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As a nation Americans are facing more student loan debt than ever before; the total debt is now around $1.5 trillion . According to the Pew Research Center , about four in 10 American adults hold student loans.

While the amount each individual holds varies greatly, on average those graduating from a four-year college have approximately $30,731 in student loan debt . If you have a graduate degree, that total could be even higher. Approximately 40% of all student loan debt is held by graduate students, which adds up to nearly $563 billion .

When crafting a plan to repay your student loans, it’s beneficial to start by making a budget. Outline all of your expenses, student loans, and any other debts you may have.

Then, tally up all of your income and investments. After cataloging all of that information, take a good look at your spending habits and see where you would be able to make any changes.

When you’re establishing your new budget, try to set aside extra funds to put toward paying off your student loans. And remember that student loans do not penalize you for prepaying on the loan.

What You Should Know About Interest Rates on Your Loans

Interest rates on federal student loans are set by Congress based on the 10-year treasury note. This means every borrower taking out a certain type of federal student loan, in a given year, will pay the same interest rate. These interest rates are fixed for the life of the loan.

Federal student loans also come with some limitations and are regulated by the Department of Education . For undergraduate students, the current aggregate (combined) limit of federal student loans as a dependent is $31,000; and no more than $23,000 of this amount may be in subsidized loans.

As an independent undergraduate student, your aggregate loan limit is $57,500; and no more than $23,000 of this amount may be in subsidized loans. As a graduate student, the aggregate limit for federal student loans is $138,500 for graduate or professional students; and no more than $65,500 of this amount may be in subsidized loans.

The graduate aggregate limit includes all federal loans received for undergraduate study. If the plan of study you’ve chosen requires you to exceed those limits, you may have to consider taking out a private student loan.

These loans come with different interest rates and payment plans. You can learn more about the difference between federal and private student loans at the Federal Student Aid website.

If you’re not sure what your monthly payments will be, you can check out our student loan calculator to get an idea of what your loan payments could look like.

Here are three methods to consider if you’re ready to get serious about paying off your student loan debt.

The Debt Stacking Method

Take a look at your student loans and the interest rates you’re paying. The debt avalanche method, also known as debt stacking, focuses on repaying the debts with the highest interest rates first. In regard to student loans, that means if you have a federal graduate loan with a 6.6% interest rate, plus an undergraduate loan with a rate of 5.05%, you would prioritize paying off the graduate loan first, since it has the higher interest rate.

As you make your minimum monthly payments on all of your loans, you’ll also be paying a little extra toward the loan with the highest interest rate. When that loan is paid off, you’ll redirect those funds to the debt with the next highest interest rate. Continue using this rollover method until all of your debts are paid off.

If you are disciplined and organized when it comes to repaying your debts, the avalanche method could work well for you. Using the avalanche method of debt repayment will likely reduce the amount of money you pay in interest.

The Snowball Method

Another option for debt repayment is the snowball method, which disregards interest rates. With this method, after making the minimum payments on your loans every month, you will focus on the additional funds you have budgeted toward paying off the loan with the lowest balance.

When you have paid off this debt in full, you then roll what you were paying on those monthly payments into the debt with the next lowest balance. You continue to do this until all of your debts are paid off.

One of the benefits of this debt payoff strategy are the early rewards of paying off your smallest loans first. This helps keep you engaged in continuing your repayment plan.

If you feel overwhelmed by the amount of student loans you have to pay off, the snowball method could work for you. Often times when paying off debt, it can be discouraging if you don’t see immediate progress.

The snowball strategy works to encourage you to continue paying off your debts by establishing more frequent rewards. When you pay off that first loan, the sense of accomplishment you feel is enough to keep you committed to your repayment plan and financial goals.

Refinancing Your Student Loans

Another option to consider while you are setting your student loan repayment strategy is refinancing your student loans. Before you do, it’s important to understand that if you have federal student loans, certain benefits like deferment, forbearance, or the option for a Direct Consolidation Loan will be eliminated if you refinance with a private lender.

Refinancing allows you to take out a brand-new loan, with a new interest rate, and new loan terms. Often times, if you have good credit and income, you can lower your interest rate or potentially reduce your monthly payments depending on the loan term.

Another plus to refinancing your loans—instead of managing a number of monthly payments with different interest rates, you only have to worry about one monthly payment with one interest rate. To see how your payments and interest rate could change when you refinance, take a look at SoFi’s student loan refinancing calculator.

SoFi Student Loan Refinance
SoFi Student Loans are originated by SoFi Bank, N.A. Member FDIC. NMLS #696891. (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org). SoFi Student Loan Refinance Loans are private loans and do not have the same repayment options that the federal loan program offers, or may become available, such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness, Income-Based Repayment, Income-Contingent Repayment, PAYE or SAVE. Additional terms and conditions apply. Lowest rates reserved for the most creditworthy borrowers. For additional product-specific legal and licensing information, see SoFi.com/legal.

Do you love volunteering, but feel held back by your student loans? Maybe you’ve taken on a new side gig to help manage your student debt payment, and now there’s just not enough time in the day. If this sounds like you, there’s good news—you could potentially help pay off your student loans by volunteering!

There are a number of organizations that will let you volunteer to pay off student loans. From teaching in an underserved area to helping out a local non-profit in need, you may be able to get cash to put towards your student loans while making the world a better place. That’s not just a great way to multitask, but it’s also a fun way to pay off your loans. Who doesn’t love helping people?

On top of that, it’s a fabulous way to gain work experience that can boost your resume and help you stand out in your post-graduation job search and beyond.

Many employers love to see volunteer work and many of the types of positions that help you repay your loans require you to take initiative and be a leader which will help you grow professionally.

Here are some ways to volunteer and possibly pay down your student loans:

AmeriCorps

AmeriCorps is a government initiative that has been around since 1965. Its goal is to help young people take on service positions where they’re able to learn important work skills, help local communities, and earn money towards their education or student loans.

In order to qualify, you need to be at least 17 years old. If you want to participate in the AmeriCorps VISTA program , you need to be 18 or older.

Participants in the program may qualify to have their qualified student loans put into forbearance while they’re working. After 12 months of full-time volunteering, you qualify for a Segal AmeriCorps Education
Award , which can be used to “pay educational expenses at eligible post-secondary institutions,” according to the program.

Those who volunteer for the VISTA program can get a cash stipend instead . While volunteering with the program, you will also get a living allowance and health benefits.

If you volunteer to pay off qualified federal student loans via the AmeriCorps program, your time in the program also counts towards the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF).

Shared Harvest Fund

The Shared Harvest Fund has a goal to help repay $20 million in student debt by 2020. The organization was started by three physicians with the goal of reducing graduates’ student loan stress.

Each time you volunteer to reduce student loans with the Shared Harvest Fund, you earn Stipend Coins which you can cash in with your student loan lender. You can earn up to $1,000 per project.

To get started, simply log into their website and find a cause or a project that interests you. You’ll be able to refine your work skills while doing good in your community.

Some examples of organizations that they work with include UnCommon Law , which helps adults and children who are struggling within the criminal justice system, and the Elgin Foundation , which helps kids in rural Appalachia with dental care and literacy programs.

Peace Corps

The Peace Corps is a government-run program that was founded in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. The program allows you to pay off student loans by volunteering around the world at a grassroots level. You gain work experience and become a global citizen while earning money that can help you repay your student debt.

The program is open to anyone over the age of 18, and while you are an active Peace Corps volunteer, you may qualify for deferment or forbearance on your federal student loans.

As a volunteer with student loans , you may also qualify for income-driven repayment. Since Peace Corps volunteers earn fairly low salaries, your payments could be as low as $0. If you hold a Perkins Loan, you could qualify for 15% to 70% forgiveness.

If you have a federal Direct Loan, you could qualify for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness. It’s important to thoroughly review the details of PSLF —for those who qualify, it could dramatically reduce the amount of time you spend repaying your student loans. Full-time AmeriCorps and Peace Corps volunteers can qualify for PSLF, but it requires 120 qualifying monthly payments made on an income-based repayment plan.

National Health Service Corps

If you’re a medical professional such as a doctor, dentist, or behavioral health professional, another way to pay off student loans by volunteering is via the National Health Service Corps .

You can get part of your student loans forgiven if you volunteer to work in an underserved area through the National Health Service Corps. The program helps ensure that those in impoverished, underserved, or remote areas have access to quality health care.

In addition to getting a regular paycheck from working in those areas, you’ll also get up to $50,000 to repay your student loans if you commit to working for two years, full-time, in one of those underserved areas. Also, it is not treated as income in the same way that other forms of student loan forgiveness are, so you won’t be taxed on it.

Not Able to Volunteer to Repay Your Loans?

Unfortunately, not everyone is able to volunteer to pay off student loans. It’s also important to consider whether it makes sense to volunteer to help reduce some of your student loans. For example, if you’re a doctor, you might have a much lower income working in a remote area and miss out on far more than just $50,000 worth of billings during those two years.

That money wouldn’t just give you more cash to repay your loans yourself, but it would also help you build an income that could have a long-term impact on your annual earnings. As with most things, volunteering as a way to repay your student loans has an opportunity cost.

Similarly, when you look at the volunteer opportunities available, you might want to look at how much you’re ‘earning’ for each hour you volunteer.

You might be better off getting a side hustle if you’re only looking to repay your student loans quickly.

If you don’t qualify to volunteer or are looking for an alternative to reducing your student loan debt burden, you could consider refinancing. When you refinance your student loans you could potentially qualify for a lower interest rate, which might cost you less in interest over the life of the loan, depending on the new term you choose. If you qualify to refinance with SoFi, there are no origination fees. You’ll be able to select a new term length and choose between a fixed or variable rate loan.

If you’re looking to simplify your repayment plan, refinancing could be great for you since you’ll only have to worry about one monthly payment. However, refinancing your student loans with a private lender means you’ll forfeit your access to federal student loan benefits.

For those interested in refinancing with SoFi, we offer member benefits like Career Coaching. To see how refinancing could impact your student loans, take a look at SoFi’s easy-to-use student loan refinance calculator.

SoFi Student Loan Refinance
SoFi Student Loans are originated by SoFi Bank, N.A. Member FDIC. NMLS #696891. (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org). SoFi Student Loan Refinance Loans are private loans and do not have the same repayment options that the federal loan program offers, or may become available, such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness, Income-Based Repayment, Income-Contingent Repayment, PAYE or SAVE. Additional terms and conditions apply. Lowest rates reserved for the most creditworthy borrowers. For additional product-specific legal and licensing information, see SoFi.com/legal.

The weather’s heating up, kids are out of school, and you’re thinking about how to spend the next three months until you begin business school. Perhaps you’re sweating at your day job, trying to decide when to give notice, or poring over spreadsheets, stressing about how to pay for graduate school in the fall. You might have plans to travel, intern, or volunteer.

The reality is, there’s no wrong way to get ready for business school. However, there are a few things you could consider and prepare before packing up to head to school in the fall.

Finding an Internship

Nearly half of all incoming business school students say they’re considering changing career paths. If you’re switching career tracks before starting your MBA, a pre-MBA internship might be ideal for you.

A pre-MBA internship is typically a four-to-six-week concentrated internship focused in fields like marketing, venture capital, private equity, or consulting.

An internship could mean getting ahead of your classmates in real life experience, but it also comes with a caveat. These internships might offer pay, however some of them don’t offer a salary . If you’re looking to make some extra dough before tuition bills in the fall, it might be smart to sit tight in your current job.

On the other hand, if you want a leg up and some professional experience in a field you haven’t worked in yet, a pre-MBA internship could provide some direction as to where you want to take your business school degree.

Sharpening Your Skills

Maybe you’re taking a few months off traveling, relaxing, or volunteering before starting your MBA. You can expect school to be rigorous in the fall, and with an internship likely next summer, this might be your only downtime for a while. Taking time off just might be the ticket for you.

However, while you’re chilling poolside or lugging a backpack across Europe, you might want to dedicate a little time to resharpening some skills before school starts. You could take some books along to prep for the first year—you can anticipate a lot of reading in the fall .

While you’re at it, you could grab a few math books or consider an online class to brush up on your quantitative skills . Your fall course load is filled with core curriculum, and if you think your math skills are rusty, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start reading those textbooks early.

While you’re reading and relaxing, it wouldn’t hurt to squeeze in some networking. Business school is all about connections, and starting to cultivate a network through professional and personal contacts the summer before starting your MBA might be a great way to get ahead.

Quitting Your Job

You might be spending the summer working and possibly sweating about when to give your notice. You might be planning to work through the summer, but you could let your employer know as soon as you can about your plan for departure. Most career experts agree, giving ample notice about your decision to attend business school in the fall gives you a solid exit strategy.

While you’re letting your employer know you’re campus-bound in the fall, the notice doesn’t have to be the traditional two weeks. Instead, you could work with your manager or boss to create a more leisurely exit plan—perhaps lining up a replacement in the process. Since you quit for an MBA, as opposed to leaving for a competitor, there’s no reason your relationship with your current team should end on a negative note.

Banking a couple paychecks could potentially help with grad school expenses, but you might want to allow yourself time to prepare for school in the fall as well. Consider your timeline for relocation, preparation, and maybe a little time to unwind.

Considering the Essentials

No matter what you end up doing the summer before business school, you might want to take time to address how you will pay for your MBA.

Business MBAs can be some of the most expensive programs out there—the average business school student in America graduates with around $70,000 in debt.

Summer could be an opportunity to make some money for savings before starting school, but it’s also a time to review your payment plan. Will you go for federal loans, apply for grants, or take out private student loans?

On top of moving, orientation, and beginning your studies, you may want to take time before the semester starts to familiarize yourself with graduate school loans. While you’ve been through it before during undergrad, taking out loans for graduate school might be a totally different animal in terms of, for example, what financial aid you qualify for and how much you have to take out.

Don’t Take a Break on Your Finances During Summer Break

The summer before business school can be a time of relaxation, learning, preparation, or working—there’s no wrong way to spend it. No matter what you do, you might want to take time to consider and understand how you’re paying for your MBA.

That might mean research on refinancing your undergraduate student loans once you’re done with graduate school. Once you finish b-school and secure a great job, refinancing your grad school loans could be a way to potentially get you a lower interest rate or more favorable loan terms.

Keep in mind that refinancing your federal student loans means losing out on federal loan benefits, like income-driven repayment plans and deferment. So, for example, if you have federal loans from undergrad, and are hoping to defer them while getting your MBA, now might not be the right time to refinance.

However, you may consider refinancing those undergrad loans with your graduate school loans once you finish business school. (That way you’ll only have to worry about paying one loan off, instead of multiple.)

External Websites: The information and analysis provided through hyperlinks to third-party websites, while believed to be accurate, cannot be guaranteed by SoFi. Links are provided for informational purposes and should not be viewed as an endorsement.

SoFi Student Loan Refinance
SoFi Student Loans are originated by SoFi Bank, N.A. Member FDIC. NMLS #696891. (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org). SoFi Student Loan Refinance Loans are private loans and do not have the same repayment options that the federal loan program offers, or may become available, such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness, Income-Based Repayment, Income-Contingent Repayment, PAYE or SAVE. Additional terms and conditions apply. Lowest rates reserved for the most creditworthy borrowers. For additional product-specific legal and licensing information, see SoFi.com/legal.

Like getting a case of the Mondays—but with much higher stakes—the specter of looming student loan debt can be a real buzz kill. As a result, you may be wondering whether it makes sense to start paying off that debt while you’re still in school. Here’s a look at whether it’s possible to pay off loans early and the pros and cons of doing so.

Prepaying Student Loans

You can prepay federal loans and some private student loans without facing penalties. That means that you can direct money toward paying down the principal of your loan at any time, likely without facing extra fees.

Federal student loans typically become due when you graduate after a grace period of six months. This grace period can be extended to three and a half years for active duty military members.

The Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students doesn’t have a grace period and the Perkins loan grace period might vary from school to school.

Private loans might also have a grace period, though these vary depending on the terms and conditions of your loan. You may choose to get a head start on paying off your debt and start making loans payments before you graduate.

Beyond gaining some peace of mind, prepayment may have other benefits. As you pay down your principal you’ll be reducing the amount of money you owe in future interest payments, saving you money over the life of the loan.

Some loans may accrue interest while you’re in school, and these are worth targeting first. Prioritize paying down loans with the highest interest rates. As you pay these off, focus on the next highest rate.

Direct Subsidized Loans do not accrue interest while you’re in school at least half-time. If you pay down the balance while you’re in school, you’ll only be paying off the amount borrowed, essentially securing an interest-free loan for yourself.

Contact your lender when you want to make a prepayment. When you do, include a note that you want the prepayment to go toward paying off the principal of your loan. Otherwise, your lender may treat your payments as though you’re paying your first installment.

But here’s the good news: Federal student loans and private student loans don’t come with prepayment penalties . So you can proceed with paying off your student loans early without incurring prepayment penalty fees.

Other Ways to Manage Your Debt

If your cooktop ramen budget leaves you with little room to prepay your college loans, don’t despair. There are other ways you can make your loans more manageable.

If you carry federal student loans, one option is student loan consolidation, which allows you to bundle your loans through the Direct Consolidation program. This strategy may leave you with a lower rate on your new loan.

The government sets your new rate as a weighted average of all your current loans’ interest rates. So, in some cases, your new rate may actually be higher than your previous lowest rate.

Direct Consolidation loans may qualify you for student loan forgiveness or income-based repayment plans. This can be particularly useful if you plan on going into a field that qualifies for student loan forgiveness such as jobs in the government or some nonprofit sectors.

One note, however: Federal student loan consolidation lets you consolidate federal loans, but doesn’t allow you to consolidate your private loans.

Refinancing Through a Private Lender

If you have a mix of federal and private loans, you may consider refinancing your student loans through a private lender. If this sounds like an option for you, you’ll want to look into a lender that can help you lower your interest rate.

Paying a lower interest rate can save you money in the long term. And if you choose to keep your monthly payment the same, you may even pay off your loans earlier than you would with your original loan.

You can refinance your private loans and some lenders allow you to bundle both federal and private loans. However, be aware that once you’ve refinanced federal and private loans together, you can’t undo the consolidation.

Federal loans that are consolidated in this way are no longer eligible for consolidation under the Direct Consolidation Loan program and, therefore, may lose the potential for loan forgiveness and income base repayment options down the road.

External Websites: The information and analysis provided through hyperlinks to third-party websites, while believed to be accurate, cannot be guaranteed by SoFi. Links are provided for informational purposes and should not be viewed as an endorsement.

SoFi Student Loan Refinance
SoFi Student Loans are originated by SoFi Bank, N.A. Member FDIC. NMLS #696891. (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org). SoFi Student Loan Refinance Loans are private loans and do not have the same repayment options that the federal loan program offers, or may become available, such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness, Income-Based Repayment, Income-Contingent Repayment, PAYE or SAVE. Additional terms and conditions apply. Lowest rates reserved for the most creditworthy borrowers. For additional product-specific legal and licensing information, see SoFi.com/legal.

You may have heard that consolidating your debts can hurt your credit score. So, if you’re considering this financial strategy to free up cash flow and otherwise streamline debts, it’s natural to wonder if that’s true. And like so many questions related to finances, the answer depends upon your specific situation.

It’s important to remember that a combination of many factors can affect credit scores and to understand how those factors are considered in credit score algorithms. We’ll use FICO® as an example—according to them, the high-level breakdown of credit scores is as follows:

•  Payment history (35%): This includes delinquent payments and information found in public records.

•  Amount currently owed (30%): This includes money you owe on your accounts, as well as how much of your available credit on revolving accounts is currently used up.

•  Credit history length (15%): This includes when you opened your accounts and the amount of time since you used each account.

•  Credit types used (10%): What is your mix? For example, how much is revolving credit, like credit cards? How much is installment debt, such as car loans and personal loans?

•  New credit (10%): How much new credit are you pursuing?

Now, here is information to help you make the right debt consolidation decision.

Benefits of Debt Consolidation

When you’re juggling, say, multiple credit cards, it can be easy to accidentally miss a payment. Depending on the severity of the mistake, that can have a negative impact on your credit score. This, in turn, can make it more challenging to get loans when you need them, or prevent you from getting favorable loan terms, like low interest rates. Plus, even if you don’t miss a payment, when you have numerous credit card bills to juggle, you probably worry that one will get missed.

Plus, it’s not uncommon for credit cards to have high interest rates, and when you only make the minimum payments on each of them, you very well may be paying a significant amount of money each month without seeing balances drop very much at all.

So, when you combine multiple credit cards into one loan, preferably one with a lower interest rate, it’s much more convenient, making it less likely that you’ll accidentally miss a payment. And paying less in interest will likely make it easier to pay down your debt.

How you handle your debt consolidation, though, and the way in which you manage your finances after the consolidation each play significant roles in whether this strategy will ultimately help you.

Steps to Take: Before the Debt Consolidation Loan

Debt accumulates for different reasons for different people. For some, unexpected medical bills or emergency home repairs have served as culprits. For others, being underemployed for a period of time may have caused them to start carrying a credit card debt balance. For still others, it may be about learning how to budget more effectively.

No matter why credit card debt has built up, it can help to re-envision a debt consolidation strategy as something bigger and better than just combining your bills. As part of your plan, analyze why your debt accumulated and be honest about which ones were under your control and which were true emergencies.

And if you end up using a lower-cost loan to consolidate your bills, consider using any money saved to build up an emergency savings fund to help prevent the accumulation of credit card balances in the future.

The reality is that, if you consolidate your debts in conjunction with a carefully crafted budgeting and savings plan, then debt consolidation can be a wonderful first step in your brand-new financial strategy.

Debt Consolidation: When It Can Help Your Credit Score

Based on the factors used by FICO, here are ways in which a consolidation loan can help credit scores:

Payment history (35%)

Because making payments on time is the largest factor in FICO credit scores, a debt consolidation loan can help your credit if you make all of your payments on time.

Amount currently owed (30%)

Although you may not instantly reduce the amount you owe by, say, consolidating all of your credit card balances into a personal loan, there can be a benefit to your credit score here. That’s because the credit score algorithm looks at credit limits on your cards, as well as your outstanding balances, and creates a formula that calculates your credit card utilization.

Here is more information about credit card utilization, including how to calculate and manage yours.

Credit types used (10%)

As you may know, there are several different types of credit, such as credit cards, retail accounts, installment loans, finance company accounts, and mortgage loans. According to myFICO , responsibly using a mix of these, such as credit cards and installment loans, may help your credit score.

However, it’s certainly not necessary to have one of each, and it’s not a good idea to open credit accounts you don’t intend to use.

Debt Consolidation: When It Can Hurt Your Credit Score

Now, here are ways that the same initial step—taking out a debt consolidation loan—may hurt your credit.

Payment history (35%)

As is the case with most loans, making late payments on a consolidation loan can hurt your credit score (depending on the severity of the situation). Loans in a delinquent status are mostly likely to have a negative impact on your credit, depending on the lenders’ policies.

Learn more about payment history .

Amount currently owed (30%)

Now, let’s say that you pay off all your credit cards with a personal loan and then you begin using them again to the degree that you can’t pay them off monthly. Any gain that you saw in your credit score will likely disappear as your credit utilization numbers rise again.

Another way that credit consolidation can harm your score is if you combine all of your credit card balances to just one credit card, resulting in a high utilization rate. But if you are able to keep it relatively low, it is less likely to negatively affect your score.

Learn more about amounts owed .

Credit history length (15%)

If you close credit cards that you pay off, you’ll reduce the age of your accounts, overall, and this can hurt your credit score.

Learn more about length of credit history .

Credit types used (10%)

If you combine all of your credit card balances into just one credit card, as described above, you won’t have opened an installment (personal) loan, so that won’t help with diversifying credit types.

Learn more about credit mix .

New credit (10%)

If you apply for a personal loan or a balance-transfer credit card and are rejected, this can cause your credit score to decrease. And if you apply for multiple loans or credit cards, looking for a lender that will accept your application, this can also hurt your score. Multiple requests for your credit report information (known as “inquiries”) in a short period of time can decrease your score, though not by much.

Learn more about new credit .

Concerned about building or rebuilding credit? Check out a few tips SoFi put together on how to strategically boost your credit score.

Investigating a Personal Loan for Debt Consolidation

When it’s time to apply for the personal loan, you’ll want to get a low rate. In February 2019, the average credit card interest rate was reported as 17.67%; this means that, by not consolidating your credit cards into a personal loan with a lower interest rate, you could be paying more interest than if you did.

When choosing a lender, ask about the fees associated with the loan. Some lenders charge fees; others,like SoFi, don’t. You can always use a lender’s annual percentage rates (APRs) as a way to understand the true cost of financing.

Also, you may consider calculating the shortest loan term that your budget can comfortably accommodate because, the more quickly you pay off the debt, the more money you’ll save over the life of the loan because you’re paying less in interest.

You can find more information about saving money as you consolidate your debts, and you can also calculate payments using our personal loan calculator.

Consolidate Your Debt with a SoFi Personal Loan

If you’re ready to say goodbye to high-interest credit cards and to juggling multiple payments each month, a SoFi personal loan may be a good option.

Benefits of our personal loans include:

•  Fast, easy, and convenient online application process

•  Low interest rates

•  No origination fees required

•  No prepayment fees required

•  Fixed rate loan

You deserve peace of mind. And by taking out a personal loan to consolidate debt, the stress of juggling multiple credit card payments can be history. Ready for your fresh start?

Disclaimer: Many factors affect your credit scores and the interest rates you may receive. SoFi is not a Credit Repair Organization as defined under federal or state law, including the Credit Repair Organizations Act. SoFi does not provide “credit repair” services or advice or assistance regarding “rebuilding” or “improving” your credit record, credit history, or credit rating. For details, see the FTC’s website .

External Websites: The information and analysis provided through hyperlinks to third-party websites, while believed to be accurate, cannot be guaranteed by SoFi. Links are provided for informational purposes and should not be viewed as an endorsement.

Third-Party Brand Mentions: No brands, products, or companies mentioned are affiliated with SoFi, nor do they endorse or sponsor this article. Third-party trademarks referenced herein are property of their respective owners.

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