<prompt> Human: Hi all,So I was talking to my mom and she had recommended that I not pay off my student loan off too quickly. Her reasoning is since I dont have any other debt, such as owning a house, that if I pay off the student loan then I will not get a large tax refund like I just had. My last tax refund was around 2,000. I was paying 800 a month, knocked out a 6.8 loan, and lessened my overall total student loans from 22k to 18k. I was under the impression that its better to get rid of my student loans as quick as possible and that Im really not gaining extramore money by taking longer to pay it off and getting a bigger tax refund at the end of the year. Should I listen to her or should I continue to be put as much as I can to the student loan and get rid of it asap?By the way, shes recommending I pay the minimum 200 or pay 400 at most a month but not 800.Thanks!  <response>: Pay off the loans.Consider a simple example: You owe 10k 10 interest and are in the 25 income tax bracket. You have 10k in savings, so you can pay off the entire balance January 1 or December 31 of the same year. For some magic reason you dont actually have to make payments. So, you can either pay 10k in January or 11k in December. If you pay the 11k in December, you will get 250 more back on your taxes. Guess what, you paid 1000 more, so it comes out that you really lost 750. Of course there would be some interest on the savings, but its a lot less than the loan, so you still come out way ahead by paying early. 