Reply #14: Well, some of it is interest free, and most of the rest is deferred [View All]

[sir_captain]

so my loans are a combination of subsidized stafford loans, unsubsidized stafford loans, and PLUS loans, all from the feds. The subsidized (about $40,000) have zero interest, and the unsubsidized and PLUS loans have fixed interest rates. The stafford loans won't start accruing any interest until after I finish my residency, and the PLUS loans will accrue interest, but I won't have to maky any payments until post-residency. This is a good thing as the average resident's salary is about $37,000/year. The average repayment time is 10 years, so I guess that's somewhere in the neighborhood of $40,000-$50,000 a year, which I imagine will be most of my salary post-tax. But it'll get done by the time I'm in my late 40s I guess!

This is why I get pissed off by all the DU threads about how docs are just in it for the money. They really have no clue. Unless one happens to have a big pot of gold lying around ahead of time, medicine is a pretty piss-poor way to get rich.