Do we think there will be some forgiveness at some point with the new administration? Does it make sense to pay off my 16K balance all at once?
Those are two separate and I see them as unrelated questions so I will answer them as such.
Do we think there will be some forgiveness at some point with the new administration?
I don't think there will be loan forgiveness. Lot of reasons I don't feel like getting in to.
Does it make sense to pay off my 16K balance all at once?
This is very dependent on your interest rates. Student loans can be some of the best rated leveraged money you will have, right along with a mortgage minus the need to get a house and the baggage that goes a long with that.
If you have a good rate for your loan, I would invest the 16k you have sitting around, and use the growth to payoff the loans. Then when the loan is paid off, you still have the 16k. Tada! Or you let the 16k and the growth grow, and use cash flow to pay off the loans. Take as long as you can.
This is what I did for my federal loans. I consolidated and refinanced my loans to as low as I could and stretched out my payoff time as long as they would let me. It's great! I am now FIREd and still have a student loan, but I have all the growth that I have build up over the past sixteen years. This is the same principle as the don't pay off your mortgage club. Leverage.
If your rates are unfavorable, I would recommend getting better rates. If that isn't possible, then paying it off before paying an unreasonable amount of interest would be my next choice.
Loren