<prompt> Human: Hi PF!So my girlfriend 25 and I 30 have been trying to make plans lately for our future, and yesterday we made the step of being completely transparent with one another on our individual financial outlook. One thing that has always stressed her is her student loans, so yesterday I took a look at those, and have some questions, because each of ours are different in both size, rate and age of the loan.She has a considerably larger student loan than me I was lucky with parental help, she was not, and because part of it is a private loan, her rates are higher than mine also. Her main strife has always been, Im putting so much towards these loans per month, and Im not even making any headway on the Principle. I took a look last night, and its true - her Principle has actually gone UP since she starting paying these 2.5 years ago! Is this normal in the early stages of a College Loan? If she continues making the same payments per month, will the Principle ever go down, or is this the normal life of a Student Loan payoff, and eventually once the gross interest is chunked off, more money will go towards the Principle? I am confused, because my loans were smaller, and when I first started paying mine, I just threw the basic payment at it and hadnt really looked at the Principle balance until a couple years ago when I grew closer to my final payoff.Anyway, here are the details of her Loans:1 Government Consolodation Loan: Original Loan Amount - 37,737.56 Current Subsidized Principle Balance: 12,700.02 5.625Current Unsubsidized Principle Balance: 26,205.02 5.625Current Accrued Interest: 53.96Lifetime Amount Paid: 3,755.80 141.04 Principle, 3,614.76 Interest 2 Private Loan - Original Loan Amount 24,800 Current Balance Unsubsidized Balance 1: 16,542.16 8.5Current Balance Unsubsidized Balance 2: 8,548.21 8.75Current Accrued Interest: 58.33Lifetime Paid: 9,240.00 3,143.21 Principle, 6,096.79 Interest She graduated in the Summer of 14 and has been automatically deducting from her bank on a monthly basis since then - 200 for Loan 1, and 280 for Loan 2. This is slightly higher than the minimum monthly payment of 93.40, and 146.38, respectively. My questions are:1 Does the life and balances of the amounts look Normal at this time? It seems counter-intuitive to me that she could be paying this amount, and not making a dent at all in the principle.2 Any advice on shopping different lenders for different rates on the Private loan?3 Any other advice on paying these down faster? She takes home about 2.8K per month after taxes, medical, and 401k, has about 1.6K per mo. in fixed expenses, probably 300 per mo. in flex spending, and we want to combine forces to save up for a house too. Should she be throwing more money per month at this loan?A final apology if the formatting of this looks terrible. Thanks All!Assistant: So by your numbers, she has about 900 leftover every month. I would say she should be throwing every dollar of it towards her private loans. As every additional dollar she contributes towards it basically returns a risk free 8.5 a great ROI. She really shouldnt be saving any money for a house until she gets the loans under control. As many on this subreddit will argue, home ownership isnt always as great of a deal as its made out to be, and not nearly as financially effective as reducing the balance of 8.5 interest loans. Human: Understood, and thank you. If she continues at her current monthly payments, will her balance ever go down? It doesnt make sense to me that she could have been paying 13k over 2 years and the balance just never goes down. Will it ever go down at this rate?Assistant: Just doing some back of the napkin math she is only paying off about 18 a month on loan 1, which means she most likely chose a graduated repayment plan, and isnt paying the amount she should if the payments were to be divided equally over 10 years. At the current rate she is paying off loan 1 the balance will eventually go down to zero, but it would take roughly 100 years. Here is the interest each loan accrues each month.Federal - 177Private 1 - 117Private 2 - 62So each month 88.5 of her payment to her federal loans goes to interest 177200 for the fed loanand 63.9 of her payments to the private loan goes to interest 179280. Human: Yes, after looking into Loan 1, it appears she is on a Graduated repayment plan. After some reading, Ive been told that this type accrues more interest. Shes at a point now financially where she could definitley handle a normal Level plan, because she can afford a higher monthly payment, and shed prefer not to be killed in interest. My question is and you may or may not know but... - is it easy to choose this back to Level, or did she screw herself when she signed up for the loan? And.. if she cannot easily switch this back, would there be any conceivable difference in Type of plan Interest in paying the Average Monthly payment of the entire Graduated plan, which comes out to be around 260mo.?Assistant: You recertify your payment plan every year. If she want to go to a normal repayment, she can probably call and have them end it immediately.But she shouldnt. She should stay on the repayment plan and pay the minimum, throwing as much as she can at the two private ones until she has paid them off. THEN she can focus on the two federal ones and decide how she wants to proceed.Human: yeah, but Im looking at the repayment schedule of each, and at this rate, shes got 41,501 left to repay the High interest Private loan, and 84,285 left to pay of the Graduated Federal Loan. By my math, at the current payoff schedule, thats about 17k left in interest of the Private loan 70 of principle paid off in 2030, but its a whopping 45k left in interest 120 of the principle paid off in 2044. I may be wrong, but it appears shes getting screwed more by the Graduated plan.  <response>: Youre comparing apples and oranges - in your example, yes, she pays more interest on the federal loans because she is paying them for twice as long. To get the best financial outcome, you prioritize the highest interest debt. Using her extra funds, she can pay down the private loans ASAP as she gets more bang for her buck than the federal. Once she pays off the private, she can then attack the federal and pay them even faster. This is the optimal strategy in dollars and cents. 