Can anyone point me in the direction of a good calculator that works with student loans that will help me calculate accruing interest that doesn't capitalize until repayment begins/forbearance ends? I feel like this should be easier to find than what I'm finding out there.
Specifically, what I'm trying to do is estimate how much interest will accrue on the current principal I have along with the future loans I'll be taking for tuition for years 3 and 4 of medical school. I'm trying to create a spreadsheet to calculate the different repayment scenarios based on the different specialties I could potentially go into, their residency lengths, their starting salaries, and certain loan repayment programs I could take advantage of in different specialties.
Here's an example:
Assuming a loan principal of $200,000 (shoot me now) at 6.5% interest (shoot me again)...
If I go into family medicine, I can potentially qualify for $120,000 in non-taxable student loan repayment over 3 years during residency ($40k/year), in addition to an average residency salary of $50,000 for 3 years, and a starting salary in year 4 of $150,000.
If I go into general surgery, I would qualify for no loan repayment programs during residency, have 5 years of residency earning around $50,000 per year, and a starting salary in year 6 of $250,000.
In scenario 1, I could potentially pay off accrued interest (if all or only some I'm not sure yet because I haven't figured out a good way to calculate it accurately) up front with a lump sum loan repayment of $40k, and then continue paying off accruing interest throughout the year from my salary while waiting on the additional loan repayment disbursements in years 2 and 3 to knock down principal. In this scenario, I would have potentially no interest ever capitalize and take a hefty whack at principal along the way.
In scenario 2, I would be able to pay towards accruing interest along the way but would be highly unlikely to have paid it all off upfront as in scenario 1, meaning it would possibly continue to accrue at a faster rate than I'm able to keep up with. Additionally, I'd have an extra 2 years of residency to complete before beginning work at a higher salary. So I'd finish residency with all $200k of the principal intact along with potentially significant interest remaining that would capitalize to the principal at that point. Then in year 6 I'd be at a point to start making a legitimate effort to pay down the loans.
I'm sorry that's so convoluted but I tried to make it as straight-forward as possible. Really more than anything what I'm trying to figure out right now is the different break points of different specialties, strictly from a financial perspective.
Most people would think the best thing to do is just to go into the highest paying specialty you can get into, but in most cases that requires additional years of residency and fellowship (e.g. 6 or 7 years post graduate training) and there are limited, if any, loan repayment programs for those specialties. Whereas primary care has many options for loan repayment assistance, a shorter residency, though a lower median salary as a practicing physician.