More than 44 million Americans currently have student loans, and at the end of 2017, Americans held nearly $1.38 trillion in student debt, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

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For young people who have just taken out student loans, personal finance expert Kevin O'Leary has some advice: pay them off immediately.

/"Get rid of that student debt early while you're young and frisky, now's the time to do it/," the star of ABC's /"Shark Tank/" told CNBC Make It.

His advice? Instead of paying it little by little, make paying off your student debt your No. 1 priority after graduation.

/"You should pay off that loan in 36 months if you can do it," O'Leary says.

This means you are significantly reducing your lifestyle. You spend up to 40% of your salary just to get rid of it. For what ? Because it is a very unpleasant thing to stay above your head for a very long time. time," he explains.

Indeed, even baby boomers are still paying off their student loans, according to Experian's analysis of 2017 student loan data. Baby boomers, aged 50 to 70 according to the Experian report, held an average student loan balance of $36,246.

There are 6.8 million student loan borrowers between the ages of 40 and 49, according to 2016 data from the Federal Reserve. Together, these graduates hold a collective debt of $229.6 billion.

While many young people imagine it will be easier to repay their loans later in life when they have a higher salary, O'Leary argues that at this stage you will also have higher expenses, less time and more responsibilities.

/"As soon as you establish a lifestyle and you start going out to dinner, or you start dating, or you get married, all of a sudden you have all kinds of other expenses, not necessarily only paying off your loan,” O’ said Leary.

/"That's why you want to pay off your loan as quickly as possible, before your lifestyle starts to overwhelm you and make you spend more on things like vacations, dates, dinners, and when a child arrives, all these expenses./"

Plus, the sooner you pay off your loan, the more you save on interest over time.

Student loan interest rates are "generous at first, but in the long run, that interest really adds up," O'Leary says. For federal undergraduate student loans, the interest rate is 5.05 percent for the 2018-2019 academic year, up from 4.45 percent last year.

For a $50,000 loan with this interest rate, repaid over 10 years with a minimum payment of $50 per month, a graduate would end up paying $14,473.25 in interest, according to a calculator from PrivateStudentLoans.guru.

According to the calculator, to pay off this $50,000 loan in just three years, a borrower would need to make payments of $1,500 per month. But by putting that much money toward monthly payments and reducing the length of the loan, the total amount paid in interest drops by almost $10,000 to $4,616.36, according to the calculator.

O'Leary argues that the short-term focus is worth the long-term savings.

/ "I know that sounds like a lot, but really smart people realize that pretty quickly and focus on eliminating that debt," O'Leary says.

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Kevin O'Leary shares his #1 tip for paying off student loans | CNBC succeeds.

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