Refinance at the very least. You are paying an exorbitant rate. If you can knock that down, paying a low amount will be win-win.
If OP's loans are federal loans, for the love of God don't do this. The benefits that come with federal student loans (forbearance, being able to enroll in income-based repayment plans, they go away upon your death, etc.) far outweighs the benefits of refinancing your loans.
I just applied at Earnest...
3.87% variable
5.07% fixed
So she had $90K, I just paid them down $40K last week so $50K. About $5K is at really low rates so wouldn't refinance those. So say she has $45K right now at 6.55%.
On Aug 1st I will have $20K more cash I was going to put on them to get them down to $25k and then with work bonuses hopefully knock them out by the end of the year then move on in life socking away 3-5K a month into investments.
Does any of that info change the thought?
Wouldn't there be a cost to refinance?
Your original question intrigued posters like Fields123 and me, who read about student loans way more than we should. And what your father said wasn't exactly true, but it was close: the student loan legislation only blows in one direction, and that direction is always towards better terms for the borrower.
Student loan "forgiveness" started with PSLF: work for 10 years in public job, payments would be based on your income (not your debt), and your loans would be forgiven. Then came Income Based Repayment, which expanded income-based repayment to borrowers who worked in the private sector. IBR is calculated on 15% of AGI and is forgiven after 25 years, but only those who had loans after 2007 (I think) were eligible. Then came "Pay As You Earn." This lowered the AGI calculation to 10%, but still couldn't be used by people who took out loans prior to 2007ish.
And then came the greatest student loan program to date, Revised Pay As You Earn. This is based on 10% of AGI, half of unpaid interest gets subsidized, those with undergrad debt are forgiven after 20 years, professional debt is 25. Do the math and if you're near 100k in loans, REPAYE is the greatest hedge of all time.
It should be noted that for IBR, PAYE, and REPAYE, you have to pay income tax on the amount forgiven.
But whether that will actually be imposed is another story. The first IBR people will be done paying the terms of their loan in about 17-18 years. Think about how far we've come on student loans in the last decade, and I have a hard time believing that Congress isn't going to make things even more favorable by the time these loans conclude. My guess as to what Congress enacts:
(1) Eliminate income tax on the forgiven debt.
(2) Better interest rates (somewhere between 2.5% and 4%).
(3) Better tax deductions on student loan interest (currently capped at $2,500; I expect this to go up).
(4) Better subsidization of interest.
Of course, all of this would tip the scale even more in favor of stringing out your loans as long as possible, which is exactly what I'm doing.
To OP, though, you've already put $50k cash towards $90k of loans. Let this be a lesson that once you throw money towards debt, there's no bringing it back, ever (which is part of the reason why so many people on here are against aggressive mortgage repayment). At this point, the math to string out the loans does not make sense, so just pay them off as fast as you can.