If I just pay the minimun payment on my student loans, will that pay off anything? I’ve paid $500 and my?

You did not indicate if the student loans on which you were paying were subsidized, unsubsidized or a combination of both. Are you still in school? That also plays a factor.

A subsidized loan will only start accruing interest six months after you graduate or withdraw from school; an unsubsidized starts accruing interest as soon as it is disbursed.

Even if you are paying the minimum, it will pay down your loan. The payment is a combination of interest and principal. It may not go down very fast, paying the minimum, but it is going down.

There are a lot of calculator out there that you can use to see different scenarios about paying down your debt. One is here: http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/debtplanner/debtplanner.jsp

Good luck!

If you make the minimum payment, the large majority of the early payments will be interest (It’s just a function of amortization), which explains why your principle balance has only been reduced by $59. Eventually, your payments will make large reductions in principle, but it takes quite a while. If you want to make a large payment rather than the minimum, make sure you contact your loan provider and make sure they don’t charge an early repayment penalty and make sure to tell them that you want to use the excess as a reduction of principle, not advance minimum payments.

The first two answers are correct. The link listed on the third answer will NOT help you.