I paid off my spouse's student loans early on in our relationship... partly because it was a nice act of generosity, partly because I could, but I think what really motivated me was because I knew both of us would be much less stressed about it if we could get that out of the way. Yeah, I could have chosen to save those shekels for a rainy day, but when it could make some difference to the quality of our lives right then, why not do that?

Frankly, that attitude is only a slight shade off of the whole "we shouldn't have welfare" attitude.