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    SAVE Plan Limbo: $300K Loans, New Attending Doc Making $300K – What’s My Move?

    Hi all,

    I’m a new primary care physician. I currently have ~$300k in Fed Loans at an average rate of 5.8% (4.8-7.6% range). Single filer, no dependents, living with parents for now, would like to get married and buy a house in the next few years. (see my post in bogleheads for further details if interested).

    I am currently on the SAVE plan. My payment is $0 and my loans have accrued ~$6k in interest since August.

    My Plan/Questions: I want to leave SAVE to either stop the interest accrual or just pay these off.

    1. What would be the process right now and which plan would I do IBR, PAYE, ICR?
    2. Goal: Keep PSLF eligibility alive for one more year and get a low required payment, allowing me to bulk pay extra if I want to, without being forced to while also keeping future personal life options open such as paying for wedding, house, starting a family etc.

    update: *I have 2 years of qualifying payments toward PSLF before SAVE started. *

    Thanks for your help!

    SAVE Plan Limbo: $300K Loans, New Attending Doc Making $300K – What's My Move?
    byu/Hour-Half-3321 inStudentLoans



    Posted by Hour-Half-3321

    View 8 Comments

    8 Comments

    1. freckled_morgan on

      The most important question on this is whether your residency qualifies for PSLF. If yes–then you only have ~6 years left. If not, 10 years with that income and aggressive payment becomes possibly more strategic.

      Yes, you can use your 2024 income now to recertify into the most advantageous plan.

    2. fakeshoesornah on

      Your job qualifies for PSLF for 10 years? and you took your loans out post 2014?

      I would go on IBR if I were you. for those that took loans out after 2014, it’s the same as PAYE, which is the best deal imo. Doing IBR saves you the burden of having to switch into IBR in 2028 when PAYE is gone.

      delay filing 2025 taxes until october 2026, so you have until September 2026 to use your 2024 taxes to apply into IBR- just in case they don’t kick us off of SAVE until after the normal tax filing date in April 2026.

      1 year of payments at 60k AGI + 9 years of payments of an AGI of around 250k should be significantly less expensive than simply doing the 10 year standard plan.

    3. winter_noise11 on

      If you have minimal living expenses due to living with parents, now is the time to just aggressively pay these off. You could do it in less than 2 years and just be done with it already.

    6. HenFruitEater on

      What will your income be? I think that depending on if you can limp along PSLF for the full 10 qualifying years, maybe it would make sense to do that.

      I also had about 200k student loans at 5.7%, as an owner dentist there’s no hope for a PSLF, and income was too high to have any benefit from RAP or IBR. I did a refi and I’ll save about 2k a year in interest. (I also extended my loan from 10 yr to 12yr. )

      I think refi is not ideal in your situation unless there’s no hope for repayment.

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