May have missed it but see how SOFI reports on early payments please.
Majority of lenders will simply push the date out into the future, in which case you can just pay the $20k loan to like $20, pay pennies in interest, and then just make sure you get that payment in at the end of the term which won't be 3 years but will at least be longer than 18 months based on napkin math.
Generally speaking for pure FICO purposes you want as long of a loan as possible. As an example once I have non-trivial income again I'm just going to be kicking something like 3x the payment to the mortgage every month over the next few years and just pay it off; however, if the mortgage due dates get pushed ahead, will just leave it at some absurdly small balance and leave it open either the full ~15 years or till I get ready to sell the place... might as well take whatever FICO advantage accures for as long as possible if the interest is meaningless.
