Heather,

Thank you for taking your time to help. I have a little bit north of $500,000 of graduate school debt between predoc and residency and am researching how best to manage my situation. All loans are either Stafford at 6.8% or Plus loans at 7.9%. I have been in practice about 1 year and currently pay a little more than 4k/month on a 30 year fixed repayment plan to the federal government.

First, do you have any general notes about how you would recommend proceeding? I can barely make the minimum payment so pay extra each month toward specific loans is not really an option. I have considered consolidating with Nelnet (my lender) but because all the loans are one of two interest rates, that doesn’t help me much. IBR seems like I would have more cash flow in the short terms but, long term, is a bad decision.

Which brings me to my second question, would you recommend refinancing my federal student loans with a private lender? I found one outfit that will reduce the 6.8% Stafford loan to 5.4% and the 7.9% Plus loan for 6.4%. This seems too good to be true. I would forfeit my ability to defer etc.. but would save lots and lots of money. Thoughts?

Thank you again