Is the loan fixed rate or adjustible? Emigrantdirect.com will give you 4.75% on your savings account… if that’s more than the rate you are paying on your loans, keep the loans and make the regular payments. If the loan rate is more than this (in mine it was) then you want to pay it down as quickly as you can afford to. There are other internet savings banks besides emigrant, but they have the best rate I’ve seen – you might also consider CD’s or bonds.

I do not blame you for being uncomfortable with more student loan debt. I recommend at the minimum consolidating your student loans, so you would be making one payment instead of several each month. However, it might be a bad idea too since you plan on attending graduate school, and there is no Pell Grant available. Another option would be paying as much as you can each month to pay it off sooner. However, I do not recommend saving as much because it could effect your financial aid for graduate school. You could become a graduate or a research assistant at the school which would provide an income and in most cases help with your tuition. Your student loans payments from your undergraduate work will be defered once you enter graduate school which means there will be no payments to send. I have included some free resources to locate money for graduate school and on student loan consolidation. Good luck!

You need to look at two numbers. The amount of money you pay for interest and the amount of money you could earn in a money market. Then you’ll be able to tell which is the better way to go.

However, it’s usually wise to pay down your debt as soon as possible. Most loans have you pay interest on everything before you even get to the principle, so you could spend a long time paying off interest that just keeps accruing — putting money into a money market has to work twice as hard to put you ahead of all that interest you’re paying.

depends on what your interest rate is, you should know that as a college graduate. I would say pay them off though, actually 25k is not all that much if you have 1500 a month for it. I would pay off the loans