But… The fuck is the alternative? It’s not worth being late on payments to keep a loan open nor is it worth racking up interest if you can pay it off early (*) only because you want to keep a few extra points on your score. ~30 points isn’t that serious depending on what your score is. If it’s low it can matter more, but if it’s higher it doesn’t matter too much. It’s very rare that ~30 points will make or break you. In short, I wouldn’t consider paying extra interest only for my credit score to stay higher.

(*): Depending on the interest rate of your loans it’s not always worthwhile to pay off early. Everyone’s risk tolerance is different, but, hypothetically, if your interest rate is less than what you can get in a high yield savings account you’re better off putting the extra money into savings. If you’re risk tolerant then bonds or total market index funds may be a better choice as well. This really gets into the weeds of it, but my point is that ~30 points really isn’t worth paying extra interest money for.