. They just go on with continuing resolutions and probably will keep doing this until we have one party rule both the white house and the congress (unlikely until at least 2016). I wouldn't rely on PSLF in its current form being available for all future med students but as of right now it's untouched and probably safe for any current and incoming student's
Are you saying that class of 2018 will be eligible for PSLF regardless what congress do in future budgets...
 
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Here is the updated worksheet with repayment figured in. This assumes you pay off all of the loan in X years (I put 10 in for you but you can change it). Which means no government 'forgiveness' or anything like that. Feel free to change any amounts in green highlighted cells for different scenarios...changing other cells may mess up the formulas.

If I misunderstood what you were looking for, let me know.

**Edit: I read your original post again and saw that you want to defer all payment during residency. This worksheet is assuming you start payment as soon as you graduate (PGY-1). If you notice the effect of compound interest, I would highly recommend you do not defer payment until after residency. But I can modify the worksheet to calculate that as well if you wish.
$3,600/month! This is a heck of a monthly payment...
 
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What I don't understand is why people would choose a 10 year repayment? Or even longer in some cases.

I feel like I would want to sacrifice as much of my salary as I can to live comfortably to get it all paid off asap. Is this some type of fantasy world I'm talking about?
I know I could live just fine just off 60-70k until I pay it off. I don't understand why people just make minimum payments and fall into the interest rate trap and end up paying way more than they should have if they just take out that extra amount every month.

For some of us who are graduating with an unusually large debt, it would a good number of years to payoff the loans. Besides, I would feel like a total loser if I subject myself and my family to an additional 5-7 years of residency lifestyle, only to find out that the sky didn't fall and all these repayment and forgiveness options are still in place.

That being said, if your debt load is relatively small (<$200K), then you should, by all mean, pay it off ASAP.
 
Pro tip: Don't start a family until attending.

Too late. I have a wife and a kid, so I need to plan accordingly.

You are entitled to your opinion, but, in my opinion, waiting to start a family until you finish your medical training is going to be very hard. If you are young and will finish everything by late twenties, then that's perfectly fine. However, for us, non-trads, your tip would mean that we shouldn't start a family until mid thirties or early forties, depending on the field one chooses to go into.
 
Plenty of people start families around those ages these days. I wouldn't think anything wrong with that unless you have some type of 1950's attitude about life. If I ever have kids I think I would want to be mid thirties anyways and I'm junior UG applying next cycle. Just so I hopefully have most of my loans paid off making sure to pay off as much as I can.

It's all personal preference, if you think you're too old to be having kids in your early forties, more power to you :bow:.

I just think it's best to introduce more entropy once you've settled the system down a little bit, but that's just the chemist in me talking.
 
Are you saying that class of 2018 will be eligible for PSLF regardless what congress do in future budgets...
As of right now the class of 2018 is safe even in the worst case scenario that the budget had passed. I cannot speak for the class of 2020 or beyond but likely they're going to be fine too. PSLF in its current form will not be around forever but it will probably be around for us the way it is now
 
Plenty of people start families around those ages these days. I wouldn't think anything wrong with that unless you have some type of 1950's attitude about life. If I ever have kids I think I would want to be mid thirties anyways and I'm junior UG applying next cycle. Just so I hopefully have most of my loans paid off making sure to pay off as much as I can.

It's all personal preference, if you think you're too old to be having kids in your early forties, more power to you :bow:.

I just think it's best to introduce more entropy once you've settled the system down a little bit, but that's just the chemist in me talking.
Read on advanced maternal age.
 
$3,600/month! This is a heck of a monthly payment...
Indeed it is. Makes sense though if you think about it as essentially a mortgage-sized loan at 1.5x the current mortgage rates and paying it off in 1/3 the time of the typical mortgage.
 
Indeed it is. Makes sense though if you think about it as essentially a mortgage-sized loan at 1.5x the current mortgage rates and paying it off in 1/3 the time of the typical mortgage.
For someone who is going into primary care, $3,600 might be half of their monthly paycheck for a good 10 years...
 
For someone who is going into primary care, $3,600 might be half of their monthly paycheck for a good 10 years...
After taxes, yes. Can't be in this game for the money anymore. There are much easier ways of making much more money than going into medicine.
 
For someone who is going into primary care, $3,600 might be half of their monthly paycheck for a good 10 years...

In 7 years (after med school and residency), $3600 will have the same purchase value as $3100. From that point on, that $3600 payment will have less and less value with each successive year.
 
Besides, nearly everyone, including the pessimists on this site, agree that PCP reimbursements have been going up and will continue to go up over the coming few years.
 
Besides, nearly everyone, including the pessimists on this site, agree that PCP reimbursements have been going up and will continue to go up over the coming few years.
Let's hope that is the case, but I am not too optimistic about increase in physician compensation with the scrutiny that physicians have been getting from the public lately. Everyone thinks physicians are rich, and CMS releasing Medicare reimbursement to physicians will likely make things worst.
 
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In 7 years (after med school and residency), $3600 will have the same purchase value as $3100. From that point on, that $3600 payment will have less and less value with each successive year.
this concept is true if we were talking about a loan that did not have compounding interest that is a higher than the inflation of the dollar. If the interest is higher than the inflation of the dollar it means that over time you will be paying more for your loans compared to the relative value of the dollar. this however is not as true if you are part of a loan forgiveness plan like IBR, PAYE, PSLF, where all of your debt will be forgiven by a set date.
 
Let's hope that is the case, but I am not too optimistic about increase in physician compensation with the scrutiny that physicians have been getting from the public lately. Everyone thinks physicians are rich, and CMS releasing Medicare reimbursement to physicians will likely make things worst.

Physicians' compensation have never been a secret from the public. Everyone knows that doctors are paid well; it's not news.

Talking about future salaries is all speculation at this point, but we can draw some extrapolations from historic trends. On average, physicians' income has kept up with inflation, if not surpassed it. Sure, there are specialties that are making now less than they made two decades ago (CT surgery, GS, Pathology, etc...). However, there are fields that pay now more than they ever did (family med, anesthesia, GI, Ortho, etc..).
 
this concept is true if we were talking about a loan that did not have compounding interest that is a higher than the inflation of the dollar. If the interest is higher than the inflation of the dollar it means that over time you will be paying more for your loans compared to the relative value of the dollar. this however is not as true if you are part of a loan forgiveness plan like IBR, PAYE, PSLF, where all of your debt will be forgiven by a set date.

I realize that. However, my comment was addressing a fixed monthly payment of $3600. Paying $3600 10 years ago was more burdensome than paying this amount today, and twice as difficult as paying it after 10 years.
 
Physicians' compensation have never been a secret from the public. Everyone knows that doctors are paid well; it's not news.

Talking about future salaries is all speculation at this point, but we can draw some extrapolations from historic trends. On average, physicians' income has kept up with inflation, if not surpassed it. Sure, there are specialties that are making now less than they made two decades ago (CT surgery, GS, Pathology, etc...). However, there are fields that pay now more than they ever did (family med, anesthesia, GI, Ortho, etc..).
The trouble isn't that this information reveals how much doctors earn. The problem is that it's being released to the public completely out of context. An opthalmologist that has several PAs and NPs billing under him with an office staff of 40 that bills 5 million bucks isn't seeing that as personal income. But the numbers just say the doctor's name and how much they billed, not their net income, so people see them and are like, "oh wow, those doctors are making hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars in take home pay off of the government! Time to make some cuts!"
 
The republicans will kill that bill.
I don't see how it benefits either student or government to have such high interest rates. The higher the interest, the more debt the government will have to forgive following IBR/PSLF/PAYE. Even if these programs are gutted, borrowers will still not be able to pay off such ballooning debt and once they die, the state will have no one to pass the buck to and the federal deficit will continue to worsen.
 
The trouble isn't that this information reveals how much doctors earn. The problem is that it's being released to the public completely out of context. An opthalmologist that has several PAs and NPs billing under him with an office staff of 40 that bills 5 million bucks isn't seeing that as personal income. But the numbers just say the doctor's name and how much they billed, not their net income, so people see them and are like, "oh wow, those doctors are making hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars in take home pay off of the government! Time to make some cuts!"

Regardless, this won't change a thing. The vast majority of the public won't be aware of these data anyways. Besides, the public has become very immune to "corruption" and "exploitation".
 
What I don't understand is why people would choose a 10 year repayment? Or even longer in some cases.

I feel like I would want to sacrifice as much of my salary as I can to live comfortably to get it all paid off asap. Is this some type of fantasy world I'm talking about?
I know I could live just fine just off 60-70k until I pay it off. I don't understand why people just make minimum payments and fall into the interest rate trap and end up paying way more than they should have if they just take out that extra amount every month.

A 10 year repayment plan is moderately aggressive, given that you also begin to save for retirement and/or buy a house at the same time. Also, you can always pay more per month than your given rate.
 
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