<prompt> Human: Woo! First post on reddit so sorry if the formatting is messed up. Im a 22 year old college senior graduating in May with a BS in Biology, and my knowledge of finance is pretty limited at this point Ive been lurking and learning, though. Details regarding my situation: 1. No income currently looking for a job, havent been able to work due to my level of involvement and the fact that I play a sport 2. 0 cc debt with no credit history 3. 0 in savings parents tried to invest what I had and failed.. ha 4. 29,500 in student loan debt mostly federal direct unsubsidized loans, including accrued interest to date; average interest rate is 5.7. 5. In 2005, my grandma passed away and left me 1,500 shares of Ameren Corp. regional utility provider. At the time she passed away, the stock was near its all time high and worth about 51share 76,500 total. Since 2005, the stocks value has dropped into the high teens but rebounded to 40share 60,000 total in todays market. 6. Dividends are about 2,400year before tax which I had hoped to throw into savings but Ive had to use for living expenses. My questions: 1. Should I sell someall of my stock inheritance? 2. If I sold, would I need to pay capital gains tax because a Id be selling at a loss from the time I inherited it from what I understand, correct me if Im wrong!, and b Im in the currently in the 10 tax bracket. 3. If I sold, would I have to do it before April 15, 2014, as to avoid potentially having to pay capital gains tax, under the assumptions that a I will get a job within a year of graduating, and b I could potentially be in the 25 tax bracket. 4. If I sold all of the stock and used half of it pay off my student loans now, what should I do with the rest of it? I still need to do more research regarding investmentretirement options, so should I just throw the other half into a savings account and consider it my emergency fund until I decide? My biggest financial goals right now are to pay off my student loans and to save enough in the next year or two to relocate from the midwest to the west coast where there are a lot more job opportunities in biotech. Upon graduating, I plan on living at home with my parents to save as much money as I can. Advise me, please! I just need to be pointed in the right direction so I can figure out what I need to focus on learning because at this point, I feel in over my head! Edit: so much wrong formatting.. sorry Im still learning :  <response>: I would sell all shares, eliminate the higher of the interest rate loans, keep the lower ones, and put the balance into a broad-based index fund by Vanguard or similar. Remember that youre going to realize 11K in capital losses, and you can apply a maximum of 3K to any year and continue rolling over the rest from year to year. So youre going to be able to deduct 3K from your next three tax returns, then 2K from the last. 