I voted pay it off because I wouldn't be that surprised if the forgiveness program was ended and because it would free your wife to work somewhere else (or not work) if she wants. If she's confident that she wants to stay in her current job for at least 5 years, it might be worth the gamble to let it ride and go for forgiveness.

The bottom line as far as I'm concerned is that a few thousand dollars over several years isn't worth it if your wife will feel trapped by it.

Current specific job? Maybe, maybe not. Current district (were almost all of the schools qualify)? Highly likely. In a surrounding district where they have schools that qualify? Almost a given.

Five years later, loan forgiveness of $17,500 came through without a hitch. Glad we didn't pay it off earlier.

Nice!

I'm pretty sure the wheels would fall off if you tried that in Kansas. Glad she got it done.

Sweet!

We're in a little bit of the same conundrum ourselves right now. My wife is a prosecuting attorney. She paid off her private loans about 6 years ago, but still has about $60k in federal loans left over. She's 5 years into a 10 year public service student loan forgiveness program. Currently doing income base repayment and if nothing changed, she'd probably have about 40 of the 60k forgiven in another 5 years.

Problem is, we're married now, and starting in two months my income is going to count towards her income based repayment as well if we file out taxes jointly. So her monthly payment staying in the same program are gonna go from about $450 to $1100. She's not very happy.

It's a basic math equation, but some of the rules of each program are so ****ing confusing. Still trying to figure out our best option. Might end up doing married filing separately so her repayment stays based off her income only. But then we'll be giving up quite a few other tax breaks.

Bottom line...student loans are a bitch. Glad your plan worked out for you!

Eh, it's a federal program.

Yeah, as you can tell from this thread, it was definitely a tough decision. Couple all of the long-term planning with a healthy dose of uncertainty, and something that seems fairly straightforward on the surface becomes essentially an investment decision. Glad it worked out, but even 24 hours ago I would have told you I was only 90% sure it would come through.

Nice. You can use that money to buy a first-class ticket to a Chiefs game on the 50-yard line, and maybe even cover parking.

And for the record now that I've read back through the thread:

1. We held the balance at $17,500 the entire time, so we got the entire chunk paid off.
2. No, teacher loan forgiveness isn't taxable.

Kansas would find away to **** it up.