Hello there,

My wife and I are in a situation where we have high loan debt and high income (dual pharmacists). We graduated last May. I am currently enrolled in the PSLF/PAYE program with a debt of ~$187,000. My wife is not eligible for PSLF and is currently in standard repayment, (owes ~$212,000, monthly payment ~$2,500) that we would like to aggressively start paying down (planning an extra $2,000/month).

As it stands, our AGI is about $260,000, giving us a combined estimated PAYE payment of about ~$1,800/month, split in two due to both of us having student loans (from what I understand, is this true?). Our plan is to aggressively pay down my wife’s loans while not paying on mine, waiting for the 10 year forgiveness. Say we pay her loans down to about $10,000 (not paying off completely so that the PAYE payment is still split) - will my liability be different from my estimate of about $900/month for 10 years, or will it go up since her student loan burden is lower than mine?

Currently, what we’re doing is paying the $2,500 from her standard plan and $900 from my PAYE. What we plan to do is within 5 years, use any extra income to pay off all but a small loan of hers ($5,000 balance, monthly payment of $40), while continuing to pay my $900/month for the remaining 5 years prior to forgiveness.

In summary, as long as my wife still has a student loan balance, will a PAYE payment still be split between us, or will I become responsible for almost the full amount? She also had loans prior to 2007 from undergraduate, so I don’t think she’s eligible for PAYE - would this matter in calculating our payment?

I’ve tried talking to my servicer, the national financial aid.gov, my school, finaid.org…nowhere has been able to clarify it. Our goal is to try to reduce as much interest as we can on my wife’s loans while maintaining the maximum forgiveness on my loans through PSLF. I sincerely appreciate any help you can give, and can happily provide any more information that you may require. Thanks so much.