FWIW, my wife's student loans cost us $800 per month. That's on a 30 year term, with about 19 years to go. That normally wouldn't be an issue. She is an attorney and easily could have found a corp job that paid 6 figures. But she has known since she was about 14 that she wanted to help people, and so she is a public interest attorney (not a public defender.) She makes less than our friends that are teachers, and we know how "well" paid they are.
While you definitely want to pay those down as best you can, as fast as you can, we don't let that debt control us. It is what is it. The best we could do was consolidate it, but under a particular consolidation program for student loans. It locked the interest rate in at a low rate (well, low for the time) with one much smaller payment, but stretched the terms out on the money involved out to 30 years. We opted to leave out smaller loans and paid aggressively on those. I believe most of our friends with large student debt did the same. My best friend - a commercial airline pilot - certainly did.
There's a couple key things to not overlook. Student loans are backed by nothing tangible, yet they want to get paid. They tend to be more flexible or forgiving as a result. If you encounter trouble with income, you can generally put student loans into forbearance, with little to no consequence (other than delaying pay off). Try doing that with a home or vehicle loan. It's actually part of our backup plan, as student loans + daycare = $2100 per month. On the other hand, student loans are excluded from bankruptcy, so the only way to be rid of them is to pay them off or die.
For married couples, there can be some temptation to consolidate loans as a couple. We considered it, since it could be a way to get today's low rates. However, with the way things are now, if my wife passed away, her loans would die with her.
Our method isn't optimal. But it affords us the ability to live comfortably and works for us. For anyone else, I think you have to look at both short term and long term plans. This may mean waiting until you get a job and have an idea of what you can afford to do. If you're single, I'd likely be somewhat aggressive for a while, and take a another look when things have settled down. I mean, you do want to pay aggressively when you can, but it is better to pay aggressively on home and auto loans, or otherwise avoid other debt as much as possible. Even if a student loan is your only debt, it will at least build your credit record.
