Refinancing? Sounds boring, honestly.
True. It does. But here’s the reason why it might be super helpful for you and your student loans: Refinancing means swapping out your current student loan for a new one. Maybe one…
- With a lower interest rate
- With lower monthly payments
- That relieves your cosigner of their obligations on your current loan
Or, if need be, one that can do all the above.
Basically, refinancing gives you the opportunity to make your current student loan situation better. Sounds like a no-brainer to me.
So how can you refinance your student loans?
My recommendation? A site called Credible. When I first began researching how to refinance my student loan a few years ago, I was pretty lost in terms of the steps I needed to take to refinance, but was referred to Credible. I was told this website would do the work for me; it would search various lenders based on my current loan situation, and that I could choose between those lenders to find the right loan for me.
All I did was visit the site, enter some information about myself and my current loan, and Credible came back with up to 8 different lenders for me to choose from, all with different repayment options and interest rates. To be honest, I don’t think I paid attention to anything other than the Interest Rate of each option, and I ended up choosing the lender that offered me the lowest one.
That lender happened to be a banking/lending company called Laurel Road. I closed out my original loan and Laurel Road took over. The transition was seamless and made easy with the help of Credible and Laurel Road. And once my new loan was initiated, my interest rate dropped from 7.5% to 5.45%. At face value, this change may not seem like much, but it will inevitably save me thousands of dollars over the life of my loan. That’s as good a reason as any to refinance your student loan now. And again, if what you’re looking for is a new loan with a lower monthly payment, Credible might be able to help you find a lender that provides that, too.
All in all, Credible was easy to use, and incredibly helpful. Credible made it easy for me to compare multiple lenders, something that would’ve been much more time consuming and difficult had I done the research myself, lender by lender. Credible is also free, and refinancing my student loans didn’t cost me a penny. And, although Credible needs some personal info of yours to complete its search, it won’t affect your Credit Score.
If you’ve never refinanced your student loans, check out Credible, or a site that offers similar services, or even just a site offering to refinance student loans. Of course it’s best to shop around and find the right loan for you and your situation, but at the very least, refinancing is worth considering.
After all, if refinancing could save you thousands of dollars on your student loans, why not at least try?
The fine print: There are some qualifications you must have to be able to refinance your student loan through Credible. Check out those qualifications here under the question “What do I need in order to qualify?” in the “Commonly Asked Refinancing Questions” section at the bottom of the page to see if you can use Credible to refinance.
If you can’t use Credible, no big deal! It just happens to be what worked for me, but there are many other ways you can refinance your student loans.
Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to help! Refinancing made my student loan a thousand times more manageable and I don’t see why the same can’t happen for you – good luck!
