EM EDUCATION
Tackling Your Student Loans By Prayag Mehta, MD, and Alexandra Nordberg, MD, on behalf of the SAEM Education Committee
SAEM PULSE | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2022
Disclaimer: Drs. Mehta and Nordberg are not financial advisors, nor do they claim to be experts. They have written this article from their own viewpoints, based on their personal experiences. Please do your own research, verifications, and take your own circumstances into account.
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Dr. Mehta: Pay ‘Em Off Pursuing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program is something I’ve considered since medical school. The idea of having your loans forgiven seems too good to be true, but is it? The average physician education debt is around $200,000, and for me it was slightly higher. As a resident, my income-based repayments were manageable. The few hundred dollars I paid each month did not touch the interest I was accruing each year, but it didn’t matter because I was 36 payments closer to qualifying for loan forgiveness.
As emergency physicians, we are blessed with the opportunity to earn an average salary of $354,000. When it comes to PSLF, this is a detriment as payment plans are typically incomedriven. As your discretionary income increases, PSLF becomes less beneficial. You must remember that PSLF isn’t specific for physicians. There are people in other careers with similar loan burdens, but they earn significantly less; this program is ideal for them. As an attending, my payments went up to $3000 per month. Paying that amount for the next seven years would leave a loan balance around $15,000, which would be forgiven. So, the question became, was it worth it?
my student debt was affecting my work satisfaction as well as my personal life, so for that reason alone, I needed it to be gone.
Everyone’s circumstances and priorities are different. You should start by considering how carrying student debt will affect your life. High student debt is one of the top factors contributing to physician burnout. I felt
• Is your job secure?
If you don’t mind the mental aspect of carrying debt and want to address repayment from a purely financial approach, you should ask yourself a few questions to see if PSLF makes financial sense for you: • Are you beginning the PSLF program as a resident, fellow, or attending? • What is your debt-to-income ratio? • Are you married, and if so, does your spouse contribute income? • Do you have dependents? • Do you foresee any large purchases soon? • What will you do with your income if not putting it towards loans?
