Hello! I am currently sorting out my financing for my graduate degree at NYU. I am not looking for opinions on whether or not to proceed, trust me I have considered every reason not to do this but it's important to me and I am standing by the decision. Now, what I am not so sure about is selecting a loan provider for the portion of tuition/cost I need to fund through a private lender.
This is a 2 year program and for year one I am taking out the $20,500 offered to graduate students by the federal government and after that plus scholarships, family assistance, and work study I will still need to borrow about $80,000 privately for the full duration of the program.
I have reviewed my options and narrowed down my top contenders to:
- Sofi
- MEFA
I'm finding it difficult to find reviews/testimonies from individuals who worked with these providers directly to take out loans. Rather, I have seen a lot of folks who refinanced existing loans with Sofi/a few individuals who worked with MEFA. Overall, I just really want to make sure that I am making the best choice in terms of a lender.
Has anyone worked with either of the above mentioned providers for graduate loans or even undergraduate student loans and can speak to the process and the repayment experience?
Moreover, does anyone have any recommendations for other lenders? Essentially, if someone you loved were looking for a student loan provider where would you point them?
Thank you so much in advance for any thoughts!
I want to end this with a list of things I have already considered so as to avoid some replies/questions lol:
- Yes I have thoroughly read through the One Big Beautiful Bill as it pertains to federal student loans
- Yes I understand how the new RAP service works in comparison to the previous SAVE service
- Yes I understand I can expect to have high monthly payments for each loan respectively and have calculated how much I can expect to repay monthly post grad
- My credit score is higher than most folks my age (currently 25, my mom did the thing of opening a credit card under her account in my name when I was 18 to help me build credit and I've made mostly reasonable financial decisions since then to maintain it)
- I have qualified co-signer's with incomes that confirm they could repay should the need arise
- No I am not getting a degree in art or something lol