I'm a first year master's student at Cornell, and like so many other students I'm doing student loans. We are about to come into a large parental loan at Perkins rates - 5%, not payable until 6 months after graduation, interest accrues at that point - that will allow us to pay off our credit card and high-interest student loans. Our structure now is:
My Stafford Loan, $5,794, 6.8% (interest accrues starting Nov. 2017)
My Unsubsidized Loan, $8,989, 6.8% (interest accrues starting Nov. 2017)
My Plus Loan, $8,893, 8.5% (interest accruing now)
Wife Plus Loan, $6,779, 8.5%
Wife Stafford Loan, $10,484, 6.5%
My Parental Loan, $8,250, 5%
Car Loan, $9,435, 6.79%
IRS, $9,360, 1.3%
Credit Card, $9,000, 16.24%
We will be paying down our highest interest loans with our new parental loan for $24,750. That will kill the credit card, my big PLUS loan and my wife's PLUS loan. The question is, then, do we save up to pay off upcoming PLUS loans (I'll be getting another 3 before graduating) or do we put our excess cashflow into the next-highest interest loans, especially for the car?