How to decide which student loan should you pay off first

How to decide which student loan should you pay off firstHow to decide which student loan should you pay off firstWhats the best way to tackle multiple student loan payments? Should you pay a little extra on every loan, every month? Or is it better to focus your attention on one loan at a time?Paying down high-interest loans first can save you mora money, but tackling low-balance loans first can provide a powerful mental boost. Of course, federal and private loans may have different loan terms that are worth considering. Lets take a look at how to parse out whats right for you.Compare interest ratesWhen you have student loan debt, you want to work smarter, not harder. It landseems like it would make sense to focus on the loans with highest interest rates first because they cost the most. In general, thats good advice except if you have variable interest rate loans.Even if the loan carries a lower interest rate now, it could balloon at any time. In fact, you should probably consider refinancing anything with a variable interest rate to avoid this situation.Otherwise, order your loans into interest-rate order and start hacking away at the one with the highest interest rate.Make strategic paymentsThere are two common routes to paying off student loan debt.The debt avalanche method works by tackling the most intimidating figures first. When going the avalanche route, you would pay more toward the loan with the highest interest rate first while paying the minimum on the lower interest loans.The debt snowball method takes a different approach. This method is all about making yourself feel good. With this strategy, you organize your loans from smallest balance to the largest and work on paying the lowest first.The snowball method is awesome because it gives you a chance to see the process in action and feel more accomplished, knowing that you have reduced the number of loans you have left.Which method should you choose? They both work well, so select the one that you think will fit better with your personality.Should you pay off federal or private student loans first?Because private loans can be less flexible and lack the forgiveness andincome-based repayment optionsof federal loans, it may make sense to tackle private loans first.However, if your federal loans carry much-higher interest rates, you might want to go ahead and make those a priority.The fastest way to pay off student loan debtIf you qualify, refinancing may be the single-best thing you can do to get out of student loan debt faster.Not only can you reduce your monthly payments, you can probably also get a much-lower interest rate - so youll be paying less every month, while making faster progress on chipping away at your debt.You can refinance all of your debt, or just some of it. In any case, lower interest rates are going to save you a boatload of cash over the long run. (How much is a boatload? Our research tells us most people save close $16K over the life of their loans.)One caution refinancing federal loans may cause you to lose some benefits, so be sure to carefully weigh thepros and cons.Think of the futureStudent loans have the potential to affect more than how much school debt you carry.Reducing your debt-to-income ratio by lowering the amount of your monthly student loan payments can help make you appear more creditworthy if youre planning to get a mortgage or car loan.Many people are able to lower their student loan payments by more than $200 per month through refinancing. See how much you might be able to save by checking out ourStudent Loan Refinancing Calculator.This article first appeared on Comet.