Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input.

Retirement Savings vs. Student Loan payments
You can play with the numbers all you like (and that's good), however, here is a different way to look at it.  The debt you have is risk. It limits your choices and eats your cash flow. Without the debt, you can invest at a much greater rate. It frees up you cash flow for all the things you might want to do, or decide in the future you might want to do. Right now is the easiest time for you to focus on debt repayment. It sounds like you are not married and have no children. It is much easier now to cut back your lifestyle and concentrate on paying off this $50k of student debt. This will get harder as your responsibility increases. Build up a small amount of cash for emergencies and put the rest at the debt. You can keep contributing to your 401k to the match if you want. This will give you 2 benefits: Patience. When you actually DO start investing, you will have a new appreciation for the money you are using. If you sacrifice to pay off $50k now, you wont look at money the same for the rest of your life.  Drive. If you see the debt as a barrier to achieving your goals, you will work harder to get out of debt.  These are all things I would tell my 23 year-old self if i could go back in time.  Good luck!