SoFi Blog

Last Wednesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a report summarizing complaints from 3,800 student loan borrowers. SoFi was not named in these borrower complaints, but as a private lender focused on refinancing existing student loans, we hear a lot about the challenges our customers have faced with their previous lenders.

Recently, there’s been a lot of talk amongst leaders in Washington about how to improve the painful process of repaying student loans. At SoFi, we feel your pain and work hard to offer more flexible, more affordable options for our borrowers. One idea that’s getting a lot of attention is increasing the options for refinancing debt after graduation. The only lender currently focused on refinancing student loans (both private and federal) is SoFi.

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

SoFi continues to make waves in the media this week on public radio and in print. We were thrilled to see top business radio program Marketplace bring much needed attention to important education issues. In this recent story, Amy Scott reports on the challenge of refinancing Federal student loans. While one youth advocacy group is encouraging the government to take action on this issue, SoFi already helps graduates refinance their private and Federal educational debt!

Much has been written about the new income based repayment (IBR) rules the President recently signed into law. Notably, maximum payments on qualifying federal loans are now capped at 10% of disposable income rather than 15% before, and after 20-years, any remaining balances are forgiven, versus 25-years before.