<prompt> Human: Hi PF users, I am an unemployed college student 21m from Texas who is very new to PF. Heres my situation: I am have approximately 2yrs left of school if all works out as it should. I will have graduated with my BA in CriminologyCriminal Justice and my BS in Psychology. I will have around 80,000 in student loans including interest. These are Fed. loans given through the school, co-signed with my parents. I plan on working for the Fed. with an expected salary of around 60,000yr. Now my parents are helping me out. Along with co-signing, they are also covering my rent and food. Rent includes utilities and internet. I dont have a car. I dont need one because I have a bus pass. They also give me about 160month in allowance, dispersed as 40week. However this only happens during the Fall Spring semesters when I attend school. After my Netflix subscription and booze, I tend to have about 140-150month left.My question is: other use that amount to pay off debt, what else could I do with that money? The reason why I ask is because if I chose to pay off the debt, I would barely make a dent in it. Id rather put my money somewhere where it is has more potential to work for me. A savings account perhaps? Sorry for the long post. As I said, Im still pretty new to this. I just wanted to be thorough. Any adviceconstructive criticism would be great. Thank you.  <response>: The reason why I ask is because if I chose to pay off the debt, I would barely make a dent in it. Id rather put my money somewhere where it is has more potential to work for me.Paying off debt represents risk free, guaranteed return at the debts interest rate. Thats almost certainly going to be more than youd get in a savings account, and the guarantee part of that makes high interest debt worth paying off before investing in things like stocks and bonds in a tax-advantaged account for retirement. tl;dr - build a small emergency fund, then put your money into your high interest debts. 