Best Student Loans Company in 2023 -2024 : While student loans should be your last source of paying for college, in reality, a lot of you are probably trying to figure out, okay, we have to pay the bill. Yes, we’re still working on some strategies, but in the meantime, where do we get this money? Now I want to make sure I cover student loans so that if your family does have to borrow, you know what you’re signing up for. So in today’s video, I’ll be talking all about private student loans, the best ones that are out there for this year because it does pay to shop around. Not all of them are created equal. So this is extremely important if your family is looking to borrow some money. Now make sure you hit subscribe, because even if your student has to borrow for this year, it doesn’t mean that they have to borrow every year after. You can continue implementing strategies that we teach every single week here on YouTube and through the scholarship system, Debt Free Degree Lab to help them work towards a debt free degree to replace those loans with debt free money. So that said, again, make sure you hit subscribe.
Hey there, my name is Jocelyn Pierson, founder of the Scholarship System where we redefine paying for college and teach families how to build strong financial futures rather than ones that are buried in debt. So of course, we want to help your family avoid student loans, but realistically, we need to make sure that if you are borrowing money, you know what you’re signing up for. And this is extremely important for parents, because if you are cosigning this, which you most likely will have to with private loans, you are just as much on the hook as your student is. Now, okay, before I get into student loans, let’s talk about just a few of the other ways that I want to make sure you’ve considered. One of the biggest things is scholarships. Students can continue applying for these all throughout college. So even if you have to borrow, we want to make sure we pursue those. I’m not going to spend much time on this, but I do want to let you know I have a free training where I cover my six steps to securing scholarships quickly so that we can hopefully avoid student loan debt or replace it.
You can learn more about the training somewhere here on the screen. Also, you can find the link in the description or you can go to the sharoplace.com/freetraining. Now let’s talk about private student loans, what they are, and then I’ll get into my favorite ones. So a favorite is a generous term. But when it comes to private student loans versus federal loans, federal loans you can only access through the government. I have an entire playlist about federal loans, so if you have any questions about that, make sure you check it out. In most cases, you want to maximize federal money before you even touch private money, okay? So if you have not learned about subsidized and unsubsidized student loans, you need to check out that playlist first. Now, because these loans are from private companies, their terms and conditions have nothing to do with the government, obviously within the laws, but they can have different terms, different qualifications, different interest rates, different payment agreements, all these different things that we want to consider. Now, a lot of them will allow you to borrow more than, say, just the standard tuition and room and board, the basic bill.
But that also means that this can be a slippery slope. They want you to borrow the most money possible, and so they’re going to approve it. So you want to make sure that you’re really considering what your family needs when it comes to the amount that you decide to borrow. Now, like I mentioned, personal loans will most likely require a cosigner. I have an entire video all about cosining student loans, so we’ll link to that in the description as well or somewhere here on the screen. Now, before I get into my lenders, I do want to just give you a quick bullet point list of things you want to consider when you are shopping around. One of the things can be annual percentage rates, so APR. This is something that you’ll see, the interest rates. We all know that in the most recent years and even months, those have changed a lot, so we do want to look around. The required credit score. If your family has high credit versus low credit, those will factor into your decision. Enrollment eligibility. Will your student meet their criteria? Co-sign or release. Can you get off of the student loan if they make X amount of payments after X amount of time?
Or are you on the hook aslong as they have that out there? Options for the length of the loan. Are they flexible or is it always five years? Is it always 10 years? What’s that term for the agreement? Any fees that they include? And then lastly, refinancing. Is that an option down the road, especially with interest rates rising recently? Now, if you go to the scholarship system. Com/lenders, that is where I keep a list of my favorite lenders or the lenders that I found have the best terms, and we do keep that updated. So if you go to that link, we’ll put it in the description, you can see our blog post with the list. But let’s go ahead and discuss them. So first, I want to talk about Ernest. So Ernest has been probably one of my favorites. We’ve worked with them to see how responsive they are. And I’ve been impressed with how responsive they are. That’s one of the things that I do like about this company. At the time of recording this, their interest rates are anywhere from 4.4 up to almost 16 %. So like I mentioned, that credit score can really make a difference.
They do have a minimum of a 650 credit score, but they don’t have a maximum for student loan amount, which, like I mentioned, could be a bad thing. They do have a minimum amount, though, of a thousand dollars. Now, one bonus with Ernest is that they do have a variety of payback terms. So all different kinds of years, which can fluctuate what your student will have to pay per month, and of course, how many years they’ll pay over, and of course, the longer how much interest they’ll pay in the end. Now, the second one is Sally May, and we’ve actually worked with them a little bit as well, and they seem to be, I would say, a common one that our families end up going with based on the terms. Now, their fixed APR is anywhere from four and a half % to 15 and a half %. Remember that that interest rate does determine how much your student will pay over the life of the loan. So this is important. And it can vary between the time that I’m saying this to the time you apply. So you always want to make sure you know what you’re signing when it comes down to it.
They also require a credit score around the mid 600s, and they will cover up to 100 % of any school certified expenses. So they won’t let a student just go crazy, borrowing anything. They have to justify the expenses. Now, one good thing here is that they have no origination fee and no prepayment penalty, which means that if your student pays off the student loan early, then they don’t have to pay an extra fee. I also, going back to Ernest, I’m pretty certain that I made sure that they allow that as well, but you always want to make sure. Okay, another lender that we’ve been impressed with is LendKey, and they’re between four and ahalf % or 4.39 and 11.11. They’ll loan for the cost of attendance, which is determined by the universities. And they do have one of the bonuses as a forbearance period of 18 months, which is longer than many of the student loan companies. Now, what forbearance means is a flexibility. So if your student is having trouble making payments, maybe they didn’t get a job right out of college and they need some flexibility, then that’s what this is referring to.
Now, the last lender that we share on our lenders list is a cent. They are also four and a half % up to 15 and a half %, so pretty similar to the others. They do maximize borrowing at 200,000, though that should help for or should cover the degree, especially an undergraduate degree. And if you are looking at having to borrow more than that for an undergraduate degree, please, please start watching the rest of our videos and hit subscribe, okay? Now, one bonus with this is if a student is not a US citizen or a permanent resident, or if they are of the dreamers, they are actually eligible to borrow from Ascent. Now, lastly, don’t forget to try and look at local credit unions or your local bank. They may be able to offer more favorable terms. They might have more flexibility. They might be able to meet something that you’ve been offered. Don’t just go to one source. Try to shop around and see what’s the best. You’re literally signing up for five, 10, even longer years in payments for your student. And so this should warrant enough researching just like you would do with a mortgage on a home.
Now, comment below. Have you looked into any of the companies that I mentioned? If you’ve looked into other ones, feel free to comment below and we can let you know if we know anything about them. And again, if you want to try to avoid student loans or if you’re watching this and the bill is due soon, know that there are still options out there. So again, make sure you hit subscribe. Every week we have a new strategy on this. But also make sure you attend that free training about scholarships that I have because literally students can apply all the way until they’re graduating from college. And in fact, I cashed my last check on scholarships all my way home from college graduation. So this is something that we want to push our students to do. They have a hard time understanding the long term consequences of borrowing this money. It’s easier to sign the dotted line, but it’s not easier in the long run. So it’s again, never too late to get out of having to borrow. Don’t think that if we have to borrow the first year, we have to borrow for all four years.
That is not the case. And we’ve seen many, many families find us after they’ve had to borrow some money and get it to where they no longer do for the remaining years. And again, if you want to learn more about student loans, including about federal loans, for example, you can check out our student loan playlist. We will also link to that in the description along with all of the other resources that I’ve mentioned. And you can also, if you want to see the list of our lenders, you can go to the sharoplace.com /lenders.
