Student Loan Interest Out of Control? Try Refinancing!

Though I usually post about all things ed tech, I thought I'd share something that was super helpful to me recently, refinancing my student loan. I've been thinking about refinancing my student loan for a year now. My interest rate was just eating up so much of my payments.

I decided to really spend some time this summer researching some of the different companies and banks that I could refinance with. I spent time reading websites to see what the pros and cons of many of these companies were as well.

If you are going to refinance, you'll want to make sure first that your loan is not one that might qualify for loan forgiveness. You will lose your loan forgiveness benefits by switching. Mine did not qualify. You also could lose the right to defer your loan payments by switching, but I know I'm not interested in deferring them. I just want to get these things paid off!

Some of the refinancing companies I researched included Sofi, Earnest, Common Bond, LendKey, and Capital One, to name a few. I mentioned that I researched for a while, didn't I?

Many of them let you plug in your information and see what rates you will qualify for without a hard credit pull. I found the best rates through the company Earnest. I also found really positive reviews about Earnest online and read that many others were getting the best rates through Earnest as well. If you want to check it out, go to this link. If you do end up signing up, you can get $200 automatically by using my link! I was a little uncertain if this would work, but I used someone else's link and within 5 days of signing up for Earnest, $200 was in my bank account! As you refer others, you can continue to make that amount, so it's a pretty great setup! Every little bit helps when it comes to student loans, right?

The whole process was really incredibly simple. I got to choose on a sliding scale how many years/what amount I wanted to pay off the loan. I entered my information from my current student loan company, and then I just hit Submit. Within just a few days, I was approved. From there I was told it can take a few days for the payment to show up on your old student loan and be transferred to your new Earnest account.

I really couldn't believe how easy it was! I will be paying less per month and less interest overall (thousands less in interest!) than if I had just left my loans with my current loan company. I highly recommend checking out Earnest, and any of the others mentioned above, if you are looking to save money on your student loan interest. Please leave me a comment if you decide to go with Earnest too!