Refinancing your student loans can help you pay them off faster if you select a shorter repayment term. Paying off your student loans as quickly as possible could help you pay less interest over the life of the loan and free up money that you can use to pursue other financial goals, like purchasing a house. 

Here’s how refinancing can help you pay off your student loan debt sooner, which student loan refinance lenders may be best for you, and how to refinance. 

Visit Credible to learn more about student loan refinancing and compare rates from multiple private student loan lenders.

Student loan refinancing involves taking out a new private student loan and using the funds to pay off any balances on your initial private and federal student loans. This leaves you with just one student loan to repay. It could help you pay off the debt faster and save thousands of dollars if you get a shorter repayment period, lower interest rate, or both.

You may have heard of student loan consolidation, but this is a bit different from refinancing. With consolidation, you can combine multiple federal loans into a Direct Consolidation Loan. Your interest rate will be a weighted average of what you were paying on your existing loans, so it may not be lower. You can’t consolidate private loans into a Direct Consolidation Loan.

If you want to refinance your student loans, these 11 Credible partner lenders are a good place to start: 

Advantage Educational Loans

Brazos

Citizens

College Ave

EDvestinU

ELFI

INvestEd

ISL Education Lending

MEFA

PenFed

RISLA

The following two lenders aren’t Credible partners, so you won’t be able to easily compare your rates with them on the Credible platform. But they may also be worth considering if you want to refinance your student loans. 

Navy Federal Credit Union

PNC Bank

Credible evaluated private student loan lenders in 10 different categories to determine the best lenders for refinancing student loans. This included interest rates, repayment options, terms, fees, discounts, customer service availability, as well as eligibility requirements and cosigner release options.

Whether you’re trying to pay your student loans off in 10 years or you’re seeking the best way to pay off medical school loans as quickly as possible, it’s vital to shop around. When comparing options, consider the following:

You can easily compare prequalified rates from multiple lenders using Credible. 

Follow these steps to refinance your student loans:

You may be considering refinancing as a way to pay off student loans fast, though it won’t be the best decision for everyone. Individual circumstances, such as your income and amount of debt, influence whether refinancing makes sense in your unique financial situation.

Refinancing can be a smart decision if your credit has improved since you took out your original loans. A higher credit score may help you qualify for a lower interest rate. If you won’t see a significant drop in interest rate, though, refinancing might not make sense. 

On the other hand, if you have federal student loans, refinancing them into a private student loan will mean you lose eligibility for federal relief, benefits, or protections — including qualifying for the student loan debt relief plan just announced by the Biden-Harris Administration. 

To get started on refinancing your student loans, visit Credible and compare prequalified rates from multiple lenders.

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Whether you’ve just taken out your first card or your score simply needs a boost, odds are good that you’re looking to build credit fast. The truth is that having a good credit score can open the doors to so many things. For example, when combined with a down payment, a good score could be the key to becoming a homeowner. 

With that in mind, below are six tips on how to build up your credit as fast as possible and quickly improve your score.

Credible makes it easy to compare personal loan rates — without affecting your credit score.

If you already have a credit history and want to maximize your score, the first thing to do is to check your credit report for any errors. A mistake on one of your payment and billing statements — such as a payment that was marked late when you actually made it on time — could be part of the problem.

HOW PERSONAL LOANS AFFECT CREDIT SCORES

You’re entitled to one free credit report per year from each of the free credit bureaus. Request copies of your reports by going to AnnualCreditReport.com. After receiving your copies, you should carefully review them to ensure that all the information is correct.

If you do find an error, you can dispute it by writing a letter to the credit reporting agency to explain the situation. From there, the credit bureaus have 30 days to open an investigation and 90 days to decide whether they need to make a change to your report.  

It’s important to pay your bills on time, every time, as late payments have an adverse effect on your credit score. Just one late payment can cause your score to dip. Once your payment is 30 days past due, it’ll show up on your credit report and stay there for seven years. 

If you’ve missed a payment or two, do your best to pay off the late balance and make future payments on time. The more on-time payments you make, the better your credit score will be. Consider setting up automatic payments or moving your payment due date to make paying your bills easier.

If you’re not quite ready for a card of your own, you can ask to become an authorized user on someone else’s account. Authorized users have the ability to use the other person’s card, but don’t have the responsibility of making payments. 

WHAT CREDIT CARD SHOULD YOU GET? HOW TO CHOOSE THE BEST ONE FOR YOU

Once you’re added to the card, that account’s entire history is factored into your score, so ideally, you’ll want to ask someone who has a solid credit score.

Once you’re ready to get a card of your own, try for a secured card. A secured card requires a deposit to open it, which is then used as your line of credit. Since the lender holds on to your deposit, there’s no risk to them of non-payment. This means generally, these cards are much easier to qualify for and come with lower fees than traditional cards targeted toward people with poor or limited credit. 

Believe it or not, your payment history accounts for a whopping 35 percent of your credit score. With that in mind, when your goal is to build your credit score, it’s important to invest time and energy into making sure you pay your bill in full each month. Additionally, don’t spend more than you can afford to pay back and remember to always make your payments on time.

WHAT APR MEANS ON YOUR CREDIT CARDS AND LOANS

If you’ve been paying your bills on time for a while and slowly working on building your score, another strategy is to ask for a higher credit limit. When your limit goes up and your spending stays the same, your credit utilization goes down. Credit utilization refers to the amount of credit you’re using out of your total credit available. It’s best to try to keep this percentage as low as possible.

There are two types of credit: revolving credit and installment loans. With revolving credit, like credit cards, you can choose how much you pay toward your debts. With installment loans, like a personal loan, you have to make the same fixed payment every month. If you have mostly one type of credit, consider getting the other to create a better credit mix.

If you’re considering getting a personal loan, Credible makes it easy to compare rates from multiple lenders, all in one place.

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United Airlines released its first quarter earnings on Tuesday in which it indicated that it lost about $200 million due to the temporary grounding of the Boeing 737 Max 9 earlier this year.

The Chicago-based airline announced that it had a pre-tax loss of $164 million for the quarter, which was an improvement of $92 million from the same quarter a year ago, and noted that the loss was caused by the 737 Max 9 grounding.

“These earnings reflect the approximately $200 million impact from the Boeing 737 Max 9 grounding, without which the company would have reported a quarterly profit,” United wrote in its earnings release. “

United is one of two U.S. carriers that operate the Boeing 737 Max 9, with the other being Alaska Airlines. The aircraft was temporarily grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) the day after a Jan. 5 incident in which a 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines suffered a mid-air blowout of its plug door panel after takeoff, causing the cabin to depressurize and forcing the airliner to return to Oregon’s Portland International Airport for an emergency landing.

BOEING’S TIP LINE SUBMISSIONS WERE UP 500% ON THE YEAR DURING THE FIRST QUARTER

After the FAA, Boeing and airlines conducted inspections on aircraft in the 737 Max 9 fleet that have plug door panels, the aircraft was cleared to return to service after Jan. 24 following the completion of inspections. Alaska returned its fleet to service on Jan. 26, and United followed suit the following day.

The grounding of the Max 9 and the FAA’s constraints on Boeing’s production capacity due to increased oversight of its manufacturing quality was also noted in the earnings report. At the start of the year, United anticipated 101 narrowbody airliners to be delivered, but it now expects 61 narrowbody aircraft and five widebody aircraft to be delivered in 2024. 

“In the short run, the company expects a small number of aircraft previously scheduled to enter into service in the second quarter to be pushed into the third quarter, which is expected to have minimal impact on the company’s capacity plans,” United wrote.

UNITED ASKS PILOTS TO TAKE UNPAID TIME OFF AS BOEING ISSUES PERSIST

United declined to offer a comment beyond what was included in its earnings release.

Boeing referred FOX Business to comments by chief financial officer Brian West at the Bank of America Industrial Conference on March 20 in which he discussed the impact of the 737 Max 9 grounding and delivery issues on customers.

BOEING PAYS ALASKA AIRLINES $160 MILLION IN CASH IN ‘INITIAL PAYMENT’ FOLLOWING MID-AIR BLOWOUT

“We put the customers in a tight spot, the most important thing we do is communicate with them. And they have been supportive of everything we’re trying to do to enhance safety and quality for the industry,” West explained. 

“We are in regular, very transparent communications, and they know precisely where we stand the progress we’re making and we, at the same time, have to understand what their needs are as they think about their flight schedules and their passengers,” he said. “So, in the near term, the slowdown has impacted us, and it’s impacted them, and we’re communicating it to them so that we can work our way through it, and we will stand behind our customers.”

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“So, as it pertains to the events of January the 5th, of course, there’s customer consideration that is going to manifest itself in the quarter, in the P&L, and we’ve got to take care of that, and we’re well down the road to do that. And we continue to stand behind our customers with that responsibility,” West added.

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Workers at Volkswagen’s lone U.S. factory are voting this week on whether to join the United Auto Workers in what is the union’s third attempt at organizing the plant.

Voting began Wednesday for the 4,100 hourly employees at Volkswagen’s factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and will extend through Friday.

This is the third time in 10 years the UAW has sought to represent VW Chattanooga workers, and winning a vote to organize the VW plant would be a significant milestone for the union. 

The UAW has tried and failed for years to organize nonunion U.S. auto factories, most of them built by Asian and European automakers in southern states. But after a successful simultaneous strike at Detroit’s Big Three automakers last year, the UAW is feeling momentum to expand.

MORE CVS PHARMACIES JOIN MOVEMENT TO UNIONIZE

UAW President Shawn Fain vowed the union would “pull out all the stops” to organize workers at non-union automakers like Volkswagen, Tesla, Toyota, Honda, Mercedes and others after securing record-setting contracts for UAW workers at Ford, GM and Stellantis.

In 2019, VW workers at the plant rejected union representation by an 833-776 vote. The Chattanooga plant is Volkswagen’s only non-union plant globally.

“We respect our workers’ right to a democratic process and to determine who should represent their interests,” Volkswagen told FOX Business in a statement following the announcement of the latest vote. “We will fully support an NLRB vote, so every team member has a chance to vote in privacy in this important decision.”

AMERICANS SHOULD ‘ABSOLUTELY BE CONCERNED’ ABOUT DATA COLLECTION, SPYING FROM CHINESE EVS: AUTO EXPERT

Volkswagen said in November it would raise the pay of its factory workers in Tennessee by 11%, joining several other foreign automakers that announced significant pay and compensation improvements following the UAW’s contract with the Big Three automakers.

The day before voting began at VW’s Chattanooga plant, the Republican governors of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas issued a joint statement in opposition to the UAW’s unionization push into the South.

“Unionization would certainly put our states’ jobs in jeopardy. In fact, in this year already, all of the UAW automakers have announced layoffs,” the governors’ statement says.

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“In America, we respect our workforce, and we do not need to pay a third party to tell us who can pick up a box or flip a switch. No one wants to hear this, but it’s the ugly reality,” the statement continued. “We’ve seen it play out this way every single time a foreign automaker plant has been unionized; not one of those plants remains in operation.”

FOX Business’ Eric Revell and Reuters contributed to this report.

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