I second this. Once you graduate, you're going to to be making $40,000 a year anyways as a resident for 5 years and after that, average $200.000 salary. $300,000 in debt is pretty reasonable for something as prestigious as medicine that you will do for the rest of your life.
That's like an average joe making about $40,000 funding a new car.
You people are so far removed from reality, it's hilarious.
$200k is about $130k take home depending on where you live, or about $11k a month. Grad PLUS loans are fixed at 7.9%. Let's say you do a 3 year residency and you don't make payments on your loans because money is going to be tight during residency. Assuming the loans compound annual -- which they don't, they compound several times daily, if I remember correctly -- that $300k turns into $376k at the end of your residency. To pay off interest alone on $300k at 7.9%, you need to pay nearly $2000 a month. As a senior resident you might pull down $55k a year or somewhere around $3500 a month after taxes. Your balance is going to grow to a maximum of $376k, probably more because interest is compounded more than annually, unless you live on literally $1500 a month.
Let's split $300k and $376k down the middle and assume your post-residency balance is $340k.
10 years: $4100/mo, $492k cumulative payments.
20 years: $2800/mo, $677k cumulative payments.
30 years: $2400/mo, $888k cumulative payments.
IBR: Depends on marital status, family size, state of residence, etc, but around $2400/mo for 25 years or until they are paid off,
assuming IBR still exists in 25 years. The calculations are a little complex but I believe you will be making these payments for 25 years due to compounding interest. Cumulative payments will amount to $720k. If you work for a qualifying organization for 10 years and meet other criteria, you
may be eligible for loan forgiveness.
Now figure in a longer residency program, or a higher loan balance, or an interest rate hike, or maybe even the discontinuation of income based repayment. It's not trivial or reasonable, and stupid intangibles like prestige have no bearing on financial obligations.
