SoFi Student Loans Review 2024.

SoFi was founded in 2011 and introduced student loan refinancing in 2012, one of its first financial products. The company began offering private student loans in 2019.

The company also has specialized products for certain groups: private loans for graduate students, law and business school students, and parents; and refinance loans for medical residents and doctors, law and business school students, and parent PLUS loan borrowers. In this review, we will focus on SoFi’s undergraduate student loans and general student loan refinancing.

SoFi offers private student loans and refinance loans in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Since most undergraduate students do not have enough credit history to qualify for a loan on their own, they typically apply with a co-signer. Applicants who use a co-signer may have a better chance at getting approved and securing a lower interest rate.

Loan Amounts and Terms

SoFi student loans start at $5,000, though the minimum can be higher depending on your state of residence. The loan will cover up to your school’s full cost of attendance, meaning the total cost of tuition, fees, room and board as determined by the financial aid office. You can repay your loan over five, seven, 10 or 15 years.

Loan Costs and Fees

The only extra cost you’ll pay on a SoFi undergraduate student loan is the interest rate, which ranges from 5.99% to 14.70% variable APY and 4.44% to 14.70% fixed APY. SoFi charges no loan fees, including no late fees, application fees or origination fees. While both fixed and variable interest rates are available, choosing a fixed rate is often a safer bet because it will not change throughout the loan term.

The interest rate you qualify for will depend on factors such as your and your co-signer’s creditworthiness, income and amount of time in the workforce. Like other lenders, SoFi provides a 0.25% interest rate discount for borrowers who enroll in autopay each month.

Repayment Options

SoFi offers four ways to repay a student loan. Paying more while in school will reduce the overall amount you owe, and you’ll have access to lower interest rates if you choose an option that includes in-school payments.

• Immediate repayment: Make full payments, including both interest and principal, while in school and after graduation.
• Partial repayment: Pay $25 per month while in school and make full payments, including both interest and principal, after graduation.
• Interest-only repayment: Pay interest while in school and make full payments, including both interest and principal, after graduation.
• Deferred repayment: No payments while you’re in school or for six months after graduating or leaving school.

If you need to take a break from payments, you may be able to postpone them through SoFi’s deferment or forbearance programs, depending on the situation. The maximum amount of time you can postpone payments is 12 months total throughout the loan term.

Noteworthy Perks and Features

SoFi offers its borrowers several benefits, including free financial planning and rate discounts on other SoFi products. Here are additional perks specific to student loans:

• Co-signer release. After 24 full, on-time monthly payments, the borrower may apply to release their co-signer from the loan. The co-signer will then be free of all obligations to the debt.

Loan Amounts and Terms

Borrowers can refinance a minimum of $5,000 in private and federal student loans (the minimum may vary depending on your state). The maximum amount you can refinance is the total current balance of your loans. You can choose to repay your loan over five, seven, 10, 15 or 20 years.

Co-signer release. After 24 full, on-time monthly payments, the borrower may apply to release their co-signer from the loan. The co-signer will then be free of all obligations to the debt.

Loan Costs and Fees

SoFi charges no application fees, origination fees or prepayment fees on its refinance loans. Refinance borrowers can choose from fixed or variable interest rates, which range from 6.24% to 9.99%* variable APR (with autopay) and 5.24% to 9.99%* fixed APR (with autopay)—including the 0.25% interest rate discount that’s available for making automatic payments each month.

Repayment Options

Unlike SoFi private student loans, refinance loans do not come with multiple repayment options. Your full monthly principal and interest payment will be due from the start. SoFi will, however, honor any existing student loan grace period you have on your current debt.

Choosing a shorter repayment term—five years instead of 10, for example—will help you maximize any interest rate reduction you received by refinancing. Extending your repayment term after refinancing could mean losing out on potential interest savings.

Noteworthy Perks and Features

• Associate’s degree holders can refinance. SoFi allows associate’s degree holders to refinance their loans, which opens up refinancing eligibility to more borrowers. Some lenders require refinance customers to have a bachelor’s degree to qualify.

Eligibility Requirements

To qualify for a SoFi undergraduate student loan or refinance loan, borrowers must:

• Be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, or hold an eligible visa. International students and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients can apply with a U.S. citizen co-signer.
• Meet income and employment requirements. If the borrower does not, the co-signer must earn sufficient income from employment.
• Meet financial history and credit score requirements. In general, a good or excellent credit score—670 or higher on an 850-point scale—will get you the best chances at eligibility and a low interest rate.
• Be enrolled at least half-time at a qualifying four-year school for private student loans—associate’s degree students are not eligible; or have at least an associate’s degree from a qualifying university for refinance loans.

Co-signer Options

For private student loans in particular, SoFi says that borrowers who apply with a strong co-signer may be seven times more likely to qualify. When considering a co-signer, choose a person whom you trust, who has solid income from full-time employment and has good or excellent credit.

Co-signers take on a major responsibility since they’re obligated to make payments on the loan if you cannot. But SoFi offers co-signers a perk: they could qualify for a 0.125% interest rate reduction on other SoFi loan products. You could also get a 0.125% interest rate reduction if your co-signer is already a SoFi customer. The co-signer can be removed from the loan later if you’ve borrowed a private student loan or a SoFi refinanced loan.

One of SoFi’s most valuable features is the ability to prequalify for a loan on its website. After entering some basic personal information, SoFi conducts a soft credit check. That means the company can make you a preliminary interest rate offer without your credit score being affected, and without the credit check appearing on your credit report.

If you wish to move forward with the application, SoFi will conduct a hard credit check—which can temporarily drop your credit score by up to five points—to view your full credit history and confirm your details. To fill out a full application, you will likely have to provide:

• Your and your co-signer’s Social Security numbers (SSNs)
• Proof of income for you and your co-signer
• Official ID
• Your planned graduation date, upcoming academic term and the amount of financial aid you will likely receive for undergraduate student loans
• A payoff statement for each of the student loans you want to refinance, including information like your current balance and student loan servicer, for refinance loans
• The amount you plan to borrow or refinance

For undergraduate student loans, SoFi will then verify with your school the information you provided, which could take up to a few weeks. SoFi estimates that from application to receiving funding takes about four to six weeks on average, but that will largely depend on your school’s process.

For refinance loans, if your application is successful, you’ll pick your preferred loan term and interest rate type: fixed or variable. SoFi says it will pay off your prior loans seven to 15 business days after you have successfully supplied all necessary documentation. Your first payment to SoFi will be due 30 to 45 days later.

Related: Best Private Student Loans

Customer support is available via online chat (when logged in to your SoFi account) and by phone. Service hours are Monday to Thursday, 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. PT, and Friday to Sunday from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT. SoFi works with MOHELA, a loan servicer, to provide student loan customer service.

• Call 855-456-7634 for general application and loan questions
• Call 877-292-7470 for questions about deferment and forbearance

We scored 12 lenders that make the most loans by volume across 15 data points in the categories of interest rates, fees, loan terms, hardship options, application process and eligibility. We chose the nine best to display based on those earning three stars or higher.

The following is the weighting assigned to each category:

• Hardship options: 30%
• Application process: 16%
• Loan terms: 14%
• Eligibility: 14%
• Interest rates: 13%
• Fees: 13%

Specific characteristics taken into consideration within each category included number of months of forbearance available, economic hardship repayment options available beyond traditional forbearance, perks like cash back rewards upon graduation, discounts, time to default, disclosure of credit score and income requirements and other factors.

Lenders who offered interest rates below 10% scored the highest, as did those who offered more than the standard 12 months of forbearance, made their loans available to non-U.S. citizens, offered interest rate discounts beyond the standard 0.25% for automatic payments, offered multiple loan terms maxing out at 15 years and charged minimal fees.

In some cases, lenders were awarded partial points, and a maximum of 3% of the final score was left to editorial discretion based on the quality of consumer-friendly features offered.

To learn more about how Forbes Advisor rates lenders, and our editorial process, check out our Loans Rating & Review Methodology.

*Fixed rates range from 5.24% APR to 9.99% APR with 0.25% autopay discount. Variable rates range from 6.24% APR to 9.99% APR with a 0.25% autopay discount. Unless required to be lower to comply with applicable law, Variable Interest rates on 5-, 7-, and 10-year terms are capped at 13.95% APR; 15- and 20-year terms are capped at 13.95% APR. SoFi rate ranges are current as of 02/06/24 and are subject to change at any time. Your actual rate will be within the range of rates listed above and will depend on the term you select, evaluation of your creditworthiness, income, presence of a co-signer and a variety of other factors. Lowest rates reserved for the most creditworthy borrowers. For the SoFi variable-rate product, the variable interest rate for a given month is derived by adding a margin to the 30-day average SOFR index, published two business days preceding such calendar month, rounded up to the nearest one hundredth of one percent (0.01% or 0.0001). APRs for variable-rate loans may increase after origination if the SOFR index increases. The SoFi 0.25% autopay interest rate reduction requires you to agree to make monthly principal and interest payments by an automatic monthly deduction from a savings or checking account. This benefit will discontinue and be lost for periods in which you do not pay by automatic deduction from a savings or checking account. The benefit lowers your interest rate but does not change the amount of your monthly payment. This benefit is suspended during periods of deferment and forbearance. Autopay is not required to receive a loan from SoFi. You may pay more interest over the life of the loan if you refinance with an extended term.