SoFi Blog

Family debt is never easy to tackle, but if a sibling is struggling with a significant amount of student loan debt, it can seem even more overwhelming. Should you help pay off your sibling’s student loans if you are financially secure enough to do it?

When offering money to a family member, it’s important to remember that doing so could change your relationship, even if you are offering to help reduce student loan debt for a sibling.

Due to rapidly advancing technology, today’s college students often face decisions that prior generations would never have needed to consider. This includes the use of social media and its effects, both positive and negative.

As you’ve probably figured out, there are numerous benefits to using social media to discover information, connect with friends and family , job hunt and so much more. But, there are also big buckets of negatives, ranging from wasting time, to false information being posted, cyberbullying and more.

Social media posts and profiles can have an impact, positive or negative, before you’ve even been accepted to your college of choice, and they can also both help and hurt your efforts to get a specific job, or advance in your career.

Tax season has a mixed effect on people. Some people dread it, while others look forward to it. On the one hand, doing taxes is a nuisance and it’s especially painful if you’re paying out of pocket.

On the other hand, it’s exciting to get a tax refund and think about how to put that extra money to use. Sometimes, a tax refund can be even bigger than a bonus or a paycheck, and without the income taxes.

In all, the IRS paid out $324 billion in tax refunds in 2018 . The average federal tax refund was $2,727. That’s a pretty good chunk of change.

If you are expecting a tax refund, it is worth your while to sit down and plan out what you want to do with the money. Otherwise, it might be too easy to spend the money just as fast as you received it.

Earlier today, we announced two new partnerships in the insurance space to include homeowners and renters insurance through Lemonade and auto insurance through Root with SoFi. These partnerships round out our existing insurance offering with Ladder , giving you access to more tools and services to protect your finances.

As with all SoFi products, we want to offer seamless online experiences, easy-to-understand services, and affordable rates.

[Updated 4/19/19 to include our full statement: Like any other investment advisor, we make changes regularly to the composition and allocation of our members’ portfolios in relation to their investment objectives and risk tolerance. SoFi Select 500 and SoFi Next 500 provide comparable access to market segments at far lower expense ratios than those of other funds, as we have waived all management and trading fees. We notified our members in a timely fashion in accordance with regulations, and will continue to address individual member questions.]

SoFi is always searching for innovative ways to help our members get their money right. After some hard work and planning, we are excited to announce the latest addition to our suite of Automated and Active Invest product portfolios—SoFi ETFs (exchange-traded funds).

We constructed these ETFs specifically with SoFi members in mind. They’re intelligently designed, diversified, and appropriate for both beginner investors and those who are well on their way to achieving their investment goals.