<prompt> Human: I graduated about 2 years ago and am lucky enough to have a pretty good job. I am currently maxing my 401k match and IRA contributions while paying minimums on my student loans and car loans. I have some savings and probably spend more on crap than I should, and right now I am operating at a very slight net loss in my savings. Thats fine by me because I can always reduce my spending if required, or my retirement contributions also both are Roth so I can pull from my IRA if I actually really need money. My question is should I go ahead and try and pay off my student loans real fast or keep going as I am? I have roughly 20k in student loans and 14.5k in car loan. I am not worried too much with paying the minimum on the car loan as its only 2.25 and I see my money better invested elsewhere. The issue is that with my student loans, only 1.5k is at 3.15, the remaining 18.5k is at 6.55 saving .25 on auto pay. My original thinking was that Ill put my money into retirement and hope for more growth in that than growth in my student loans. I have been putting all my IRA contributions to VFFVX vanguard 2055 target retirement and all my 401k to VFINX vanguard 500 index. I have been earning slightly better than my loans with roughly 7 gained. Do you all think the risk of retirement investing should outweigh my guaranteed 6.55 return with just allocating all my IRA contributions to student loan repayment?  <response>: Do you all think the risk of retirement investing should outweigh my guaranteed 6.55 return with just allocating all my IRA contributions to student loan repayment?In the short term, no. After adjusting for risk, the guaranteed 6.55 return is very likely preferable to a risky 7 gain by any measure. However, your retirement funds will continue to compound far beyond the short term, which makes calculating this a bit muddied and brings everything back to the personal in personal finance.Were I in your shoes, I would take the 401k match and postpone IRA contributions while paying off the 6.55 student loan. 