Title says it all. I’m angry and defeated. First of all, my federal student loan principal only went down roughly $1,000 because more interest was added after it was stalled due to a court case. My private loans, I’ve been paying a LOT. I refinanced this year with SoFi in March but I had Sallie Mae KILLING me before with a 12.5%. Now I have 7.6% with SoFi, but between Sallie Mae, SoFi, and federal loans, I paid that in interest and I still have big loan balances. This is criminal.
Got my tax documents and paid $10,632.37 in INTEREST in 2025
byu/Upset_Syllabub_6098 inStudentLoans
Posted by Upset_Syllabub_6098
2 Comments
Do you not understand how loans and amortization works?
I understand that it’s frustrating, but all of this is just simple math.
Understanding how loans work will help you make more progress and be less defeated.
Loans are set up so the minimum payment is the same throughout the loan term, with mostly interest being paid at the beginning and mostly principal being paid at the end of the loan (since the payment stays the same and the principal is the lowest at the end).
Your loan amount should be a little less than the following:
$10,632,37/.126=$84,383.88-1000=$83,383.88
I obviously don’t know when you refinanced so I assumed the whole year you were at the higher rate.
But basically, you should have around $80k-83k in debt.
For you to make any significant progress, your monthly payments will need to be significantly more than (83000*.076)/12=$525.66. This is the amount that you’ll make zero progress since that’s the monthly interest.
So if your monthly minimum is $625, you’ll only pay about $1200 in principal over the year ($100 over the minimum each month), but if you pay $825 each month, you’ll pay off about $3600 in principal.
This is all napkin math as the more principal you pay, the less interest you accrue, but I hope this helps you understand more
Knowledge is power