More and more families are burdened with paying off student loans: if you are among them, you will certainly know that the costs are substantial, and probably you have more than one loan to deal with. At some point, it becomes difficult to keep pace with all those payments, and your budget might be in trouble. Fortunately, there is a solution, and that is called “refinancing”: you may already hear speaking of it, but unsure it can be the right option for you. Purposely, we will address the subject with the most important things to know, and lastly, we advise you on one of the best places to go for refinancing your student loans.

Quick facts

Lots of Americans today are refinancing their student loans: according to the most recent statistic from Educationdata.org, it takes about 20 years as average for graduates to pay off their student loans, with an estimated debt of $32,731 per loan. According to the general guidelines by financial experts, the ideal timeline for payoff should be of 10 years, and that aligns with the Standard Repayment Plan proposed by federal loans. Previous research made in 2016 from Citizens Financial Group (https://investor.citizensbank.com/) found that 60 percent of a big sample of graduated aged 35 and under expected to be paying off student loans into their 40s.

All these facts suggest that the ability to pay crucial things such as rentals or mortgages is affected, and to have such an extended duration on a student loan will prove to be expensive since the interest rates accrue over more years. This is especially true when multiple student loans are carried: refinancing can be a life-saver because it allows to shorten the duration of the loans and to save big bucks in the long run.

Embarking on a single loan with a shortened term can be a wise decision if your priority is to get rid of the debt faster.

What is refinancing anyway?

The essence and purpose of refinancing student loans are to obtain a unique loan with a single monthly payment schedule, possibly a reduced interest rate, ideally a term that should you eliminate your debt sooner.

Whenever you refinance an obvious goal is to save money, especially in the case you are substituting multiple student loans with each one carrying their own interest rate: having a single rate will be convenient, provided it is significantly lower than the current ones you have.

Saving can be obtained either in the short term or through a cumulative effect over the years: when you decide to take a loan of a shorter duration you will have, of course, higher monthly payments, almost certainly despite the reduction in the interest rate, but the difference should be slight, let’s say under $100, in order to reap the benefit. On the other hand, choosing to delay the loan repayments deadline will lower the monthly installments, but the interest will accrue over more years, adding up to the cost of the loan.

Should you refinance or consolidate student loans?

Before diving into the specifics or refinancing, let’s examine the difference with consolidating. Consolidation of student loans means you are merging more of them into a single loan carrying a modified rate, and this is where the analogy with refinancing ends.

You can consolidate federal student loans only through a specific federal program, but if you also have private student loans they won’t be considered for that program. In this case, a crucial difference is that the rate you will get with a new consolidated loan is the weighed average of the rates you were carrying from the previous loans, so there won’t be necessarily a saving. The edge is just making a unique payment instead of having to deal with multiple accounts with interest on each; besides, there surely won’t be extra fees when you consolidate student loans through a government-backed plan.

Private companies can consolidate both federal and private student loans: they will give you a rate that is advantageous compared to at least most of the ones you have with your current loans (instead of the average). Some lenders may charge the transition to a new loan with fees. Consolidating under these circumstances is actually refinancing.

So, to recap:

• If you have only federal student loans pending and need to consolidate them, it can be done through the Direct Consolidation Loan offered by the government. You will get an averaged rate inferred from the rates applied to every current loan you have, but no fees will be charged.
• If you have a combination of both federal and private student loans or just the latter, you should apply for refinancing, and this can be only done through private student loan lenders, including online providers, also banks, and credit unions. 
• You should get a lower rate than the current ones, but this will depend on your credit score, as will be discussed later. Some lenders may charge an origination fee for refinancing.

Is refinancing a good move?

Many times this question arises: there is no absolute answer since it depends on your financial situation and preferences. If you need to refinance, it is likely that you either want the comfort of a unique monthly payment, while possibly saving, or you seek to get out of debt sooner.

Basically, you have to figure out if refinancing will make you save: not always is possible to save substantially, because the offered rate may be higher than one of the student loans you are trying to refinance. Are you willing to sacrifice it for the sake of simplifying your paying schedule? As mentioned, you might find lenders applying fees for refinancing, which make it expensive in the short term: can you afford those costs, and are they worth in proportion to the benefits? Doing the math is crucial in these cases, and a student loan calculator will do the trick: comparing two student loans and accounting for the fees, you will discover how the monthly payments differ, and this will be of help for your choice.

In another instance, you want to narrow down the term of your student loans: this is a viable route only if you can actually afford the increased monthly payments, without having to compromise too much your budget. A reduced rate on your refinanced loan will partially compensate that increase, so again, it is a mathematical matter.

Some people strive to keep up with the volatility of interest because they chose variable rates for the loans which they currently have: refinancing with a fixed rate will just simplify their life, because they can predict their payments and create a budget more accurately, instead of being at the mercy of market fluctuations.

If you recognize yourself in any of these circumstances, you will only have to find the solution that best fits your priorities, balancing the pros and cons, while doing some math.

Will you save from refinancing?

Let’s put aside the multiple student loans hypothesis, and consider you have currently just one loan you want to refinance, for the sake of simplicity. Assume you embarked on a $28,000 student loan with a 10-year term, and your current APR (annual percentage rate) is 6.79% fixed. Then, you found a lender who could refinance your loan at 4.95% under a 7-year loan term.

Your monthly payment for the current loan would be $322, with a total of $10.649.76 interest paid over those 10 years.

• If you accept the lender’s offer, your repayment will be $395 monthly, with a total interest of $5,187.72, spent in 7 years.

You clearly see that in face of $73 added monthly, you would pay off your debt 3 years in advance, and save more than $5,500 in interest. This is an ideal scenario in which refinancing is generally convenient.

If the lender sets an origination fee, which may be around 1% of the refinanced loan, you would have to leave on the table $2,800: being the case, refinancing would turn disadvantageous, at least in the short term.

Pros of student loans refinancing

If you were thinking to refinance your student loans right now, have a look at the listing below, where we summarize the benefits. All the following are “if”: a refinancing deal must have one or more of these features to be beneficial.