What is a good strategy for budgeting undergrad loan payments while attending graduate school?

You will also be happy to know that as a grad student you will eligible for up to $8500 per year in subsidized loan so you may not need unsubsidized loans at all while in grad school.

This information is only true if you have federal student loans and not private loans. If you have private loans, the interest will continue to accrue and I would advise you to pay off your private loans with any graduate federal loans you receive in excess of your tuition and fees, accepting federal sub and unsub loans. The rates on the unsub federal student loans will be much less than what you are paying on the private loans.

Good luck.

Make sure your payments cover at least the interest – this should be listed on your statement and won’t change much from month to month, as the principal balance isn’t changing.

Most likely, there’s no interest accruing on your grad school loans while you’re still in school (although this is certainly something to verify). A much better option (if possible) is to forego student loans entirely in grad school. Use the money you’re paying on the undergrad student loans to help finance grad school, instead of going further into debt. Try using one loan to cover two semesters, instead of getting a new loan every semester.

FYI – my husband took maximum loans for undergrad and two years of grad school (before I knew him!) and had $40k in debt when he graduated. It took us over 10 years to pay them off. Moral: the less you take in loans, the less you have to pay back later.