<prompt> Human: To keep it quick, I really have not much to bitch about - my hubs recently got a PhD in his health science field and Im a dual-mastered PhD candidate myself in the computing field. But, as you may well guess, we have a shit-ton of personal debt from student loans. Otherwise, we do pretty well - very limited credit cards, bills paid on time and up-to-date, but our student loans combined are over 12 a mil. No effing joke. Hey, we got the debt, well pay it off - no worries there.My question is that right now, were paying almost 2200 in rent per month because the student debt is prohibitive to us securing a mortgage. We recently tried Sept. 2015 time frame, and were approved until they started running the student loan numbers. Fair enough, but were currently paying about 500mo. more than what we would have been paying for a brand new house. Does anyone have any helpful hints about navigating around massive student debt so we can pay our loans off quicker, but not have to kill ourselves financially with the cost of living expenses while doing so? TIA.  <response>: No one can give you any advice without any information about household income. Interest rates on loans and the split between federal private are helpful, too. 