You finally accept your first job at a great private practice. They offer you $600 a day (about $150,000 a year), and you are ecstatic. You remember them saying something about being an independent contractor, but you didn’t really understand what that meant, so you took the job anyway. Now you are left to figure out what that means.
A lack of understanding regarding these two facets of student loans can have a significant impact on your wealth. Let’s start with interest capitalization. When you borrow money, you have to pay for the use of that money. It’s called interest. Interest is usually charged as a percentage of your outstanding principal.
Second is taxable forgiveness. When you get to year 20 (under the PAYE plan), any outstanding debt gets forgiven. Throw a party because that’s really great. But… there’s a catch. All of that debt forgiveness is considered taxable income.
