Income based repayment and other Student Loan help.

I have been researching Income Based Repayment, Rate Reducing Repayment, Forbearance, Deferments ect.  And No matter how you look at it having a student loan is a rip off. Unless you get your degree and find a great paying job and pay it all back with as little interest as possible.

So if you look at these programs to ease the pain of paying on the loans it really does not ease the pain at all. Yes the payments will be lower, and yes in 20 years its done or something like that. But your interest may be higher and you never do pay off the principal of the loan. So no matter the program you will never be free of the debt. But what is a person to do?? Right now we have no choice but to pay the huge monthly payment and struggle each month for 25 years. Or sign up for one of the programs and make the payments that go for the interest and live with it. For 20 years.

Well for some reason this does not seem right to me. I think there has to be a better way. It may take 25 years to figure this out but I feel that this is not the end. And yes we got our selves into this. Let it be suckered in by a school, looking for that dream, life situations, not getting all the information, what ever it was here we are.

One thing I"m looking at is this. When looking at the loans they are listed separate. But when we are billed the loans are added together. This makes for a bigger payment in the end. But with a little hard work, looking to make some extra money here and there or find another job. Which by the way has its disadvantages also. You make more money outside the house your income goes up so does your payment if you qualify for IBR. Anyways find ways to make extra money beyond your normal income. I said this before and I"m still thinking on it. But what if we could pay off the smaller loans. The ones that are under 1000.00 and get them off the list? Off our credit reports as well. Then work our way up to the larger loans? Say your smallest loan is 200.00. Save up the money, pay it off in one lump sum, then move on to the next one of 300, and then 400 and so on. I'm not sure if this work but its a thought. I realize its takes longer to save 300 than 200 and so on. But if you made a goal of making X amount extra somehow each month I"m sure there has to be a way to make this work.

I"m not giving up on myself with this. This this mess is an education all in itself. If I have to make myself a degree when this is said and done with and hang it on my wall I will. Because it will be worth more than what I went to school for in the first place.