Thanks so much for leaving a comment. I have already subscribed to your blog and I will start to comment more often.

With respect to having $150,000 in student loan debt, I do think that is a huge amount. But, like you said, I do expect to have it paid off in the next 5 years.

Having said that, I would not recommend someone going into that much debt to obtain an education. There are cheaper ways to get a great law school education.

To answer you question about whether to pay off $30K in student loan debt even though it is at an extremely low interest rate. I have to say that I would, especially if I had $400,000 in the bank. The peace of mind of paying off that debt is worth the loss in interest. Additionaly, if you already have $400,000 in the bank, chances are you will be able to save that $30K again pretty quickly.

I have $30K in student debt at 2.6%. Would you pay it off if you had over $400,000 in the bank hypothetically speaking?

Hope to see you at FS one day.

Your story seems to mirror my own. I can’t say that my standard of living improved very much after first graduating from law school. However, I should have lived more modestly during and after law school.

My recommendation for anyone coming out of grad school is to pay your debts right away. Don’t consolidate your loans whereby you push off the payment term to 30 years. Try like heck to keep the payoff term the same (10 years).

While 10 years seems like a long time to live modestly, at least those loans are guaranteed to be paid off in that time. But, I still think you should try to aggressively pay them off in a much shorter period of time.

I made these mistakes so I am talking from experience.

His starting salary was $90K, but our standard of living hasn’t really changed since we were in school because our student loan payments are so much of our salary. It’s pretty terrible stuff.

I think that where someone goes to college is a really important decision that only that person can make. While I incurred a lot of debt in college, I would not trade my experience for the world. But, as far as a good financial decision, I am pretty sure that I could have made better decisions.

I just did a post on whether or not you should refinance your school debt (bit.ly/9yaIz). Variable rates on the Stafford & PLUS loans are at historic lows, so for many people it makes sense to at least check it out. Converting to a lower fixed rate and having one monthly payment may end up saving you thousands in interest.