Hi!

Can someone who understands all this explain to me what exactly my situation is? I'll lay out the details best I can below. I always thought I was going to pay my entire working life and after my retirement, but with all the recent changes I'm not so sure. Let me tell you my situation and perhaps you can shed some light on what the future might look like for me? I'm not holding anyone's feet to the fire if your info turns out to be not what happens to me, but let me know your thoughts and if there is something I should do differently.

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• Graduated undergrad in 2000, paid off most but not all of my loans before starting my 1st MA. Can't remember if it was deferral or forbearance during grad school, but no payments. And no extra loans- got a full ride.
• Then I moved and immediately started a second MA- this degree required quite a few loans. I did make some payments during the final year of that. By the time I was done with it in 2012 I had about $65k in loan debt.
  
• between 2000 and now I either made my income-based payments or was on deferral/forbearance. I don't believe I have missed any payments, if I did it was very few.
• 2019 I was diagnosed with cancer and was approved for a cancer deferral. At that time I had $89K in loan debt .
• 2020-now, consolidated all my loads in 2022 (remaining undergrad and all grad) into 1 loan and have about $77K left on it- I made some payment in the beginning of covid when I could afford to.
• Was on a REPAYE plan that converted into a SAVE plan recently- currently says that if I should start repaying in Oct my payments would be about $850 a month.
• About to submit the cancer forms to finish off the cancer deferral- that should get me through to approx Dec 2024.

So....any chance I might get the forgiveness in this lifetime? If I am not in the best place or plan- what is your advice? I don't have a spare $850 a month so, like many others, am not looking forward to figuring out how I will make those payments, but at least I should be able to get another year before I need to start those. We have separate finances but file jointly and between us make a comfortable income.

What do y'all think?