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achikes2421 karma

My wife and I both graduated law school in 2011. I have 135k in student loan debt (all fed loans) and my wife has 200k (also all fed loans - includes undergrad and law school).

Our combined salaries are about 60% of our student loan debt total. Given our huge debt-to-income ratio, I am currently enrolled in PAYE, and my wife is in IBR (unfortunately, she took out loans before 2008 and does not qualify for PAYE, and to enroll in REPAYE, she would need to consolidate and, therefore, restart the 25 year clock). I have 15 years of payments left, my wife has 20.

We would like to get out from under our loans earlier, but I have talked with several advisors who said in order to make a dent in our loans, we would have to pay $4,000 a month on our current plans to make any sort of dent (we pay $1,100 combined on the repayment plans). Average interest rate on our loans is 6.8%.

Do you have any advice as to alternative programs or refinancing options that we may not have considered? Also, if we are currently on the best possible plan, do you have confidence that remaining loan forgiveness will still be available to us at the end of the 15 and 20 year periods?

Thanks!