Tweet
I currently have $305,000 in federal student loan debt at 6.88%, 3 years out of residency. I have been working at a PSLF 401c3 hospital and have put in 66 months qualified payments, meaning I have to put in another 4 years 6 months at that or another qualifying institution in order to have the remaining balance forgiven according to PSLF.
I have been fortunate to have a second full time job elsewhere which provides me a much higher income than the 401c3 job. However, I've had to travel between the 2 jobs since they're located in different areas. Due to some life circumstances (wife with child on the way), I'll probably have to cut down on the travel and give up one of the jobs, which will likely have to be the 401c3 PSLF hospital, and pick up more work closer to my other job. I wouldn't qualify any longer for the PSLF program, so a smart move would to re-finance my student loan to a private lender who would give me ~2% interest rate.
However, Bernie Sanders is proposing this bill to cancel all student loan debt. I'm afraid if I re-finance to a private lender, and the bill actually gets passed, I may not qualify since my loan would no longer be a federal student loan (I know the article says private loans would also be canceled, but I'm skeptical). This bill would probably only pass with a democratic president+congress, otherwise I can't see either a republican president or congress allowing this to happen. Predicting politics would be a dangerous game to play. Even if all that happens, he gets into office Jan 2020, maybe another 6-12 months for the bill to take into effect, earliest hopefully would be Jan 2021 that loans will start to get canceled.
My question is, should I take the gamble and keep with my federal loan provider in the hopes all of the above happens? It would be another 14 months before we'll know if he and the democrats win the Nov 2020 election. That's 14 months of 6.88% instead of 2% interest rate, all into a loan balance of $305k. If the bill doesn't pass, that's a lot of money I'm losing to interest that I could have changed by re-financing. If the bill does pass but I already re-financed, I'd lose out on my loans being canceled if the bill doesn't include private loans.
I have been fortunate to have a second full time job elsewhere which provides me a much higher income than the 401c3 job. However, I've had to travel between the 2 jobs since they're located in different areas. Due to some life circumstances (wife with child on the way), I'll probably have to cut down on the travel and give up one of the jobs, which will likely have to be the 401c3 PSLF hospital, and pick up more work closer to my other job. I wouldn't qualify any longer for the PSLF program, so a smart move would to re-finance my student loan to a private lender who would give me ~2% interest rate.
However, Bernie Sanders is proposing this bill to cancel all student loan debt. I'm afraid if I re-finance to a private lender, and the bill actually gets passed, I may not qualify since my loan would no longer be a federal student loan (I know the article says private loans would also be canceled, but I'm skeptical). This bill would probably only pass with a democratic president+congress, otherwise I can't see either a republican president or congress allowing this to happen. Predicting politics would be a dangerous game to play. Even if all that happens, he gets into office Jan 2020, maybe another 6-12 months for the bill to take into effect, earliest hopefully would be Jan 2021 that loans will start to get canceled.
My question is, should I take the gamble and keep with my federal loan provider in the hopes all of the above happens? It would be another 14 months before we'll know if he and the democrats win the Nov 2020 election. That's 14 months of 6.88% instead of 2% interest rate, all into a loan balance of $305k. If the bill doesn't pass, that's a lot of money I'm losing to interest that I could have changed by re-financing. If the bill does pass but I already re-financed, I'd lose out on my loans being canceled if the bill doesn't include private loans.
Comment