Student loan debt is not fun to have. While it may have been necessary to pay for school, now that you’re graduated, it’s time to think about ways to pay off your student loans faster.

If you’re looking at your repayment plan options - even the shortest term is usually around 10 years. That can seem like forever!

At the same time, looking at these long time frames could also motivate you to see what you can do to get out of student loan debt fast. Luckily, there are a lot of ways to get out of student loan debt fast - it just takes a solid repayment strategy and knowing your options.

We’ve put together a list of ten of the best ways to help you formulate that plan. Remember - this is about paying your student loans faster. Getting aggressive with your student loan debt. These ideas might not work for everyone, or at least not today.

It’s always important to assess your own situation, and then layer in these tactics as you’re able to.

Get Organized And Figure Out What You Owe

The first step in eliminating your student loan debt is getting organized. You need to know what you have and what you owe.

By the time you graduate, you can have multiple loans at different lenders - all with different payments and due dates. It can be confusing to figure out where to begin.

The first step is simply finding your loans. Start here:

Federal Loans: If you have Federal loans, you can find them in the National Student Loan Data System.

Private Loans: If you have private loans, locating all of them may not be as easy. Most private lenders will provide information via email and provide regular statements, which you can attempt to track down. If you did not retain your lender information, contact your school and check your on-file lender. You can also look up your credit report for free at AnnualCreditReport.com, and see what loans are listed.

Once you’ve found your loans, know what you owe, you can start to formulate a plan to pay off your student loans faster.

Lower Your Interest Rate

If you’re getting aggressive on paying off your student loans, lowering your interest rate could save you a lot of money while you’re paying down your loans. 

Note: This is only for people willing to forego their federal loans and take private loans to lower their rate. Taking a private loan out will make you lose your federal benefits like loan forgiveness.

Try getting a lower rate on your student loans by refinancing with a company like Citizens Bank. They make student loan refinancing easy and you can see if you’ll save money in just a few minutes through the rate quote tool on Citizens’ website.

Enter your info here to find out what you lower interest rate could be!

Refinancing involves replacing your current loans with a new, private loan. This not only simplifies repayment, but it could also lower your monthly payment and/or save you money in interest over the life of the loan.

This savings could potentially add up to thousands of dollars. To learn more, check out our Ultimate Guide To Student Loan Refinancing.

Don’t Miss Out On Interest Rate Reductions

Did you know that many student loan lenders offer interest rate reductions? For most Federal loans, you can get a 0.25% interest rate reduction by signing up for auto-debit of your monthly payments.

For private lenders, there can be even more savings. For example, at Citizens Bank, you can save 0.25% by signing up for auto-debit, but you can also save an additional 0.25% when you also have another account at Citizens Bank - like a checking or savings account. 

For example, If you have a $30,000 loan at 5.5% APR for 10 years, making that monthly payment of $326 you’ll pay roughly $9,069 in interest over the life of the loan. But if you were able to reduce your interest rate by 0.50% - to just 5.0% APR - you’ll reduce your monthly payment to $318 and you’ll save $886 in interest! 

That’s a huge savings for doing some very simple tasks.

Avoid Income-Driven Repayment Plans If Possible

This advice applies to people who are wanting to be aggressive and pay off their student loans fast. If you can’t afford your monthly payments as it stands, income driven repayment plans are a great choice.

But if you’re paying more on your loans and reasonably believe that you can afford it into the future, you should probably avoid income driven repayment plans.

Income driven repayment plans like IBR, PAYE, and ICR provide lower monthly payments, but they end up costing more in interest over the life of the loan. For people looking to aggressively pay off their loans, this just adds more in cost.

Challenge yourself to stay on the standard 10 year repayment plan for Federal loans, or consider refinancing to a private loan to save money.

Cut Your Expenses

After you’ve tackled all your loan options directly, it’s time to look elsewhere to see where you can get extra money to pay towards your loans. Expenses