All of my student loans are currently in deferment. In order to plan for repayment, which of the following student loan payment plans represents the worst case scenario in order to calculate my student loan payment factor for salary requirement?

1. Standard Repayment Plan
2. Extended Plan Fixed Monthly Payment Option
3. Extended Plan Graduated Monthly Payment Option
4. Graduated Repayment Plan
5. ICR Repayment Plan

I would go to the student loan website and use their calculators that will give you the breakdown of monthly payment for each payment plan, the amount of interest you will pay over the life of the loan, how much you can afford on your current salary or expected salary. That you're best bet.

None are really worst cse scenario. It all depends on how much you owe and how much you earn. Obviously the less you pay now, the more you will pay later.

LynnInMN,

Thank you for your reply. I will let later take care of later. Since I'm currently job seeking, I'd like to make sure that from a salary and budgetting standpoint that mathematically my student loans SHOULD be payable as I promised. The reason why I'm asking for the worst case scenario is because if I choose a payment plan that's less than the worst case scenario, then I'd possibly have a financial buffer that I can use to make additional payments against the interest. Also, I'd like to be able to round up my student loan payment budget factor, say to the nearest $100 or so, from the worst case scenario to increase the financial buffer. Then I add up all of my budget factors, including the student loan payment factor with buffers, to come up with a "salary requirement" figure so I have a basis to make sure that I ask for or offered enough money.

Best case (lowest payment) is ICR and highest payment is Standard. So is that what you are wondering?