I have $24,300 in federal student loans remaining from grad school (2004 to 2011). My original balance was $57,000. About half of the loans are fixed at 6.8%. I get the .25% discount for auto-pay, so it drops to 6.55%.
The other half of my loans have a variable interest rate. Pre-pandemic, I think the rate was around 4%. Now it's 7.5%. As a result, I think I will get more serious about paying off the student loans. When it was 4%, extra money went into buying real estate and funding our Roth IRA.
My scheduled payment is $171/month. If I pay extra, the system allows me to select the higher interest rate loans.
