Refinancing school loans

[shakinros]

DH still has a lot of school loans. We're making good progress and I think we'll be done with them in 2020. His most sizable remaining loan, by far, is with Navient. Or actually, 3 separate loans that add up to a large number.

I hate Navient. They're a terrible company that's been investigated several times for bad practices and I would be super happy if we could make our payments to pretty much anyone else.

Is this a thing? Are there loans we could get to pay off the student loan? I know we'd just be moving the debt around, but it might be worth it to me.

[chrispy1122]

I refinanced through SoFi. I remember looking at the potential risks when I did it, but don't really remember then anymore. I think there might be less flexibility than the federal loan programs (flexibility, deferment, etc). I'm was able to reduce my interest rate by more than 2% so it was an easy decision for me since I could pay off my student loan a couple years earlier by paying the same payment.

You should check out SoFi or I think there are other similar sites that help you find private lenders. It's free to run the numbers but they do pull your credit report.

[beepers]

I also refinanced from Navient to SoFi. My interest rate went way down and so did my monthly payment. I'm still paying the same I did each month on Navient though so I can pay it down even faster!

Edit: DRB is another large bank that refinances student loans but their interest rate offer wasn't a slow as SOFI for me.

[callmeKD]

Huh. I might have to look into this. My federal loan interest rate with navient is 2.25%. But my private loans are at 4-6%.

[beachbum]

Navient is the worst! I may also look into SoFi. I think I have interest rates over 6% on several large loans through Navient. Womp womp.

[judyblume14]

Navient does suck. I had a student loan with a 6.8% interest rate that I paid off in a big chunk when I got a bonus last year or the year before. I have another consolidated loan with them, but the interest rate is only 1.65%. I'm not sure I could get a lower rate elsewhere.

[twinmomma]

Clearly DH is getting screwed on his loans. Most of his have interest rates of 6-10%.

Maybe I need to investigate this SoFi company. We're about to embark on paying down everything via "debt snowball" so lower payments that we could pay extra on would be amazing.

[chrispy1122]

So it turns out the company I actually used was Credible, which is the same type of company as SoFi. They give you loan offers from various banks and you choose which one you go with. It was pretty easy to apply. Also, I must be losing my mind.

[Deleted]

Hi - I mostly play on J15 and D17. I've refinanced my loans 3 different times to get lower rates - first with DRB, then with SoFi, and then with First Republic. I was able to take my loans from 8.5% to under 3% fixed. I do still have a Navient loan too, because it is under 2% and I'm not getting a better rate anywhere else.

The cons with refinancing, if it is a federal loan, are that you lose the "special" federal student loan perks, like income-based repayment, deferment, etc. Another thing to consider is that some of the private re-financing loans will also not discharge in the event of your death, so you would want to make sure to accommodate for that in your estate planning so that you have enough in life insurance to compensate for the corresponding claim against your estate. You'll want to read the loan terms carefully to weigh the risks-benefits.

For us, it was well worth it to lose those benefits to re-fi because our loan balances were (and still are) pretty high, but we actually get to make progress now. We both work in private industry as opposed to non-profit, so we didn't qualify for loan forgiveness or income-based repayment anyhow.

I thought DRB was a pain to refinance with as they didn't seem to have their shit together, but given that they had a significantly better rate than anyone else offered me at the time, it was worth the hassle. I had very good experiences with SoFi and First Republic.

[pengy86]

I don't like Navient (previously Sallie Mae) either. When we bought our first house they tried to screw me over in order to get any estimate on my monthly payments since I was still in deferment. They told the mortgage lender the only way they could give any estimate was by me foregoing my deferment and put it in repayment immediately. So the lender told me, he couldn't get me a mortgage. However they had a monthly payment calculator on their site that another lender was more then willing to use without me having to put it in repayment on the spot (so jokes on you Navient!).
I did refinance my federal loans as soon as I could with dept of education. The only downside as that they sold my new loan back to Navient a year later, so I am still stuck with them.
I refinanced my private loans with sofi last year. My private loans with Navient were around 9.5-10% interest rate and sofi got me an interest rate around 5%. The only downside is that I chose the variable interest rate (same as Navient but because it was at the max, my rate never changed so my payment didnt really change) and I have watched my payment increase $10 over the past year because they change the rate monthly. My payment is still $120 less a month over Navient. So my only recommendation is to do the fixed rate. The fixed rate for sofi was 3% higher than the variable so it didnt make sense for me to go for their fixed rate as it only made a difference of $20 a month.

[kbw12]

I have 2 servicers Nanvient being one. I looked into SoFi but his past year but didn't qualify on my own due to the amount I still owe vs income. I wasn't comfortable asking someone to consign with me.

[shakinros]

DH just went through the SoFi initial process and it came out with a rate only 0.125 less than we have now. Boo. He has private loans at 6% with Navient currently.

We will try to other recs too and check out Credible.

Also you're all invited to the Hate-on-Navient party I'll be throwing when we refi these loans somewhere else.