How do I finance my loans while I'm at school?

[Anonymous]

I'm currently a sophomore in school. I got 7,300 balance across five accounts. I don't wanna pay that interest rate after school, so I wanna start tackling now. I have a decent credit score of 690. Right now I'm teaching piano and I make about 1,000 a month. Where can I refinance those loans?

[FinStar]

Hello @Anonymous - I have moved your thread to the Student Loans section of the forums to provide better exposure to your question.

[Anonymous]

Thanks

[calyx]

You don't have to refinance to start paying down the loans - you can pay on them now.
People sometimes do it to avoid additional interest while they're still in school, it's not uncommon.

Is the interest rate very high?
Is there any other reason (besides starting to pay) that you want to refi?
Are these private or federal?

If they're federal, you would lose the additional protections (ability to get deferrals, forebearance, additional payment plans, forgiveness optins).  If private, then no harm/no foul.

You can check with any financial institution - credit unions might give better rates - plus there are online companies such as Sofi, Lendkey, Earnest and others that you can see if you prequalify without doing a hard pull on your credit.

[Anonymous]

If these are federal loans, you have quite a few options. There are several payment plans that will actually pay part or all of your loan interest, depending on the plan you pick and your income. From memory, your payment would be about $0 for an income of ~$19,000 or less with no dependents or spouse. You recertify annually and can have it adjusted early if your income drops at any time. You can do this temporarily, for a year, or many years especially if it looks like you may be a good candidate for forgiveness.
This difference of the federal loan subsidy means that your effective interest rate would actually be less than what might be offered to you too refi (not to mention you would likely lose the lower payments). You would retain all the federal loan protections, and continue to get a good payment history on your student loans.
You can check out the repayment Estimator on the gov student loan site.

[Anonymous]

yeah, I want to refinance them because my loans at the moment is 4.9%.

[Anonymous]

That's a great rate!!
You'd be hard-pressed to find a better rate.
For example REPAYE can pay up to 100% of the unpaid interest your subsidized loans for the first three years. So...no interest. 🙂 There's a subsidy of unsubsidized loans too. For the first year you should be able to use your income from school.
You should check the plans out.

[calyx]

I concur with @Anonymous - you're going to be hard pressed to find a rate better than 4.9, plus there are interest payment options with different payment plans.   A 690 isn't bad, but I don't think you'll find something for less.

If you were to start paying your loans now, you definitely want to start with any that are unsubsidized first.

[Mookey67]

May I ask what type of loans they are and if they are in school deferment?