General financials:
I can afford to pay them off in full and have plenty left over for general life needs
The interest rates on them should be 4.53% according to their chart of when it was awarded.
If I do hold onto the money and pay off monthly I can put everything into a CD but I’ll still be losing .03% if I lock in the student loan money maybe I’ll beat but .07-.43% so not a ton of upside unless there’s sudden political will to actually follow through on student loan forgiveness.
Is there anything else I’m missing when considering this? I am leaning towards just pay off as I’ve been planning for this, but I want to make sure there isn’t something else to do.
I think at that rate there isn’t a bad decision. Pay it off for the peace of mind. Or, if you have a higher risk tolerance, invest it in the market, since long term it would likely return more than 4.5% (historically speaking, of course). I think keeping the money to keep it in a money market account or CD is probably not worth it, though.
I’d be in favor of this approach too.
Another thing is that if for whatever reason you need that money you still have acess to it, but if you pay off your loans, you can’t easily get it back.