College Ave Review

Wednesday, August 17th

2022 Student Loan Refinance Company Reviews

College Ave

• Refinancing available for amounts of $5,000 to $300,000
• "A+" rated and accredited by the BBB
• Specializes solely in student loans and loan refinancing
• Good loan rates on both variable-rate and fixed-rate student loans (with auto pay discount)
• Refinance loans come with repayment terms between 5-20 years

Unlike some lenders, College Ave only does student loans - both for students just starting out and needing money for the first time, as well as refinancing for existing loans. This lender is based in Delaware and has both an "A+" rating and accreditation from the Better Business Bureau.

Your loan maximum depends on your degree

College Ave has a minimum refinancing amount of $5,000. If you've got a doctorate degree in the medical, dental, pharmacy or veterinary fields, you'll have a maximum loan amount of $300,000. Undergraduate and graduate degrees are limited to a loan of $150,000 or less. Your repayment terms can range anywhere from 5-20 years, and College Ave's advertised rates are in line with the better lenders we've seen. Their rates do reflect a 0.25% discount for making automatic payments.

Only a soft pull on credit to prequalify

To find out if you prequalify for a refinanced student loan through College Ave, you'll need to enter several critical details. These include your full Social Security number, your annual income, and the amount you want to refinance. College Ave reassures you that you'll only have a soft pull on your credit, at least until you get to the point of actually submitting a full application.

Aggravating application process

Be careful as you walk through the process. You'll get a page that shows you the range of rates and the terms for your potential refinancing, and there's a place to click to save those. If you don't, and you get to the Apply page, there's no way to go back! Even the multiple emails you'll get confirming your prequalification won't show you that page again: you'll have to enter all of your information from the start. Not the most intuitive or convenient process, by any means.

Decent feedback from borrowers

College Ave gets quite a lot of positive feedback from their clients. You'll find more than 900 five-star reviews from satisfied borrowers, saying that the entire loan process was fast and simple to understand. Keep in mind, though, that there's no way to sort out reviews strictly related to refinancing: most of the ones posted to the College Ave site are from students who got their original loans here and not necessarily refinanced from somewhere else.

Rates may be higher than originally quoted

That's an important distinction, because not every borrower is thrilled with the College Ave experience. There are quite a few who say that the rate they were offered (after finalizing their application and taking the hit to their credit report) was significantly higher - not just compared with other lenders but with the rates dangled in front of them during the prequalification process.

Not bad, but consider other options too

Is College Ave a trustworthy option for refinancing a student loan? Sure. Between their excellent reputation with the BBB and their ample 5-star reviews from borrowers, we didn't spot any glaring red flags that would indicate this lender has anything to hide. However, we were put off by the application itself: why do they make it so hard to see the rates (unless you have the foresight to save them in advance)? Maybe that has something to do with the fact that their rates are often higher than their rivals'. You could get the student loan refinancing you need from College Ave, but you may want to shop around a little first.