I am on the income based repayment plan. I was in an economic hardship deferment for the first 3 years after residency (family size and a spouse who does not work outside the home made us qualify). The economic hardship deferment was nice as the interest did not capitalize during those years, but there is a limit of 36 months for that deferment. The options at the end of residency included forbearance where the interest still capitalizes or to enter repayement under the IBR plan. I chose the IBR as the income that they base your payment on is from your yearly tax return, and using their calculator I have a 0$ projected payment through the rest of residency and likely fellowship. The 10 year forgiveness bit is why I did it. However, it looks like congress has already made this 20-25 years rather than 10. You have to be on the payment plan in payment for 10 (likely 25) years, and (here's why I did it) the years you spend in economic hardship deferment count toward those years. I did a prelim year, so my income should not bump to a level where I'm paying significant rates until 7 years of that 10 (25) have been met all together. I intend to get out of debt quickly, but we'll see what it looks like after fellowship. If the government has not removed the incentive or made it 25 years, I may pay the minimum. I plan to work in a private setting, so we'll see if I have to revert to the standard repayment plan once I start working (that's the only plan you can revert to after IBR). Either way I'm racking up years toward the 10 while paying nothing (or maybe $10 per month if my income increases yearly at resident rates) and my interest would capitalize under forebearance anyway.
All my loans have been federal direct loans, so that makes the process easier. However, there are advantages if you have privately based Stafford type loans. Some of these offer the IBR, as I understand it, as they are government backed loans, and some are set up so that the interest on your loan still gets paid even if your income based rate is 0$, so the lendor pays it. Obviously, it's hard to get the info on how this works out of the company, but it's worth checking into before you consolidate.
Getting information out of the department of education is like doing a closed reduction on a Rolando fracture. However, they now are servicing even their federal direct loans through a private company, Mohela, so suddenly there is customer service and politeness on the other end of the phone when you call the company. Either way, you can find a lot of info on the internet. Here are a few sites:
www.mohela.com/Default.aspx
studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/
... BRPlan.jsp
http://www.studentloanborrowerassistanc ... ent-plans/
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