Refinancing a student loan is two decisions wearing one coat. The first is whether to leave the federal system at all, and it’s permanent. The second is which private lender to use, and it’s easily reversed by refinancing again later.
Almost every comparison page online answers the second question at length and the first one in a sentence of small print. That’s backwards. The lender you pick might be worth a few thousand dollars over the life of the loan. The decision to leave the federal system can be worth your entire balance, in either direction.
So this page does both, in the order that matters.
The part that can't be undone Refinancing federal loans with a private lender permanently ends your access to income-driven repayment, to forgiveness including PSLF, and to the pauses that exist for people who lose work. There's no route back. Not by asking nicely, not by consolidating again, not ever. If there's any realistic chance you'll need those, the interest rate isn't the question you should be asking.
The short version
If you have a stable high income, no interest in public service, and a balance you will clear in under ten years, refinancing probably saves you money and the lenders below are where to look.
If any part of that sentence doesn’t describe you, the honest answer is that staying federal is worth more than the rate cut, and you should compare your federal plans first before reading another word about private lenders.
Our picks
Six lenders, at a glance
RISLA
4.8The only private lender here that rebuilds part of the federal safety net, and it has the lowest ceiling in the group as well.
See termsEarnest
4.0The most honest set of published requirements here, and the lowest bar to approval, at the cost of the highest entry rate.
See my rateLendKey
3.7If you want a variable rate, this is the only one here whose ceiling makes the bet defensible.
Compare offersSplash Financial
3.7An efficient way to collect several offers inside one credit window. Just remember you are shopping a marketplace, not choosing a lender.
Compare offersELFI
3.5Excellent service if you qualify, and the eligibility stack is the hardest here to clear. Check its own disclosure rather than a summary of it.
See my rateSoFi
3.3The lowest advertised rate on the page and the widest gap between that number and what you might actually be offered.
See my rateFirst: should you be refinancing at all?
Most people reading a page like this shouldn’t refinance. That’s not a disclaimer, it follows directly from how the 2026 rules work, and it’s worth being specific about why.
The federal system isn’t competing with private lenders on interest rate. It’s competing on what happens when your circumstances change. A private lender sells you a number. The federal system sells you an option to pay less when you earn less, and that option has a value even in the years you don’t use it.
Under the 2026 rules, the Repayment Assistance Plan charges a percentage of your entire adjusted gross income, with a floor of ten dollars a month. If your income falls to nothing, your payment falls to almost nothing, and the clock toward forgiveness keeps running. No private lender offers that. The best of them offer a discretionary forbearance, which means they may pause your payments if they feel like it, and interest accrues throughout.
Refinancing usually makes sense when
- Your income is high and stable relative to what you owe
- You'll repay in full well before any forgiveness date arrives
- Your credit is genuinely strong, not merely adequate
- You have savings enough to survive a job loss without needing to pause payments
- You work in the private sector with no plans to move into public service
Refinancing usually goes wrong when
- You work for a government or non-profit employer, or might within ten years
- Your income varies, or your industry is prone to layoffs
- You're counting on income-driven forgiveness at year twenty or thirty
- You're refinancing to lower the monthly payment rather than the total cost
- Your balance is large relative to your income, which is exactly when the safety net matters most
The public service case deserves its own sentence, because it’s the most expensive mistake available here. Public Service Loan Forgiveness cancels your remaining balance tax-free after 120 qualifying payments. Refinancing ends that permanently. No private rate beats a balance going to zero, and the arithmetic is not close. If you work for a government or non-profit employer, run the PSLF estimator before you do anything else on this page.
There’s one more trap worth naming. A canceled balance on an income-driven plan has generally counted as taxable income in the year it’s forgiven, which surprises people badly at year twenty. That’s a real cost of staying federal, and the forgiveness tax estimator exists so you can weigh it properly rather than discovering it later. It doesn’t usually change the answer, but it should be in the calculation.
How much is actually at stake
Here is the part that reframes the whole decision. For a typical borrower, the difference between federal repayment plans is larger than the difference between private lenders.
More than twenty-six thousand dollars separates the cheapest federal plan from the most expensive one, for the same person with the same debt. Now compare that with the spread between the private lenders below.
Six tenths of a percentage point separates first from sixth. Now look at the other end of the same six ranges, which is where they stop resembling each other at all.
Eight and a half percentage points separate RISLA’s ceiling from SoFi’s. That’s not a rounding difference, it’s a different product. On a $38,000 balance over ten years, the gap between an 8.29% outcome and a 16.73% one is well over twenty thousand dollars.
Comparing entry rates alone is what makes every lender look interchangeable. They aren’t.
The conclusion isn’t that lender choice is irrelevant. It’s that you should spend your effort proportionally: an hour on the plan comparison is worth more than a day of lender research.
The lenders compared
Student loan refinance companies compared
Fixed APR ranges as published in August 2026. Every figure here assumes excellent credit and autopay enrollment. Your offer will differ, often substantially.
Advertised rates checked 26 August 2026 against each lender's published terms. Lenders change them without notice, so confirm before you apply. How we rank.
RISLA
4.8- Ceiling
- 8.29%, lowest here
- Loan amounts
- $7,500 to $350,000
- Minimum credit score
- Upper 600s
Earnest
4.0- Ceiling
- 9.99%
- Loan amounts
- $5,000 to $400,000
- Minimum credit score
- 650
LendKey
3.7- Variable APR
- 4.18% - 6.23%
- Loan amounts
- $5,000 to $250,000
- Minimum credit score
- 680
Splash Financial
3.7- Ceiling
- 10.24%
- Loan amounts
- $5,000, maximum set by the funding partner
- Minimum credit score
- 650
ELFI
3.5- Variable APR
- 6.13% - 10.24%
- Loan amounts
- $10,000 minimum
- Minimum credit score
- 680, plus 36 months of history
SoFi
3.3- Ceiling
- 16.73%, highest here
- Loan amounts
- $5,000, no stated maximum
- Minimum credit score
- Typically 680
The gap between what’s advertised and what’s disclosed
Here is what we found checking each lender’s own published terms against the ranges that circulate in comparison tables. They don’t match, and they don’t fail to match randomly.
| Lender | Own published range | Commonly quoted range | Ceiling difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| SoFi | 3.87% - 16.73% | 3.99% - 10.99% | 5.74 points understated |
| ELFI | 4.20% - 10.24% | 4.29% - 8.44% | 1.80 points understated |
| RISLA | 3.99% - 8.29% | 3.99% - 8.74% | 0.45 points overstated |
Left column is the lender's own published APR range. Right column is a range commonly reproduced in comparison tables. Every difference runs the same way.
SoFi is the striking one. Its own rate disclosure runs to 16.73% APR. The figure most widely reproduced is 10.99%. Both are accurate descriptions of something, because lenders publish several ranges covering different products, terms and discount assumptions. But a borrower reading the summarized table would have no idea that a rate above 16% is inside the published range at all.
What to do about it Read the lender's own rate disclosure, not a table summarising it, and look specifically for the ceiling. It's usually at the bottom of the page in small type, and it's the only number that tells you what a bad outcome looks like.
This is also why the ordering on this page differs from most published lists. We weight the ceiling more heavily than the floor, and once you use each lender’s own ceiling rather than a summarized one, the ranking changes substantially.
The three worth a closer look
RISLA, and why it tops our list
RISLA is the lender almost nobody has heard of, and it wins our ranking on the two criteria we weight most heavily. It’s a state-based non-profit rather than a bank, and it offers something no other lender here does: a contractual income-based repayment option.
That option caps payments at 15% of monthly income, sets a floor of $10 a month, and forgives the balance after 25 years of qualifying payments. It’s not as generous as the federal system, it has to be reapplied for every twelve months, and it’s the closest thing to a safety net available on the private side. Given that giving up the federal safety net is the entire cost of refinancing, a lender that rebuilds part of it is doing something structurally different from the rest.
RISLA
Best for anyone who wants a private rate without surrendering every protectionThe lowest ceiling of the six at 8.29%, and the only contractual income-based repayment on this page. If the reason you hesitate to refinance is what happens when income falls, this is the lender built for that hesitation.
Pros
- Lowest published ceiling here, more than eight points below SoFi's
- Income-based repayment capped at 15% of monthly income with a $10 floor
- Forgiveness after 25 years of qualifying income-based payments
- A non-profit, so the incentives differ from a bank's
Cons
- Fixed rates only, with no variable option
- {'Only three terms available': '5, 10 or 15 years'}
- $350,000 cap is low for medical or dental balances
- Income-based periods last 12 months and must be renewed each year
Earnest, for people who might not be approved elsewhere
Earnest
Best for borrowers whose credit is good rather than exceptionalThe most reachable approval bar here at a 650 credit score, paired with the most candid published eligibility rules of the six. You pay for that with the highest entry rate on the page.
Pros
- 650 credit floor, the lowest here alongside Splash
- Skip one payment every 12 months after six on-time payments
- Precision pricing lets you choose an exact term rather than a preset one
- Publishes its full eligibility requirements rather than hiding them
Cons
- Highest entry rate of the six at 4.49%
- Requires two months of savings in the bank, an unusual condition
- Interest on a skipped payment capitalizes onto the balance
- California residents face a $10,000 minimum
SoFi, and why the headline rate is misleading
SoFi advertises 3.87%, the lowest number on this page, and it’s a real rate that real borrowers receive. It also publishes a ceiling of 16.73%, which is nearly double RISLA’s and higher than several credit cards.
Both facts are true simultaneously, and which one applies to you is decided by an underwriting process you can’t see before applying. That’s not a criticism of SoFi, which publishes its ceiling openly when it could bury it. It’s a criticism of reading the floor as though it were the offer.
SoFi
Best for borrowers with excellent credit and large balancesThe lowest entry rate here and the widest range by a distance. If your credit is genuinely excellent this is likely the cheapest option on the page. If it's not, the published ceiling should give you pause.
Pros
- Lowest advertised entry rate of the six at 3.87% with autopay
- No origination, application or prepayment fee
- No stated maximum balance, which matters for professional-school debt
- Publishes its true ceiling rather than only the flattering half
Cons
- A 16.73% ceiling, by far the highest here
- The range is wide enough that the advertised rate predicts very little
- Requires a Title IV degree and current employment or an offer within 90 days
- Hardship support is discretionary, with no contractual income protection
Why the entry rate is the wrong thing to shop on
Every lender advertises a range. Almost every borrower fixates on the bottom of it. Almost every borrower is then offered something closer to the middle.
The number that deserves your attention is the range’s width, because that tells you what happens when you’re not the ideal applicant.
SoFi advertises the lowest floor and carries a spread three times RISLA’s. That’s the whole argument in one chart. If your credit is genuinely excellent, SoFi’s 3.87% is reachable and the width doesn’t matter to you. If it’s anything less, you’re somewhere inside a range that runs to 16.73%, and RISLA’s ceiling of 8.29% is the more relevant number by a wide margin.
This is why a “best rates” ranking is close to meaningless without knowing the applicant. The honest version of this page isn’t a single order but a rule: shop the floor only if you’re certain you’ll be offered it, and shop the ceiling otherwise. Our ordering weights the ceiling at 30% and the floor at 15% precisely because most readers are in the second group.
A simple rule If your credit score is above 760, shop the lowest floor. If it's between 660 and 720, shop the lowest ceiling. Between those, get quotes from both kinds and compare the actual offers rather than the advertised ones.
Fixed or variable
Variable rates start lower and move with the market. On paper the choice is a bet on where rates go. In practice it’s a bet on how quickly you’ll repay.
| Your situation | Better choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Repaying in under 5 years | Variable | Not enough time for rates to move against you meaningfully |
| Repaying over 10 to 20 years | Fixed | A rate rise compounds across every remaining year |
| Income is variable | Fixed | A rising payment and a falling income is the worst combination |
| You could clear the balance early if needed | Variable | You retain the option to escape a rate rise |
LendKey’s variable range is the tightest here, capped at 6.23%, which makes it the most defensible variable option in the group. Most lenders cap variable rates in the 10% to 11% region, and that ceiling is the number to check, not the starting rate.
If you’re weighing a shorter term against a lower payment, the amortization schedule shows exactly where each payment goes, and the payoff calculator shows what paying extra actually saves.
What refinancing actually costs you
Rate is what you gain. This is what you spend.
| Feature | Staying federal | Refinancing privately |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest monthly payment available | $229 on RAP | Whatever the lender sets |
| Payment if you lose your job | As low as $10 a month | Unchanged unless the lender agrees to pause |
| Forgiveness | After 20 to 30 years, or 10 years with PSLF | None, ever |
| Death or disability discharge | Guaranteed | Varies by lender, often absent |
| Interest subsidy in hardship | Available on some plans | None |
| Rate | Fixed by statute, 6.52% on new undergraduate loans | Often 2 to 3 points lower |
Federal figures assume a $38,000 balance at 6.8% on a $55,000 income under the 2026 rules.
Read that table twice. Five of the six rows favor staying federal. The one row that favors refinancing is the one everybody optimizes for.
That’s not an argument against ever refinancing. It’s an argument for being honest about the trade: you’re selling insurance you own in exchange for a discount you can calculate. If you’ll never claim on the insurance, selling it is rational. The mistake isn’t knowing you sold it.
The refinance calculator on this site shows both halves side by side, which is the only sensible way to look at it.
How we scored the lenders
The five criteria and their weights
4.8 overall- Rate ceiling, 30%RISLA's 8.29% is the lowest of the six. Weighted highest because most applicants aren't offered the floor.
- 5.0
- Downside protection, 25%The only contractual income-based repayment here, capped at 15% of income
- 5.0
- Rate floor, 15%3.99% with autopay, 0.12 points behind SoFi
- 4.9
- Eligibility, 15%Upper-600s credit score, no published income minimum
- 4.0
- Transparency, 15%Published range matches its own disclosure
- 4.5
The scores above are RISLA’s, as the top-ranked lender. Every lender on this page is scored on the same five criteria with the same weights, and the weighting is the whole argument: put the ceiling at 30% and downside protection at 25%, and a non-profit with an 8.29% cap beats a bank advertising 3.87%.
Weight it the other way, as most published lists implicitly do, and SoFi wins. Neither ordering is dishonest. What would be dishonest is presenting an order without saying which lever produced it.
Two things are deliberately weighted heavily. Downside protection, because the whole cost of refinancing sits in that column. And eligibility clarity, because a lender advertising a 3.99% rate while refusing to publish a credit floor is asking you to spend an application to find out something it already knows.
Nothing in this ordering reflects payment. We aren’t currently in an affiliate relationship with any lender on this page and earn nothing if you apply through these links. When that changes it will be disclosed on the placement itself, not buried in a page you have to go looking for. Our full advertiser disclosure explains how it will work.
Shopping the rate properly
Rate shopping is the one part of this process where a small amount of effort has a guaranteed return, and most people do it wrong by getting a single quote.
The two-week point matters more than it sounds. Credit scoring models treat multiple loan inquiries in a short window as one shopping event, so five quotes cost you roughly what one quote costs. Spread those same five over three months and you take five separate hits.
Marketplaces like Splash Financial and LendKey are efficient here because one application reaches several lenders. The trade-off is that your final terms come from whichever partner funds the loan, so read what you’re actually signing.
Timing, and the thing people get wrong about it
There’s a persistent belief that you should refinance as soon as rates drop. The better trigger is a change in your own position, not the market’s.
Your rate offer is a function of your credit score, your income, your debt-to-income ratio and your employment history. Those improve over the first few years of a career far faster than market rates move. A borrower who waits two years after graduating, builds a credit file and gets a promotion will usually be offered a better rate than the same borrower at graduation, regardless of what the market did in between.
Refinancing is also not a one-time decision. You can refinance again. If your position improves substantially in three years, you can go back to market. The only irreversible step is the first one, out of the federal system.
Before you take it, check whether the payment you’re contemplating is one you can actually live with. The affordability check measures it against your take-home pay with your other debts counted, which is the number that decides whether a plan is survivable.
Common questions
Does checking my rate hurt my credit? Every lender on this page offers a rate check using a soft credit inquiry, which doesn’t affect your score. The hard inquiry comes only when you formally apply.
Can I refinance federal and private loans together? Yes, and this is where people get caught. Rolling federal loans into a private refinance converts them permanently. If you want a lower rate on private loans only, keep the federal ones out of it. That single decision preserves everything in the comparison table above.
What if I refinance and then lose my job? You’re dependent on your lender’s hardship policy, which is discretionary at every lender here except RISLA, whose income-based option is contractual. Interest accrues throughout any pause. This is the scenario the federal system handles well and the private market handles badly, and it’s the reason to keep an emergency fund before refinancing rather than after.
Should I refinance if I am close to forgiveness? Almost certainly not. If you have made meaningful progress toward a 20 or 30 year forgiveness date, or any progress toward PSLF, refinancing discards it entirely. Run the PSLF estimator and see what you would be throwing away before you compare a single rate.
Is consolidation the same as refinancing? No, and the words get used interchangeably in a way that costs people money. Federal consolidation combines federal loans into one federal loan and keeps federal protections. Private refinancing replaces them with a private loan and doesn’t. The consolidation calculator covers the federal version, which rarely saves money but sometimes restores eligibility.
Where to go from here
If you have read this far and still think refinancing is right for you, the shortlist above is a reasonable place to start and the rate checks are free.
If you’re less sure than when you started, that’s the correct response to the comparison table, and the next step isn’t a lender. It’s finding out what your federal options actually cost, which takes about three minutes:
- Compare every repayment plan you qualify for, side by side
- See all nine calculators and what each one answers
- Read what changed in 2026 and why your payment moved
- SAVE has ended: what to do in the next 90 days
- Should I refinance my federal student loans?