This Student loan organization is relatively smaller than most others in the student loan industry. With help from lender partnerships, iHelp became the middleman in helping match student loan borrowers with the smaller and community banks. The ultimate goal of iHelp is to create a large platform of lenders, especially those with great interest rates and excellent customer service.
Loan Rates and Longest Term
- Rates start at 6.00%, or 6.22% APR
- Fixed rates only
- 15 year term
Eligibility
- Has not had open collections or charge offs in the past 2 years.
- Does not have bankruptcies, foreclosures or repossessions during the past 5 years.
- Has not defaulted on a federal or private student loan.
- Meets the minimum credit score.
- Has at least 2 years of credit history.
- The borrower or cosigner must have an annual income of $24,000 or greater for the past 2 years to qualify for the iHelp Consolidation Fixed Rate Program.
- Does not exceed the debt to income threshold of 45%.
Pro
- Cosigner release is available after 24 months
- Interest only payments are available for 24 months
- Graduated payments available
- Community bank lenders
- iHELP consolidates both Federal and private loans.
- It offers competitive and fixed rates especially if you have a cosigner.
- Options are available for forbearance.
Con
- They will perform a hard pull to check rates which will impact your credit score.
- The iHELP loan is only offered to graduates of specific schools.
- They have a higher APR than other lenders that offer student loan refinance
- Supplemental Fee charge at 2%
Best for
- Want to consolidate student loans
- Are interested in cosigner release
- Want interest only payment plans
- Want a community bank lender.
iHelp offers three different repayment options. There is the standard payment and then there are the interest only payments, where the borrower has the option to pay only on the interest for 24 months. For borrowers only looking to temporarily lower their monthly payment, this helps. The next repayment option is a graduated repayment. The borrower makes interest only payments for a set amount of time, then gradually the payment amount increases until the borrower is able to make the full payment of principal and interest.
iHELP offers three forbearance options including:
- Hardship Forbearance – Postponed payments for financial difficulty for up to 24 months.
- Partial Payment Forbearance – Reduced payments for up to 24 months.
- Administrative Forbearance – Postponed payments for situations like military service or natural disaster.
iHelp’s supplemental fee charge is expensive. The supplemental fee is currently 2% of the borrowers loan balance. Factor in the costs of this fee and the interest rates, and see if this is the loan consolidation program for your student loans.