hey all:

here’s my situation.

i am a physician currently doing my residency training. my gross salary is about 35 k and i have 2 more yrs of residency. i’ve been on IBR for the past yr and my payments are very very low now. I’m getting married this yr and my dilemma is whether we should file jointly or separate since i know this will influence my IBR payments. (husband makes 79k> his gross income is 62000). when i put the numbers on the calculator it made my monthly payment about 985 a month, which we are able to pay but we were questioning whether is worth paying? or we better off filing separate at least until i finish residency?
Gets even more confusing the fact that i’m thinking of possibly finding a job in public service 2 yrs from now as soon as i finish my residency training. thinking of doing the nhsc program in which they give you about 30k a yr for up to 7 yrs to pay back student loans. i may or may not go this route though

my debt currently is about 160k including interest

Also my other question is: the day that my income goes higher or the day that my student loan balance drops let’s say to 70k will i be no longer elegible for the IBR benefits such as no interst capitalization, etc?

thanks everyone! i just find all this very confusing despite reading a lot about it and using http://www.finaid.org/calculators/scripts/ibr.cgi    calculator online :)