How Long It Takes To Pay Off Student Loans in Every State

The typical American borrower needs a little over seven years to pay off student loan debt. According to MoneyLion's latest analysis, the average borrower carries $37,150 in student loans. Living in parts of the South may stretch your payoff timeline to 10 years or more, while borrowers in other areas of the country can repay their loans in nearly half that time.

The single biggest factor in shortening your payoff timeline is increasing your monthly payment. Even a small increase can make a difference. For example, increasing your payment from 10% to 20% of your take-home pay can cut your payoff timeline in half. The data shows that your payoff timeline depends less on how much you borrowed and more on how much you can afford to pay each month.

MoneyLion

When does refinancing usually not make sense?

Your credit improvesTerms stay similarFees outweigh the interest savingsRates drop slightlyIncome increases

32

MoneyLion analyzed how much borrowers owe, how much they take home and how long it would realistically take to repay student loan debt in every state. Here's where your state ranks and what it could mean for your payoff timeline.

MoneyLion offers a service to help you find personal loan offers. Based on the information you provide, you can get matched with offers for up to $100,000 from our top providers. You can compare rates, terms and fees from different lenders and choose the best offer for you.

Key Findings

• Doubling your payment from 10% to 20% of take-home pay can cut your payoff timeline roughly in half. On average, that's over three and a half years shaved off a repayment timeline of more than seven years.

• If you adjust your budget to allow for a higher monthly payment, you can pay off your loan quicker.

• Mississippi borrowers face the longest repayment timeline, needing just over 12.2 years to pay off their student loan debt.

• Borrowers in eight states — Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, North Carolina and West Virginia — need around a decade to repay their student loans.

• Higher incomes generally translate into faster repayment. Borrowers in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Washington, Utah and North Dakota can pay off their student loans in fewer than six years on average.

• The largest loan balance doesn’t mean the longest payoff timeline. Maryland has the nation's highest student loan balance at $45,589, but borrowers can clear it in a little over seven years.

Where Paying Off Student Debt Could Take the Longest

The average student loan borrower carries $37,150 in debt and needs a little over seven years to pay it off. Borrowers in Mississippi face the longest repayment timeline of any state. The average borrower there owes $39,009 and needs more than 12 years to pay it off. Following close behind are Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina, with average payoff timelines of roughly 10 years.

On the more favorable end, New Hampshire borrowers pay off their student loans in about five and a half years, while borrowers in Massachusetts, North Dakota, Washington and Utah typically repay their balances in under six years. Although loan balances are still relatively high in many of these states, higher household incomes help to shorten the repayment timeline.

How Does Your Monthly Payment Change Your Payoff Timeline?

The amount you pay each month has one of the biggest impacts on how quickly you can get out of student loan debt. Because interest never stops accruing on your loan, paying more each month can shave years off your timeline.

The table below uses the U.S. national average: a $37,150 student loan balance per borrower at the current 6.375% federal direct loan rate.

*At $200 per month, repayment would take roughly 68 years because the payment is only slightly higher than the monthly interest. Increasing the payment to $250 per month shortens the timeline to about 24.5 years.

What Matters

• Doubling your monthly payment more than doubles your payoff speed. Going from 10% to 20% of your take-home pay can cut the repayment timeline from 7.04 years to 3.13 while reducing the total interest from about $9,100 to $3,900.

• Lower monthly payments usually mean a longer repayment timeline. The standard 10-year repayment plan has the smallest monthly payment at $419.47, but it also results in the longest timeline and the highest interest at $13,200.

• Lower monthly payments almost always mean paying more interest over time. Beware of the minimum-payment trap. Payments below roughly $250 per month mostly cover interest and barely touch the principal, causing the loan to linger for decades.

Pay a Little More, Finish a Lot Sooner

The more money you dedicate toward your student loans, the more likely you’ll shorten your payoff timeline.

Bigger Payoff, Shorter Timeline

With most borrowers carrying an average student loan balance of $37,150, even modest increases in your monthly payment can shorten the timeline.

Here's an example:

• Paying $500 per month means that you're done paying off the loan in just under eight years.

• Increase that payment by $250 to $750 per month, and the timeline drops to less than five years.

• If you can pay $1,000, you'll be debt-free in three and a half years.

• If you took the opposite approach and paid $250 per month, it would take you about 24 and a half years to repay your loan.

You make it to the payoff finish line faster if you increase your payments every month. Your payment level, not the loan amount, is the key to shortening your timeline.

How Fast Can You Pay Off Your Loan Without Going Broke?

Paying 20% of your take-home pay towards your student loans can be a good option, but only if you can also afford rent, utilities, transportation and groceries. Taking on an aggressive payoff strategy means you’ll have to make trade-off choices with other financial priorities. Extra loan payments also mean less in your retirement account or emergency fund.

The key is to take a holistic approach to your finances. You do want to pay off your loan faster, but only if it makes sense within your current budget. You don’t want to risk severe financial exposure in other areas just to make one extra loan payment. You’ll have to do the math to determine if the extra loan payments outweigh your other financial goals.

Not Always the Right Move: When To Pay More

The clearest sign that paying extra makes sense is having room in your budget for essentials while maintaining an emergency fund. If you already have $1,000 in an emergency starter fund, surprise expenses won’t derail your budget and you're in a better position to accelerate your debt payments.

It may not make sense to make an extra payment if you're carrying high-interest debt. If you're paying 20% or more on a credit card or personal loan, then it makes more sense to pay down that debt first since student loans typically carry lower interest rates.

If you're living paycheck-to-paycheck, it also doesn’t make sense to make extra loan payments. You likely need to build a financial cushion for unexpected expenses first.

Small Ways To Cut Years Off Your Student Loans

As a certified financial health counselor, here’s what I recommend to help shave years off your payoff timeline:

• Make extra principal payments, even if it's a small amount: Even an extra $25 toward the principal can reduce the amount of interest you pay over time.

• Put unexpected funds toward your loan: When you receive a raise, tax refund or bonus, consider making a principal payment. One or two large payments can lessen your timeline considerably.

• Round up your monthly payment: If your loan payment is $450, round up to $500. An extra $50 every month works out to be $600 every year. You may even forget that you’re making extra payments toward your loan.

• Pay every two weeks instead of once a month: Paying at this frequency will amount to an extra payment.

• Refinancing is an option, but be careful: Read the fine print. Refinancing can give you a lower rate, but you’ll lose all federal protections like student loan forgiveness and deferment.

• If your income increases, raise your payment amount: Every time you receive a pay bump, make sure you also increase the amount of your monthly payment. Even a small increase in your monthly payment can shorten your repayment timeline.

Methodology

For this study, MoneyLion analyzed how long it would take the average borrower in each state to pay off student loan debt under different repayment scenarios.

Population, household and median household income data came from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey (5-Year Estimates). Cost-of-living indexes were sourced from the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC), while average household spending came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey. Home values were sourced from the Zillow Home Value Index, and average mortgage costs were estimated using a 10% down payment and the national average 30-year fixed mortgage rate from Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED).

MoneyLion estimated each state's cost of essential living expenses and applied the 50/30/20 budgeting rule to calculate a comfortable cost of living. Federal and state income tax rates were sourced from the Tax Foundation, and FICA rates from the Social Security Administration, assuming a single filer to estimate take-home pay.

Student loan balances, borrower counts and federal direct loan interest rates were sourced from FederalStudentAid.gov. Using each state's average student loan balance and estimated net household income, MoneyLion calculated payoff timelines assuming borrowers devoted 10% and 20% of take-home pay to student loan repayment. Additional scenarios modeled repayment using fixed monthly payments of $200, $225, $250, $500, $750 and $1,000, along with a standard 10-year repayment plan based on the national average student loan balance. States were then ranked by how long it would take the average borrower to repay student loan debt.

All data is current as of July 24, 2026.

Photo credit: SrdjanPav / iStock