If you have old FFEL loans its in your best interest to consolidate these by April. You’ll get the payment count adjustment as well as be eligible for SAVE – which has the potential to lower your payment. On an income driven plan, your payment will only jump up if you earn more money (in which case, you should also be able to afford a larger payment).

Standard repayment counts toward PSLF. Of course, if you use standard repayment for all 120 payments, there’ll be nothing left to forgive. But, if you use standard repayment for only some of the 120 payments, and paid a reduced payment under an income-driven repayment plan, the standard repayment preserves the forgiveness that was already earned. For example, a doctor might use income-driven repayment during the residency, internship and fellowship, when pay is lower, and then use standard repayment when their salary is higher to preserve the forgiveness that was previously earned.

I have been a federally employed surgeon in the VA system for 6 years going on 7 now and made monthly payments to Navient FFLEP this entire time.

I have paid nearly $250,000 of my government and private educational loans. I have $150,000 remaining in FFLEP (Navient).

If I consolidate to the Direct Loan program to become eligible for the PSLFP, I’m given options for Standard Repayment. Say about $800/month. But somewhere I read that even on DL at standard plan it won’t count towards forgive the remaining loan balance when I reach my 120th payment…. (Roughly 50 some odd monthly payments left to go).

If I select one of the income based repayments further down on the screen, the payment calculation is so high ($2800/ month) that I will actually pay off almost the entire balance of my remaining loans completely before I hit the total 120 payment mark. We are talking that I will have paid in $140k+ for that remaining 50 some-odd payments.

Only way I see this program being of benefit is if I can just make payments on the standard plan at around $800/month. That would then actually lead to some substantial savings. Problem is, website seems to indicate that this consolidation payment option is not eligible.

So it seems that me going in to public service (which I do enjoy) and hoping for the loan forgiveness benefit I was promised/sold on was just a hoax. Granted i make a good income (14 years of my life of school and training to become a surgeon) but its still not fair. Could have taken a private sector job instead, made more money and paid the loans off faster that way as well.

Open to suggestions/advice. Got one day left to make the decision. Hope an answer pops up. Thanks.