One year ago, I left college with just about $15,000 in debt. I went to one of the best schools in the world, so I was extremely happy I got away with what to me seems like a minimal amount of hurt. I now have a job that pays well, and recently began making loan payments. Since then, I've heard SO many contradictory opinions on the best repayment method from my friends and family, and I don't want to make a move until I know what's correct.
If I make the minimum payment on my loans each month, it's $150 a month. $100 of that goes to the loans, $50 of it goes to interest for the 4 separate loans (interest rates of about 3-4%). I think it's silly to spend 50% of my balance each month on interest, so I put together a super intense budget to get the loans all paid off in their entirety in the next 6 months by putting every spare dollar into payments. It will be tight, but I could do it and be entirely debt free.
When I told some friends and family about this, they insisted that I should continue to pay only the minimum as student loans "get forgiven" after 7 or so years. A little research tells me this doesn't seem to be true, but I wanted to check here.
tldr: Should I continue to pay the absolute minimum amount on my student loans in the hopes that the balance will be forgiven in several years, or should I go ahead with my plan of paying off all my loans myself in the near-ish future by scrimping?
Submitted September 24, 2017 at 03:22PM by learningtheflowers http://ift.tt/2yzLjua
