One of the main questions is how much you can afford to pay per month (in total) and how much the total minimum payments would be. If you can afford to pay all the minimum payments then you can get all the loans back in good standing and go forward from there. If not, then I would first recommend applying for Income…

Interesting question! So I'm assuming you are planning to pay more than the minimum payments in order to reduce the balance to exactly $17,500 by the end of the 2017 school year, right? In that case, you'll need to find a student loan (or regular loan) calculator to run the numbers. I would first start by calculating…

There are Certified Financial Planners, who can look at your whole financial situation and give you advice. However, for student loan debt, it may be advisable for you to start by doing some research on your own. A few questions that you can start with are these: Are your loans federal or private? If they are federal,…

As a quick follow-up, when comparing the money you hope to save with a lower interest rate to the money you would spend on the PMI, you can use an online mortgage calculator. There are lots of them - if you do a quick search in Google you'll find one that should work for you. Let us know if that doesn't answer the…

Yes! The debt stacking method is usually a great way to focus your efforts. Some experts recommend using the "Debt Snowball" method, in which you focus the extra money on the account with the lowest balance (in order to get some quick momentum), but we recommend the "Debt Avalanche" method in which you focus on the…

Interesting perspective, thanks for sharing. Given that many young people get signed up for student loans without really realizing how hard it will be to pay them back, there is certainly something wrong with the U.S. system.

That's a good point! It's intended to allow borrowers to pay what they are able, rather than a standard amount each month. In some cases, that's $0.

I'm not sure if there is a list anywhere. You may have to do some research online to find out if there are any others aside from those listed in the article.

The debt snowball method (smallest balance first) works well for some people. For others, the debt avalanche (highest interest rate first) is a better approach and saves them money in the long run. It really depends on your personality and your debts.

You are not alone. Many college graduates are in the same boat. Of course, that alone doesn't solve the problem, but it means we should all be focused on finding a way to stop this from happening. For your situation, hopefully something like IBR or public service loan forgiveness could help.

That's a good idea, especially if you are concerned about whether you'll be disciplined enough to protect that amount for student loan payments each month.

Thanks, that is what I was trying to describe. Hopefully it was clear - if not, I'm sorry!

I definitely didn't intend for the article to argue that credit cards = free money. I always advocate for people paying off credit cards as quickly as they can. But the reality is many people do carry credit card balances from month to month, so it's important to understand how the interest charges work (so you can…

I did take this as a given in the article. But I think your point is a valid one. The one challenge is that at the age when you're making decisions about college you generally haven't lived enough to understand all the implications of those decisions.

That's good advice too. Obviously it helps if you enjoy the field you've chosen (since you'll ostensibly be spending a lot of time doing whatever it is). But having an idea of the job prospects for your field of choice is always a good idea.