4 Best MBA Student Loan Refinance Options

How much could student loan refinancing save MBAs?

On average, an MBA program costs $232,985 in the U.S. Depending on how much you borrow to pay for an MBA, your savings from refinancing could be substantial.

Let's use $66,740 in MBA student loans as an example. Fewer schools are reporting average student debt numbers, so it's harder to nail down — but this aligns with the most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

If you repaid $66,740 on the standard, 10-year repayment plan with an interest rate of 7%, you'd pay $92,989 overall. Reducing the interest rate to 5% would drop that total to $84,946 — a savings of roughly $8,000.

The amount you save depends on your loan's terms, like the interest rate offered and term length. The lower your interest rate and the shorter your loan term, the less money you'll pay in interest.

Plug your info into a student loan refinance calculator to determine how much you could save.

» MORE: How to pay off $100,000+ in student loans

Should you refinance MBA student loans?

If you paid for your MBA with private student loans, there’s little downside to refinancing. Consider refinancing whenever you qualify for a better rate. That may be while you’re in business school, after you graduate or both. Refinance lenders typically don’t charge fees, so it's OK to refinance as often as you need to and you'll begin saving money immediately.

Here are some additional questions that can help you decide if an MBA student loan refinance makes sense for you:

• What type of rate do you have? Most student loan refinance lenders let you choose a fixed or variable interest rate; some offer hybrid rates as well. If you originally went for a private MBA loan with a variable rate to keep costs down, you may want to lock in a fixed rate via refinancing to avoid future increases. Or if interest rates fall — and you’re confident in your earning power — you could refinance to a lower variable rate and pay off your debt faster.

• Do you have federal student loans? Before you refinance federal student loans make sure you won't need benefits like income-driven repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness. You can’t get those back after refinancing. If you have a mix of federal and private loans, you can always refinance just the private loans to keep federal loan protections.

» MORE: MBA student loan repayment and forgiveness options

STUDENT LOAN REFINANCE RATINGS METHODOLOGY

Our survey of more than 26 banks, credit unions and online lenders offering student loans and student loan refinancing includes the top 10 lenders by market share and the top 10 lenders by online search volume, as well as lenders that serve specialty or nontraditional markets.

We consider 41 features and data points for each financial institution. Depending on the category, these include the availability of biweekly payments through autopay, minimum credit score and income requirement disclosures, availability to borrowers in all states, extended grace periods and in-house customer service.

The stars represent ratings from poor (one star) to excellent (five stars). Ratings are rounded to the nearest half-star.