SoFi Blog

Got student loans? We’ve got you covered with our Student Loan Smarts blog series. Our expert tips and hacks will help you save money, pay off loans sooner and stress less about student loan debt. Read the other posts in the series here—and get all the info you need to make intelligent decisions about your student loans. And while you’re at it, check out SoFi’s new Student Loan Debt Navigator tool to assess your student loan repayment options.

Student loans have a way of making you feel powerless. But the truth is, you have more control than you think. That’s what our Student Loan Smarts series is all about—helping you understand all of your options so you can make decisions that fit with your financial goals.

One of those options? Choosing to consolidate or refinance student loans. But what is consolidation, what is refinancing, and how do you know which one (if either) is right for you?

SoFi has been out on the road these past few weeks, visiting universities around the country and spending time with student loan borrowers.  We wanted to learn more about these soon-to-be graduates and their challenges with education debt, so that we can better serve them with our products.

One thing we discovered is that they wanted to learn a lot more about us, too.  Here were some of the most frequently asked questions – and answers – from our spring tour.

There are a lot of factors to take into account when choosing a student loan – differing interest rates, private vs. public, the pros and cons of working with various lenders.  Among those choices, we at SoFi have found one of the things that trips up borrowers the most is the choice between fixed rate and variable rate (also known as floating rate) loans.