<p>When I married my husband, he was 24 and I was 27, and I was <em>shocked</em> when I realized he had $4000 in student loans--and he hadn't paid anything in 2 years. (He also hadn't done his income taxes in two years. "They owe me money, it's not a big deal.") </p>
<p>It took until he was 32 to get them paid off, mostly because it was set up to pay $32/month and we were also paying a mortgage at 14.25% interest (we were the only people who bought a house that year (1982), I think)... I remember paying the last $700 in one fell swoop when we had some extra money, because I just couldn't stand one more month of that stupid check.</p>