First, thanks for contributing. I credit r/personalfinance as one of the most important factors that allowed me to become financially literate. Still cleaning up the messes of my 20’s, but things would be WAY worse if I wouldn’t have been able to self-educate. I’m not going back to Reddit, so I’m thankful that you’re contributing content here instead.

In regards to your question, relatively poorly.

I’m 31. My salary when I began work after grad school was 35k with only 2% going into retirement; now my salary is north of 100k with 15% going into retirement. I am at about 40% of my annual income, so definitely behind. I should be able to have some nice catch-up progress over the next five years, but I can’t help but feel like a better starting job pre-COVID would have set me up way better.

Be careful assuming you can get a cheaper package with the same educational outcomes by leaving PSU. If I was in your shoes, I would take the 40k in total debt, get that engineering degree, then continue to live like a college kid for a few years to pay it down.