I’ve been working fulltime for the past 2 years at a 501c3. I think my salary may be just barely too high for PSLF based on what I read on the federal website, however information on that site often confuses me. Is there a limit? Would it be worth taking a cut in pay? I have my bachelors and masters to pay off so it’s a substantial amount of debt but I plan on spending my entire career in public service.

Thank you,
Sheila

Sheila,

I like the IBR and PSLF calculator that Mark Kantrowitz provides through finaid.org.  You can plug in various income figures and see where you end up.  Be sure to click the “show full repayment schedule” button to see how your payments are affected by your estimated salary trajectory.  The only way you can decide what is best for you is to gather all the information about your loan balances, interest rates, and income and crunch your numbers.  If you graduated some time ago, you may have less to gain.  This is for two reasons, because you may have more private loans and less eligible debt (since an important federal loan program, GradPlus, only became available in 2006), and because you make more than you did when you were starting out.

Best,
Heather