Hey I also had a private student loan from the same bank of $9k and $3k for a total of $12k. It accrued while I was in school and after 2 years of making minimal payments I owed $16k. The interest rate went from 7% to 11% during that time. It's absolutely stupid. What I did to pay it off was transfer the whole amount to a 0% APR credit line with my bank (https://maggieloans.com/title-loans/are-there-online-title-loans-no-store-visit). The interest free period was 18 months. I then divided the total amount by 18 to determine how much I needed to pay per month to get it paid off, interest free.