Student loans seem to be the thing that people treat like Ron Popeil's Showtime™ Rotisserie —you know, "Set it and forget it." Once your loan is disbursed, it's likely that you don't give it a second thought—until it comes time to pay it back.

With Ron's masterpiece, you throw the chicken in the rotisserie, move on to other things and then—ding!—your dinner is ready. Well, when it comes to student loans, if you set them and forget them, that ding! when you enter repayment might have a little sting. While you've moved on to other things, your interest has been gaining on you like my father on the interstate.

You see, all that interest on your loan is going to be capitalized as soon as you enter repayment. Capitalization is when your accrued interest is added to the outstanding balance on your loan—increasing your principal balance.

To save yourself from paying even more on your student loan, you can make interest-only payments while your loan is in the in-school deferment period. (Translation: On most loans you don't have to make payments while you are in school, but interest still accrues. If you pay off your interest even though you don't have to, you can save in the long run.)

You can see what you would be able to save with this calculator. (It works well if you're in repayment to show you what increasing your monthly payment can save you, too.)

I'll give you an example to show you how to figure your savings with the calculator. Writer's warning: Beware, numbers follow...

Take two undergraduate students who each borrowed $10,000 for each of the four years they were in college. That's $40,000 in debt a piece that we'll say is fixed at 8% interest—for the sake of simplicity.

So here's what we're dealing with:

• Freshman loan of $10,000 with interest each year of $800 times four years = $3,200
• Sophomore loan of $10,000 with interest each year of $800 times three years = $2,400
• Junior loan of $10,000 with interest each year of $800 times two years = $1,600
• Senior loan of $10,000 with interest each year of $800 times one year = $800

Altogether, that's $8,000 in interest.

The first undergraduate decides to follow the Ron Popeil method of paying for college. So when she enters repayment and her interest is capitalized, she's dealing with $48,000. The second undergraduate decides to scrounge up a little cash each month to pay the interest accrued on each of her student loans—if you divide the debt evenly it averages out to about $160 each month over four years (some would be lower, some would be higher, depending on whether you had one or four loans).

To compare, let's go to the calculator. If we enter both the amounts ($48,000 in the first column and $40,000 in the second column) and use a standard repayment term of 120 months(10 years) with our interest set at 8%, here's the difference:

The first student who set it and forgot about it will end up paying $69,884.69 over the life of her loan. The second student who paid off her interest ended up paying $58,237.25. After you subtract the $8,000 in interest you'd have to pay in either situation, that's an interest savings of $3,647.44! Just by paying off the interest in school! (Now I sound like an infomercial ... watch out Ron, I'm on my way to the top!)

OK, now to curb your "I don't have money to pay off my interest" whines I can already hear all the way from my cubicle in Sioux Falls . You tell me: Is it easier to scrounge up a little cash every month while you're in college, or is it easier to pay more in repayment when you're balancing payments on your car, home, credit card, insurance, etc.? Even if you can't pay of all the interest, every little bit will help. Because that interest that doesn't get paid is capitalized and starts growing interest of its own when you enter the repayment period.

How much would you save if you paid off your interest before repayment? Is it worth it?