Refinance to shorten or extend the term of your loan
‣ Depending on what type of loan you have, (in most cases it’s a federal loan) you may have the option to extend or shorten the term of the loan. According to the consumerfinance.gov website, the typical repayment time is generally 120 months (10 years). If you would like the pay off your student loan in a quicker amount of time, refinancing is a good option to help shrink the 120-month option to something a little smaller such as a 5-year loan. On the other side of the spectrum, you may have the option to extend the length of your loan. Some of our lending partners allow for you to extend the term of your loan up to 25 years. This will allow you more time to pay off the loan, the possibility of a lower interest rate, and a lower overall monthly payment throughout the loan term.
Refinance to get a lower interest rate
‣ One of the most common reasons that people will refinance their student loans is to get a new, lower interest rate. Some of our lending partners have interest rates starting in the mid 2% range, which can be huge overall savings if you qualify for that rate. The main takeaway from this is that with the lower interest rate, you can potentially save tens or even tens of thousands of dollars depending on the starting debt amount. Take a close look at what your current rate is and compare it with our refinancing lenders to see have they stack up.
Refinance to lower your monthly payment
‣ Another super common reason that people look into refinancing is to see about lowering their payment. Many of the lending partners on this site offer the user the ability to take a loan out from as little as 5 years and in some cases allow you to take them out for up to 25 years. Generally, the longer the loan, the lower your monthly payment may be, whereas the shorter your loan is, the higher the monthly payment will be. This also ties into the previous point regarding refinancing to shorten or extend the term of your loan we discussed earlier.
Refinance from an adjustable-rate to a fixed-rate loan
‣ A not so common reason that people may choose to refinance their student loans is to see about switching their loan from an adjustable-rate (also known as variable-rate) to a fixed-rate loan, or vice vera. Through refinancing, you may have the option to change your loan from a variable-rate, which could have a fluctuation in rates with how the economy is doing, to a finite fixed-rate loan, where the APR stays the same. On the other side of the spectrum, if you have a super high fixed-rate loan, you may want to look into getting a variable-rate loan, as you could potentially see savings if the variable rate drops below that of the fixed-rate loan. Plug in your desired rate into our student loan calculator and see how much you may save just by getting a lower interest rate.
Refinance to remove a co-signer from your loan
‣ If you are ready to take over your loan for yourself, you can generally refinance to remove a co-signer from the loan. Many of our lending partners offer what is known as a co-signer “release” which allows for you to drop your co-signer after a certain number of specified months. If your current student loan is using a co-signer and they want out or if you are ready to take sole responsibility for paying off the loan, then refinancing may be an option to not only help remove your co-signer but also could save you some money in the process with a lower interest rate.