SoFi Blog

The House approved the Senate’s student loan bill yesterday.  This bill included some significant changes to how interest rates are set on loans made after July 1, 2013.  Here is how it impacts you.

There is a lot of debate going on these days about overhauling student loans.  Here’s a high-level summary of our view:

Earlier this year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) solicited input on how to “stop the student debt domino effect.” Tens of thousands of individuals and organizations responded with their comments and suggestions along with our very own CEO Mike Cagney.

Student loans aren’t fun, and they can be confusing. What frustrates us at SoFi is the dogma in the market that students should always exhaust their federal loan options before considering private loans. This can be very bad advice. While we agree that subsidized Direct and Perkins loans are clear no-brainers for students if you are eligible for them, things get more ambiguous with unsubsidized Direct loans and become down right murky with the egregiously burdensome Grad PLUS loan.

Just last week, we expanded our SoFi ReFi program to more schools across the country, and the response has been huge.  But we’ve been also hearing from a lot students and parents who are looking for better loan options to pay for the upcoming school year. For so many people who don’t qualify for subsidized federal loans, 6.8% is the best rate they’ve been able to find until now. And often, families needing to borrow beyond the Stafford limits have been looking at 7.9% or higher for a substantial portion of their loans.