Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open.

Student loan payments and opportunity costs
The only real consideration I would give to paying off the debt as slowly as possible is if inflation were much higher than it is now.  If you had a nice medium to low interest (fixed rate) loan, like yours, and then inflation spiked to 7-8%, for example, then you're better off not paying it now because it's effectively making you money (and then when inflation calms back down, you pay it off with your gains). However, with a fairly successful and active Federal Reserve being careful to avoid inflation spikes, it seems unlikely that will occur during your time owing this debt - and certainly isn't anywhere near that point now.  Make sure you're saving some money not for the return but for the safety net (put it in something very safe), and otherwise pay off your debt.