You should get graduated payments.
I did and it reduced my monthly payment from $325 to $160 per month. Yeah it's gonna take me twice as long to pay it off but I dnon't gotta be stressin as much to get the payment in. Yeah it's gonna cost me more in interest over the life of the loan but I figure if I never drop below my salay now (which is faily low for an adventurous single guy but if I'd need to be a family of 11 to qualify for low-income housing) I'd be cool. You gotta learn how to live below your means. Albeit I made a little more than twice your salary when I came outta ugrad I think it could be done. My boy works on the Hill and after a lil research I found out this dude is makin only like $22K per annum as a staffer. this position he's craving for that's like 2 steps above the one he has now (LSC or something) only pays like $29K. I'm like damn boy you really paying you dues. But he also got a pad in Bethesda, MD that's twice as fat as mine was in Suitland, MD when I got my first gig. He got the homeboy hook-up so I can't hate.

But yeah, I'd say do what you're passionate about. Teachforamerica.org is a nice program to work with. Even though their funding is getting cut so is Americorp. Hell do like someone else said and work abroad. Work in a ski slope. Have fun with your life now. Say fuck the debt. Your being a slave to the debt because you wanna be slave to somethin else that's why you're worried about paying this debt back because it'll make you have bad credit. what can't you get with bad credit? houses, cars, stereo systems. i said fuck all that and i have fun. travel and party extensively. but i pay my bills on time all the time and acknowledge all my debts. not because i want to have good credit (because i don't) but because i am a man of my word and if i said i was gonna pay someone something then i do it.
but also all this travelling and partying is taxing on my life savings. which is null right now. but you know what??? i haven't any kids or other dependents. all my money is mine. and as far as retirement...i plan on dipping to another country anyway and getting a condo on the beach and some land inland somewhere and just chill. if i had $100K in the bank right now I'd neve have to work another day in my life to pay bills if i lived abroad. but i'd have to work to keep my sanity as I found out earlier this year on a 2 month sabbatical. it has to do with the society that I was raised in and folks going to work at least 4 days or 40 hours per week. when sit on the beach all day drinking beer and talkin to the ladies you start to go insane.

I've spent enough time on this.
Time to get a snack.