Pay off the student debt ASAP, you're living with your parents not to invest money, you're living with your parents to get in a better place financially. The whole argument that keeping debt and investing is a good argument, but with as much debt as you have and your goals of owning a house, paying the minimum on your loans is not realistic. Your hair is on fire and you need to get out of debt, the only investing you should be doing is maxing retirement, everything else should be going towards that debt! This way when you want to buy a house, you will actually qualify for the loan. No one has mentioned that, but you have zero chance of qualifying for a mortgage with that much debt and your level of income. Unless you find a partner that can make your debt to income ratio look better.
I posted a short comment earlier, but I just want to confirm that I emphatically disagree with this sentiment, most especially the bold (which I'll get to later).
OP: you have an unbelievably high debt. The government has designed several repayment programs (IBR, PAYE, PSLF, REPAYE) that you absolutely 100% have to look into before trying to be a slave to your loans.
I could go on and on about those programs, but the long story short of REPAYE is this: you pay 10% of your discretionary income towards your loans, with discretionary income being defined as Adjusted Gross Income minus 150% of the poverty line. And after you make that payment, the government subsidizes 50% of unpaid interest. So say your loan accrues $20,000 in interest per year, if you pay $5,000 towards your loan, the government subsides 50% of the remaining unpaid interest ($7,500 of free money) and your loan balance only goes up by $7,500 that year. Meanwhile you've contributed the max to your retirement accounts and you're getting started on that front.
If you want to know how this plays out over the long term, I wrote this post on a different forum for someone making a hypothetical starting salary of $160,000 with $294,000 in student loans:
AGI (Max 401k): $142,000 (not eligible for most other deductions)
Estimated REPAYE Payment: $1037.50 ($12,450 for the year)
Yearly Interest on $294k Loan at 6.94%: $20,126
Subtract payments made towards loan ($12,450): $7,676 interest accrued
Government subsidizes 50% of unpaid interest (REPAYE): $3,838
So the loan only goes up $3,838 that year. The payments will increase in future years meaning that the amount growing on the loan is less and less.
As to whether to do standard ten year repayment or PAYE/invest:
If he pays it off in ten years he will pay $411,000 towards the loan.
If he does REPAYE and averages paying $15,000/year towards the loan he will pay $375,000 plus income tax on the forgiven amount. And if he averages that yearly amount his loan will have gone up about $62,500 ($2,500 per year times 25). Add that to the current principal and that's $356,500 for the tax. Call it 38% tax bracket so $135,000 tax.
$135,000 + $375,000 = $510,000, so $100k more but with 15 extra years.
Those payments obviously are purely hypothetical, but the more he pays, the lower the tax bomb and vice versa. So I think the total paid towards those loans is somewhere in the $500-550 ballpark if he rides the REPAYE train all the way through.
Of course, you might start making enough income that the plan isn't worth it anymore, but in that case, what a great problem to have! Pay down your loans like crazy once you make that income--but for God's sake, use REPAYE as a hedge before you make that income.
Further, REPAYE is exactly why the AWGolfer's post above doesn't make any sense. Yes, if you refinanced, your debt to income ratio would be absurd. But if you do REPAYE, your student loan monthly payment will be low (even if you pay more, the reported payment to credit agencies will be low) and your debt/income ratio will be just fine.
Take it from me: I make $47,500 per year and have $148,000 in student loan debt. I easily qualified for a $121,000 mortgage this past October, mostly because PAYE (the precursor of REPAYE) kept my student loan payments in check.
And more on me: I was kind of in your boat this time last year. People on here said the same thing they're saying in this thread: "PAY DOWN YOUR LOANS DUMBASS." I did that, but the more I read the more I realized general personal finance advice didn't apply to student loans. I'd be a lot further ahead if I hadn't wasted six months throwing away money at my loans, but I'm glad it only took me that short of time to realize that I was better off in an income driven repayment plan.
Bottom line is this: 98% of posters on here don't know the ins and outs of student loan debt. It's a completely different type of debt that can be managed if you know how the repayment plans work. The generic advice of "OMG HAIR ON FIRE DEBT DEBT DEBT" is almost completely inapplicable. And because of that, you are doing yourself a complete disservice if you don't educate yourself about income driven repayment plans.