I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to handle my student loan, and I keep going back and forth between two approaches:
focus on reducing total interest
or just aggressively pay it off as fast as possible
Initially I thought both lead to the same outcome, but when I started comparing scenarios, the difference wasn’t as small as I expected.
Now I’m not sure which strategy actually makes more sense long term.
For those who’ve already gone through this
what worked better in your case?
Is it smarter to reduce student loan interest or just focus on paying it off faster?
byu/Hidden_Striker886 inStudentLoans
Posted by Hidden_Striker886
3 Comments
depends on your interest rate tbh – if its above like 6% just throw everything at it and get rid of the thing asap
i went aggressive payment route after getting out and never looked back, psychological win of being debt free was worth more than optimizing every dollar perfectly
I’m working off paying as quickly as possible. I make too much to have any benefit from pslf. I am currently in save program but now that that’s gone, I’d have to move into a different payment plan that would have it paid off before anything got forgiven. So, I’m just keeping it in forbearance and my goal is to have it paid off well before I’m forced to move into another payment plan in 2028. For your situation, I think it depends on your goals and your financial situation. You can never argue against paying off debt. I’m just tired of this hanging over my head and the government playing games.
I’m a bit confused why you can’t do both?
On mine, I pay extra on the payment and have it apply all extra to the highest interest rate loan.