I am finishing pediatric residency and going into a subspecialty where the end-attending salary is not much different compared to a general pediatrician salary (let's say $70-75k/year during 3 years of fellowship, then $150k/year thereafter as an attending for ballpark estimates). I have about $300k in student loan debt with federal loan interest rates between 6.5-7.5%. I'm currently making payments through IBR and had been planning to do PSLF, but I'm having second thoughts and considering more aggressively paying off my loans and refinancing them, which would take me out of PSLF eligibility. Do you think it would be wiser to 1) refinance as a fellow and start paying more aggressively now or 2) wait until I am a new attending to get a better interest rate quote when refinancing? Or should I just sit tight, see how PSLF works for its first beneficiaries next year, and decide then? I plan to do some moonlighting during fellowship to make some extra cash to throw at the debt, but probably won't earn more than $15-20k doing so.
brokemedstudent1 karma
Hi Andy,
I am finishing pediatric residency and going into a subspecialty where the end-attending salary is not much different compared to a general pediatrician salary (let's say $70-75k/year during 3 years of fellowship, then $150k/year thereafter as an attending for ballpark estimates). I have about $300k in student loan debt with federal loan interest rates between 6.5-7.5%. I'm currently making payments through IBR and had been planning to do PSLF, but I'm having second thoughts and considering more aggressively paying off my loans and refinancing them, which would take me out of PSLF eligibility. Do you think it would be wiser to 1) refinance as a fellow and start paying more aggressively now or 2) wait until I am a new attending to get a better interest rate quote when refinancing? Or should I just sit tight, see how PSLF works for its first beneficiaries next year, and decide then? I plan to do some moonlighting during fellowship to make some extra cash to throw at the debt, but probably won't earn more than $15-20k doing so.
View HistoryShare Link