Best Private Student Loans of 2026: 6 Lenders Compared

Your financial aid award letter arrives, you accept every federal dollar on it, and the total still doesn’t cover the bill. So the private loan search starts. Every lender advertises a rate “as low as” some floor that almost no applicant gets. The terms that actually decide what you pay are buried in a disclosure document nobody opens.

2026 is the year that gap got wider. On July 1, 2026, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act ended Direct PLUS loans for graduate and professional students. It also capped Parent PLUS for the first time. Graduate borrowers used to have a federal backstop that covered the full cost of attendance. That’s gone now, and losing it is the single biggest driver of new private borrowing this year.

Two rules come before any rate comparison. Take every federal dollar first: federal student loans are priced at 6.52% fixed for undergraduates this award year, and they come with protections no private contract matches. Private money is for the gap that’s left, not a substitute for the federal loan you skipped. And student loan refinancing has a catch. Move federal debt to a private lender and you permanently give up income-driven repayment and forgiveness, with no path back into the federal system.

1. How we compared the six lenders, and why federal loans still come first

Six lenders, eight criteria, and one rule that outranks all of them. Before a private rate means anything, you need the federal benchmark it has to beat.

1.1 Federal loans first, and the 2026 numbers that prove it

For loans first disbursed between July 1, 2026 and June 30, 2027, the federal student loans interest rate is 6.52% fixed for undergraduates, 8.07% for graduate and professional students, and 9.07% on Direct PLUS. Origination fees are 1.057% on Subsidized and Unsubsidized loans and 4.228% on PLUS, deducted before the money reaches your school.

Yes, five private floors come in below the federal bars. But every one is an annual percentage rate (APR) that only the strongest applicants are offered, for reasons section 1.5 takes apart. So take every federal Direct dollar first, then borrow only the remainder of your school-certified cost of attendance.

1.2 What OBBBA changed on July 1, 2026

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed July 4, 2025, applies to loans first disbursed on or after July 1, 2026. Grad PLUS is gone: graduate students are now capped at $20,500 a year and $100,000 total, professional students at $50,000 and $200,000, with no cost-of-attendance backstop. Parent PLUS caps at $20,000 a year per student and $65,000 across all parents, under a $257,500 student lifetime maximum. Federal student loans repayment now happens through the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) or a Tiered Standard Plan.

Took a Direct Loan for the same program and school before July 1, 2026, and stayed enrolled? You keep the old limits, and you can’t opt out.

1.3 Refinancing federal debt is a one-way door

Refinancing a federal loan into a private one is the only decision in this comparison that can never be undone. Each row below is a right you hand back, starting with a payment tied to your adjusted gross income (AGI).

Protections lost when a federal loan is refinanced into a private loan

Sign, and they all go at once, every route to student loan forgiveness included. Read that silence as a term you haven’t seen yet, not as a refusal.

1.4 The eight criteria this comparison scores

Eight things decide what a private loan costs you, and they don’t carry equal weight.

Comparison criteria, weight, and why it matters to the borrower

The in-school line is the one borrowers underrate. Choose deferred payments and the unpaid interest capitalizes: it’s added to principal when your grace period ends, and from there on you pay interest on the bigger balance.

1.5 Why the advertised floor is almost never your rate

Every lender in this comparison attaches the same three conditions to its floor: a strong cosigner, the shortest term, and full principal-and-interest payments while you’re enrolled.

A single lender can price a spread of more than 15 percentage points, so the floor tells you almost nothing about your own offer. So prequalify at two or three lenders and compare real offers, not marketing floors.

1.6 Two features that shrink the field before rates matter

Two yes-or-no questions rule lenders out faster than any rate ranks them. Does this lender refinance? And does it publish a cosigner release path, the process for getting a cosigner’s name off the loan?

All six lend in school. Only College Ave, SoFi, Earnest, and Citizens are student loan refinancing lenders, and only Sallie Mae, College Ave, SoFi, Citizens, and Ascent publish a release path. Earnest is the exception: it refinances but runs no release program, so freeing a cosigner there means a brand new loan.

1.7 The six lenders at a glance

The six lenders at a glance

Data current as of August 2026.

Two rules for reading it. The Citizens figures are starting interest rates from its Application and Solicitation Disclosures, not APRs. An interest rate prices the balance, while an APR also takes into account required fees and the repayment structure. So the Citizens cells can’t be read straight down the column. And Earnest publishes starting rates rather than complete ranges, so its ceiling is unknown, not low. A blank ceiling is not a low ceiling.

2. Sallie Mae: the widest program coverage in the group, and no refinancing

2.1 Overview

Sallie Mae Bank covers more ground than anyone else in this comparison: associate and bachelor’s degrees, career training and certificate programs, ten graduate and professional loan types, plus a parent loan added in 2026. What it won’t do is lend to you twice: no consolidation, no refinancing, so a student loan refinance later means changing lenders. And 91% of its undergraduate loans were cosigned last year.

2.2 Strengths

Coverage is the main strength. The published fixed floor is 1.95% APR, and one of the three in-school repayment options is a flat $25 a month that keeps some interest from capitalizing. Cosigner release counts payments, not elapsed years: 12 on-time principal-and-interest payments. There’s a $2,000 no-essay undergraduate scholarship plus a $5,000 graduate scholarship sweepstakes.

2.3 Weaknesses

A family that wants one relationship through payoff will move on. Interest-only and $25 fixed payments made in school don’t count toward the 12 payments release requires, and parent loans originated after May 2026 are shut out of release entirely. Maximum cumulative forbearance isn’t published; that term is in the promissory note.

2.4 Pricing & fees

Sallie Mae pricing and fees

Data current as of August 2026.

The index is the 30-day average Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR), so a variable loan resets with the market and the 3.62% floor is a starting point, not a promise. The autopay discount applies in active repayment only, so it saves you nothing while you’re enrolled.

2.5 Who it’s for

Sallie Mae is ideal for the undergraduate with a creditworthy cosigner, especially at a career training or certificate program narrower lenders won’t certify. It’s not the right choice if you have no cosigner, or if you’re counting on refinancing with the same lender later.

3. College Ave: pick your own term and your own in-school payment

3.1 Overview

College Ave student loans let you make the big decisions yourself: four in-school repayment options and a term you pick (5, 8, 10, or 15 years on undergraduate loans) instead of one the lender assigns. It does refinance, from 6.99% to 13.99% APR on terms of 5 to 20 years, with maximums scaled by degree.

3.2 Strengths

The published fixed floor is 1.94% APR on undergraduate loans, the lowest in this comparison. Cosigner release doesn’t wait for graduation; it opens at the halfway point of the original term. Grace ranges from 6 months on undergraduate loans to 36 months on medical, the longest in this comparison. Refinance ceilings reach $500,000 for medical, dental, pharmacy or veterinary doctorates, $300,000 for other graduate degrees, $150,000 otherwise.

3.3 Weaknesses

The ceiling is 17.99% APR on both fixed and variable, the highest in this comparison. Release is time-based, not payment-based, so a 15-year loan needs 7.5 years of principal-and-interest payments before release is possible. The 6.99% APR refinance floor is three points above the cheapest in this comparison. The variable-rate lifetime cap and the late payment fee aren’t on the product pages; both are in the Application and Solicitation Disclosure.

3.4 Pricing & fees

College Ave prices three products, and they don’t behave alike.

College Ave pricing and fees

Data current as of August 2026. Refinance figures valid as of August 18, 2026; grace periods per the College Ave help center.

Don’t carry that 1.94% floor across to the refinance column. The two products are underwritten differently, and the refinance floor is 6.99%, five points higher at the same lender.

3.5 Who it’s for

College Ave is ideal if you want to set the term and the in-school payment yourself, or if you need a refinance ceiling above $300,000 for a doctorate. It’s not the right choice for a family whose priority is freeing the cosigner quickly.

4. SoFi: the strongest published refinancing numbers, and the tightest eligibility

4.1 Overview

SoFi’s offer is a straight trade. A SoFi student loan refinance is priced from 3.99% to 10.99% APR fixed, with the variable rate capped at 13.95% by contract. The catch is who gets in: the private student loan needs a bachelor’s degree program or higher, so associate-degree students are out.

4.2 Strengths

Almost everything SoFi does well shows up once you already hold a degree and a real balance.

• That 10.99% APR refinance ceiling is the lowest in this comparison, and the variable rate can’t exceed 13.95%.
• No dollar ceiling on a refinance, terms out to 20 years, and Parent PLUS and resident debt qualify.
• No fees of any kind, including no late fee. A $250 cash bonus at a 3.0 or higher GPA.
• A graduate promotion prices as low as 2.45% APR for applications by September 3, 2026.
• Discounts stack: 0.25% autopay, 0.125% member rate, 0.125% for returning in-school borrowers. The member rate needs an account, so weigh its banking, investing, and lending products first.

4.3 Weaknesses

The price of those terms is a narrow front door and thin cover once you’ve signed.

• Associate-degree students can’t get the private student loan at all, and bar and residency loans can’t be refinanced.
• The in-school variable rate can reach a 17.95% cap, the highest contractual cap in this comparison.
• Cosigner release takes 24 consecutive on-time full principal-and-interest payments, the longest published requirement in this comparison.
• SoFi’s materials say a private loan may be discharged at death, but disability discharge doesn’t apply to its private student loans.

4.4 Pricing & fees

SoFi pricing and fees

Data current as of August 2026. Terms, maximum refinance amount, and grace period per SoFi Support.

The SoFi student loan refinance rates in that table already include the autopay and member discounts. If you don’t qualify for the member rate, your real floor starts higher, so read it upward before comparing offers.

4.5 Who it’s for

SoFi is the best choice for the graduate with a completed bachelor’s degree and a big enough balance. That’s where a three to four point rate cut outweighs permanently losing federal protections. It’s not the right choice for an associate-degree student.

5. Earnest: published rules, a nine-month grace, and no cosigner release

5.1 Overview

Earnest publishes what it actually requires, in numbers. Earnest student loans come with printed floors on the FICO score, the credit score most US lenders underwrite from: 650 to refinance with a completed degree, 665 for a Parent PLUS refinance or an incomplete degree, and 650 with three years of credit history for a cosigner. It refinances from 4.45% fixed and treats Parent PLUS refinancing as a named product.

5.2 Strengths

Earnest competes on breathing room rather than on the cheapest advertised number.

• A nine-month grace period, three months longer than the standard, on in-school loans not on the principal-and-interest plan.
• Skip one payment every 12 months after six consecutive on-time principal-and-interest payments.
• No origination, late payment, returned check, or prepayment fees on either product.
• In-school borrowing to 100% of the certified cost of attendance, with a $400,000 lifetime maximum.
• A rate-match guarantee pays a $100 Amazon gift card if a competitor beats the offer.

5.3 Weaknesses

Two of these are hard stops rather than drawbacks you can plan around.

• Earnest publishes no cosigner release at all; removing a cosigner means refinancing into a brand-new loan.
• It doesn’t lend in Mississippi, and variable rates are unavailable in Alaska, Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas.
• In-school loans require a Title IV-qualified school, meaning one approved for federal student aid, and it must be not-for-profit and four-year, so community colleges, for-profit schools, and trade programs are out.
• No death or disability discharge policy appears on its public pages, and no forbearance cap.

5.4 Pricing & fees

Here’s what both Earnest products cost, with their eligibility rules.

Earnest pricing and fees

Data current as of August 2026. Earnest states its in-school rate examples as of 03/19/2026 and its feature comparison as of May 12, 2026; the page itself was last updated 08/11/2026.

Earnest’s own dated examples are the only clue to the top: a 16.85% variable and a 16.49% fixed interest rate without autopay, both dated March 19, 2026. Those are examples, not a current ceiling.

5.5 Who it’s for

Earnest is ideal for the borrower who wants published rules rather than discretionary underwriting, and for the parent weighing an Earnest student loan refinance. It’s not the right choice for a family that plans to free the cosigner within a year or two.

6. Citizens: the bank-relationship play, priced in interest rates rather than APRs

6.1 Overview

A 0.25% loyalty discount for existing customers stacks on the 0.25% autopay discount, a combined 0.50%. It’s also the only lender in this comparison offering Multi-Year Approval: apply once, then request funds in later years on a soft credit pull. It will refinance private student loans from $10,000 to $500,000, with a completed bachelor’s degree required. And it publishes starting interest rates rather than APRs.

6.2 Strengths

Citizens pays you for staying put, and most of its advantages compound over a full degree.

• The loyalty and autopay discounts combine to 0.50%, the largest stacked discount in this comparison. The loyalty half assumes you already bank there, so pick where you keep your everyday checking on its own merits.
• Multi-Year Approval had a 99% approval rate on later fund requests over the year to October 1, 2025.
• No origination, application, or disbursement fees, and no prepayment penalty.
• A Medical Residency Refinance Loan allows $100 monthly payments for up to 48 months of residency.
• Across 5,311 refinance customers who got a lower payment, the average saving was $4,104 a year.

6.3 Weaknesses

The trade for that loyalty pricing is who Citizens will lend to, and what it puts in writing.

• Eligibility is the narrowest in this comparison: four-year Title IV institutions only, at least half time, no community colleges or for-profit schools.
• Cosigner release needs full principal-and-interest repayment, so interest-only payments don’t count. You can apply once every 12 months. It isn’t available at all on the Student Loan for Parents.
• The variable rate cap is the greater of 21.00% or prime plus 9.00%, the highest in this comparison.
• The marketing page shows no readable rate range at all: the site renders it through a token that never loads.

6.4 Pricing & fees

Citizens prices both a student loan and a refinance loan.

Citizens pricing and fees

Data current as of August 2026. Every Citizens rate in this table is a starting interest rate from its Application and Solicitation Disclosures, not an APR, and cannot be compared like for like against the APR ranges quoted by the other five lenders.

Term length changes the floor. The five-year disclosure starts at 3.74% fixed; the seven-year version starts at 6.77% and still reaches 14.63%. A longer term buys a smaller payment and a worse starting rate at once.

6.5 Who it’s for

Citizens is ideal for the family that already banks there and will spend four years at a four-year school. The loyalty discount and Multi-Year Approval compound across a whole degree. It’s not the right choice for a community college student.

7. Ascent: the lender that underwrites a student with no cosigner

7.1 Overview

Ascent Funding is one of the few no cosigner student loan lenders in this comparison. It underwrites three products: a Non-Cosigned Credit-Based Loan, a Non-Cosigned Outcomes-Based Loan, and a Parent Credit-Based Loan. The outcomes-based one is for juniors and seniors, and it’s judged on a 3.0 GPA rather than a credit file. It funded more than 220,000 borrowers between January 2018 and March 2026. It doesn’t refinance, so consolidating later means changing lenders.

7.2 Strengths

Ascent’s advantages start with who it will approve and continue into what it pays you back.

• Two non-cosigned paths, one underwritten on GPA and program instead of credit.
• The largest autopay discount in this comparison, 0.5% on credit-based loans, 1.00% on outcomes-based.
• Cosigner release after 12 consecutive on-time payments, the shortest published requirement in this comparison.
• A 1% cash-back graduation reward, averaging about $365, capped at $500.
• A nine-month grace period, and no application, origination, disbursement, late or NSF fees on college loans.
• DACA recipients with a valid SSN qualify, as do international students with a cosigner.

7.3 Weaknesses

Lending to a student with no credit file has to be paid for somewhere, and this is where.

• Outcomes-based pricing is 12.55% to 14.62% variable and 13.62% to 15.51% fixed, roughly double the cosigned rate. It’s deferred only and caps at $20,000 a year.
• Bootcamp loans have a one-time 5.0% origination fee, the only one in this comparison. It never applies to a college loan.
• The minimum loan is $2,001, $6,001 in Massachusetts, the highest in this comparison. And there’s no refinance product.
• The non-cosigned credit-based loan needs $30,000 of annual income plus an unpublished credit score.
• A Temporary Hardship Forbearance exists, but its cap is in the promissory note.

7.4 Pricing & fees

Ascent pricing and fees, by product

Data current as of August 2026. APRs effective as of 08/15/2026 and include a 0.5% automatic payment discount on credit-based loans and a 1.00% discount on outcomes-based loans. Refinancing is not offered on any Ascent product.

The distance between the top row and the bottom row is what borrowing without a cosigner costs you, and it’s whole points rather than fractions of one.

7.5 Who it’s for

Ascent is the best choice for the student with no cosigner, and for the DACA or international student, as long as they accept a rate roughly double the cosigned one. It’s not the right choice for a bootcamp student who can borrow elsewhere.

8. The full comparison, and the verdict by borrower profile

8.1 Rate structure across the six

Every lender on rate structure

Data current as of August 2026. Citizens values are starting interest rates, not APRs. Earnest publishes starting rates rather than complete ranges.

Two of these rows can’t be ranked against the others: Citizens quotes starting interest rates, and Earnest publishes only a floor.

8.2 The variable rate ceiling nobody looks up

Only SoFi and Citizens publish a variable rate cap. The other four publish none; the cap is a term of the promissory note, not a marketing number. Before you take a variable rate, find the cap in your promissory note and run the payment at that number.

8.3 Fees and discounts, side by side

Fee and discount comparison

Data current as of August 2026. Late fees per each lender’s own product page or Application and Solicitation Disclosure.

Fees are zero at all six, with one exception: the 5.0% fee on an Ascent bootcamp loan. A fee that size is routine on a general-purpose personal loan, which makes its near-absence here worth noticing.

8.4 What a discount stack is actually worth

Read the stacks in dollars, not percentages. On a $30,000 balance at 8% over 10 years, a 0.25% autopay discount saves roughly $450 in total interest, about $3.75 a month. Ascent’s 0.5% and Citizens’ stacked 0.50% are worth twice that, and twice small money is still small next to a two-point difference in the rate you’re underwritten at.

8.5 Cosigner release, condition by condition

Cosigner release conditions, side by side

Data current as of August 2026.

Release timing goes from one year to never. Two conditions trip families up. In-school interest-only or $25 payments don’t count toward Sallie Mae’s twelve, and Citizens offers no release on its parent loan.

8.6 Downside protection when income stops

Downside protection, by lender

Data current as of August 2026. Maximum cumulative forbearance months are contractual terms in the promissory note and appear on no public page at any of the six.

None of the six publishes a forbearance cap; yours is in the promissory note. None of this is guaranteed the way federal deferment is, so the practical hedge is a few months of payments kept in an FDIC-insured savings account you can touch, meaning one covered by Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance.

8.7 Who can actually get approved

Who can actually get approved

Data current as of August 2026.

Earnest is the only lender publishing a credit floor. Ascent publishes a $30,000 income minimum on its non-cosigned credit-based loan but not the score behind it. The other four publish no floor at all, so any number attached to them is somebody’s estimate.

8.8 The in-school payment box that costs more than any rate discount

Take the same $10,000 loan and three in-school choices, on Citizens’ figures. Deferring everything at a 14.63% starting rate totals $22,277.91. Paying interest only at 11.34% totals $17,592.74. Full principal-and-interest payments at 11.50% total $12,828.65. That’s about $9,400 between the first choice and the last. Part of the difference is capitalization, part is the higher rate assigned to deferral. If you have any income at all while enrolled, pay at least the interest.

8.9 And what stretching the term does to the same balance

Four repayment paths on the same $10,000 principal end more than $9,000 apart, and the only thing changing between them is the term. The lesson matters most on a refinance. Cutting your rate while stretching a remaining 7-year balance onto a new 15-year term lowers the payment and can still raise total interest.

8.10 The verdict table

Best lender by borrower profile, with the deciding fact

Data current as of August 2026. Citizens figures are interest rates, not APRs.

One caveat on the table. Read the Earnest row as a disqualifier if you expect to free a parent within a year or two. And the last row isn’t a consolation prize: unused federal eligibility beats every private offer above it.

8.11 If you’re an undergraduate with a creditworthy cosigner

All six will lend to this profile once the school qualifies, so the decision turns on release timing rather than approval. The lowest advertised floor in this comparison, College Ave at 1.94% fixed, comes with the longest wait, 7.5 years on a 15-year loan. Sallie Mae is the best choice for this profile, releasing the cosigner after 12 on-time payments. Dependent undergraduate federal limits survived OBBBA, so your shortfall is usually small.

8.12 If you have no cosigner, a thin file, DACA status, or a non-four-year school

Start with federal student loans. No cosigner, no credit file, no underwriting at all, which is why it’s the first branch in the chart below. School type is the next gate, removing lenders before pricing matters: four-year Title IV only at Citizens, not-for-profit four-year at Earnest, a bachelor’s or higher at SoFi, bootcamps at Ascent alone. Ascent is the best choice for this profile, the only lender in this comparison that underwrites without a cosigner. But outcomes-based pricing is roughly double the cosigned rate.

8.13 If you’re a graduate or professional student borrowing after the end of Grad PLUS

With Direct PLUS gone, federal student loans now stop at $20,500 a year for graduate students. Sallie Mae is the best choice for a program-specific need, writing medical residency, dental residency and bar exam loans. College Ave is ideal when the grace period has to match the program. One trap: SoFi won’t refinance bar or residency loans.

8.14 If you’re a parent borrowing for your child

Parent PLUS, the FAFSA PLUS parent loan most families default to, prices at 9.07% plus a 4.228% origination fee: $845.60 gone from a $20,000 loan before it reaches the school. Every private lender charges zero on that line. Price the Ascent parent loan, from 5.09% variable, against the Citizens one. For the shortfall, the usual next idea is borrowing against the equity in your home, which swaps unsecured debt for debt your house secures. Cosigner release is rare on a parent product, and moving PLUS debt into your child’s name transfers liability.

8.15 If you’re refinancing existing debt and weighing whether to include federal loans

Only four of the six do student loan refinancing at all. SoFi is the best choice for the high-earning graduate, on a 10.99% APR ceiling and a 13.95% variable cap. The same total-cost test applies to folding card balances into a single payment.

Include a federal loan and you permanently hand back RAP, the interest subsidy, discharge after 360 payments, statutory deferment and discharge, and PSLF. Refinance private debt freely, federal debt only if none of those protections will ever matter.

Conclusion

The order you borrow in matters more than the lender you pick. Federal money comes first, every dollar of it. Private money covers only what’s left after grants, work-study, and family contributions are counted. And refinancing federal debt into a private loan is the one decision in all of this you can’t reverse. No lender can put you back.

Two things determine what you actually pay, and neither is the number on the homepage. One is the rate you’re approved for. At a single lender the floor and the ceiling can be more than 15 percentage points apart, so the advertised figure says almost nothing about your own rate. The other is how the loan is structured. The term you choose, and whether you pay interest while you’re in school, change your total cost far more than a quarter-point autopay discount ever will. So do this today: work out your gap on paper, then prequalify at two or three lenders within one week. A soft pull doesn’t affect your score, and only the offers that come back are real.

From here, two things usually come next. Maybe you’re paying interest during school, or building the cash reserve that replaces the federal safety net you give up in a refinance. Either way, our comparison of money market accounts shows where that money earns something while staying available. A cosigned balance also shows up on the parent’s credit report, which matters if our look at current mortgage rates is your next stop. And building your own credit file starts with our comparison of US credit cards.

FAQ: Student loans, cosigners, and refinancing in 2026