State school was hella cheap (it was back when Florida’s lotto money mostly went to scholarships for in-state students). I think full sticker price would’ve been around $2500/year for tuition+fees at the time?

I also started with enough credits to be nearly to (the equivalent of being in) junior year and took the bare minimum credits to keep the scholarship.

I'm sorry the match doesn't even remotely work.

$20k in loans over 4 years, when full sticker price was about $10k for the same 4 years and you had a 75% scholarship, and started as a junior?

That plus it somehow taking you 20 years to pay $20k in loans makes this smell pretty fishy. The real question is why make something like this up?

Impressive work, detective.

1. I took more in loans than I technically needed for school and spent it on living expenses like video games, gambling, fun stuff, etc.

2. I signed up for 4 classes a semester, often in things unrelated to my degree. Figured since I had 4 years of scholarship (and 4 years of loans available), I may as well just hang around and have fun.

3. By my math, (feel free to double check) 2021 minus 2005 is not 20. Loan payments didn’t start until after graduation. It was about $50 a month for minimum payments when I started paying and around $150 at the end. Don’t remember the exact way the payments increased over time. It was just steps, but not related to income.

Any follow ups?

At 1.5%, you should strive to make the absolute minimum payment on your loan. That is pretty much free money.