College Ave Student Loan Refinance Review

Our Rating: B ⓘ (Compare)

College Ave may be a good option for a student borrower with a strong credit history and steady employment with an average to above-average income.

*Maximum limits vary by degree requirements.
**Lowest rates always include the 0.25% interest reduction for enrolling in auto-pay.

Skip to: Rates & Fees | Eligibility Requirements | Repayment Options | Consumer Reviews & Complaints | FAQ

College Ave Refinance Rates & Fees

College Ave offers fixed and variable rates. Note that the lowest rates always include the 0.25% interest reduction for enrolling in auto-pay.

Additional information about College Ave refinance rates:

• Checking your rate with College Ave will not affect your credit score. They will conduct a soft, not hard, credit inquiry (learn the difference).
• Variable rates are determined using a margin with the 30-day SOFR (5.33% as of this writing) as published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on the 5th day of the month.
• Variable rates are capped at 25.00%.

College Ave refinance rates recent history:

Over a two-year period (2022-2024), College Ave increased its lowest and highest available refinance APRs by an average of 156%.

In 2023, College Ave raised its lowest fixed rate for new loans by 55.7% (from 4.49% APR) and its highest fixed rate by 32.5% (from 9.24% APR). Meanwhile, the lowest variable rate has increased 89.4% (from 3.69% APR) while the highest variable rate is up 32.5% (from 9.24% APR).

In 2022, College Ave raised its lowest and highest fixed rates 50.2% and 78.0%, respectively; the lowest and highest variable rates increased 25.5% and 81.5%.

Student Loan Refinancing Calculator

Based on advertised rates, use the calculator below to determine what your new monthly payment and potential savings may be if you refinance with College Ave.

Additional Fees

Beyond interest rates, there are a number of fees a refinance lender may charge up-front or during the loan servicing period. Below is a list of these fees that College Ave does or does not charge.

1. Application fee – fee to apply for rates & approval.
2. Loan origination fee – fee to create the new loan.
3. Disbursement fee – fee for distributing funds to lenders to pay off loans that have been refinanced.
4. Prepayment penalty – fee for making extra payments to reduce a refinance loan balance or pay it off early.
5. Late payment fee – fee for making a late payment.
6. Returned payment fee – fee for failed payments due to insufficient funds, also known as a “bounced check.”
7. Collection fee – fee for collection activity on a defaulted debt. College Ave discloses a collection fee but does not specify a dollar amount.

Current Promotions & Offers

College Ave promotes monthly sweepstakes for borrowers to earn a $1,000 scholarship. No purchase is necessary to participate, but only current secondary and postsecondary students of the age of majority are eligible. The monthly drawing occurs on the fifth day of each month. Potential winners will be notified via email or telephone, depending on the preference they indicated in their online entry. Periodically, College Ave also advertises contests, scholarships, discounts, and other prizes. These are typically limited-time offers.

College Ave Refinance Eligibility Requirements

To qualify for refinancing with College Ave, all borrowers must meet the criteria below.

• Citizenship Requirement: U.S. citizenship or permanent residence.
• Income Requirement: undisclosed.
• Credit Score Requirement: undisclosed.
• Graduation Requirement: associate’s degree or above.
• Location Requirement: within the United States, excluding Maine.

Additional restrictions apply for specific individuals and loans.

• The refinance limit is $500,000 for graduates with degrees in medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, or veterinary medicine.
• Those with undergraduate or other graduate degrees may refinance up to $300,000.
• Disclosures reference a debt-to-income ratio but do not specify limits.
• In order to refinance a loan, the loan must not have delinquent status.

College Ave Student Loan Repayment Options

Lenders vary significantly on the benefits and options provided to borrowers during the loan servicing period. Additionally, benefits may only be available on a case-by-case basis. College Ave offers some relief options.

Deferment & Forbearance

College Ave does not disclose any conditions that may make a refinance loan eligible for deferment or forbearance. See College Ave’s conditions for deferment and forbearance below.

Additional Options

College Ave may offer other opportunities for relief or contract modification.

• Co-signer release is not available with College Ave.
• Death / disability discharge may be available in the unfortunate circumstance that a borrower passes away or suffers total permanent disability.

College Ave Reviews, Complaints & Lawsuits

Beyond our own findings, our team also collected the most genuinely insightful customer experiences we could find, including any instances of legal action against the company in which the details became public.

College Ave Online Reviews

Below are 3 samples of College Ave customer reviews we found on public forums, included here for their value as unedited, uncensored, and unsolicited user experiences. Note that these reviews are unverified, may include inaccuracies, and may provide outdated information (about rates, bonus offers, etc.).

“So about a month ago I started the search for better rates on about 33,000 on my own loan and about 15,000 on my wife’s. Mine was for a mix of my bachelor/masters degrees. We ran our application through Credible and College Ave Loans (a leg of Nationwide) quoted us the best rates at just a bit over 4%. We also checked out a few other companies that weren’t included in Credible, but none beat the lowest rate.

First I refinanced my wife’s loans and I used her Credible referral link to sign myself up. Through the referral link we scored an additional $1,200 cash referral bonus that was transferred to us within days. 1k to the referrer (wife) and 200 to the new referral (me). I was worried about that part, but it was a smooth transaction.

Our loans which varied in providers (Firstmark, Navient, Nelnet, Etc.) all were paid off within 3 weeks of our application and I just set up my first payment through Nationwide/College Ave at a much better rate than we were at before.

We both have excellent credit, stable employment history, and our jobs are fairly middle of the road salaries.

Highly recommend Credible and College Ave based on my initial experience.” – Inception05 on reddit, 8/5/2018

“I’ve been struggling to make my [private lender] student loan payments which were almost $700 for a few months now and had run out of deferrals. Refinancing is really overwhelming with so many options. My dad sent me a link to [a marketplace lender website] and they gave me tons of quotes. I ended up going with college ave student loans and they got my payments down to $200 for the first two years of the loan, and $400 after that. Very glad to be rid of Sallie Mae and have a loan with a reasonable rate and payment :)” – samanas6608 on reddit, 2/5/2018

“I ended up going with College Avenue – one of the first lenders that got back to me. I was offered a five year repayment at 2.75% for $187,770. This lowered my interest from 6.8% for a savings of about $8,000 since I plan to pay this off in the next 1.5-2 years.

I’m not sure if it’s typical for College Avenue Refinancing, but I got a “Head of Refinancing” actually calling me, giving me cell phone and e-mail access for questions as they arose. (It could have been the loan amount that earned me this special service)…

Once approved through College Avenue Refinancing the longest part was getting the payoff amounts from my individual loans.

The most challenging thing throughout the whole process was keeping track of which company I was actually working with- Credible found me the lenders, College Ave Refinancing was my lender, and the day after my loan disbursement I was contacted by Navient who will be collecting the payment. Maybe I’m naïve about how this all works, but my head was spinning with all the names and log-ins that I had to keep track of. Now that it’s done it will be nice to make 1 payment though. It’s hard not to feel cheated and ripped off (and averse to debt) when the company you’re working with keeps changing.” – Dr. Abigail Plzin on White Coat Investor, 5/13/2016

More (unfiltered) customer reviews of College Ave are available at TrustPilot.com (4.4 out of 5).

College Ave Consumer Complaints

As consumer finance companies, student loan refinancing lenders fall under the jurisdiction of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a federal agency. As part of its mission, the CFPB allows consumers to log official complaints. These complaints are publicly available on the CFPB official website. Since April 11, 2017, consumers have submitted 88 complaints about College Ave Student Loan Servicing, LLC (College Ave) student loan product to the CFPB. College Ave averages one (1) complaint every 29 days, which is more than twice the average daily complaint rate among reviewed lenders.

Among complaints about College Ave, 55 of them (62.5%) include accompanying narrative explanations. Seven (7) or 14.6% of these narratives explicitly reference student loan refinancing.

In 2023, College Ave received 26 complaints, which is equivalent to:

• twice its the number of complaints it receives in an average year.
• one (1) complaint for every $480,769 of corporate revenue.
• one (1) complaint for every 4 employees.

The allegations made in these complaints are unverified, are not necessarily representative of all consumers’ experiences with College Ave, and may contain outdated information (about rates, bonus offers, etc.). Note that a lender with a large customer base is likely to also have a higher number of complaints when compared with smaller lenders. Below we’ve included three (3) of the most recent complaints (as of this writing) in which the consumer consented to share their details.

Complaint 6504713
1/30/2023
California

“On Monday XX/XX/2022 I was trying to refinance my home and it was made aware to me that someone has used my information to co-sign for a student loan through College Ave. the loan amount is close to {$8000.00}. I have never co-signed a document for anyone before and now this is holding up my process to refinance my home.”

Complaint 5918437
8/25/2022
Massachusetts

“Hello, In XXXX, I signed up for a CollegeAve loan to help pay my way through XXXX University with the help of my parents. After signing up for this loan, I did not realize that payments needed to be made during school ( as this was not communicated ) so the loan unfortunately went to collections after a year and a half. Although I was paying the loan, it was not consistent enough for it to avoid collections. Prior to it going into complete write-off status, I paid CollegeAve through their student portal 8 payments of XXXX dollars from XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX that was not sent to the collection agency. The collection agency had that I owed more than I did. I receiveda letter on XX/XX/XXXX in the mail regarding two different offers that I could chose from to pay off my loan. At the time, it stated that I owed {$5100.00}. The two offers include payment plan one : {$3600.00} paid on XX/XX/XXXX or another payment plan 2 : $ XXXXmonth for 12 months. Since I paid that XXXX dollars through college ave website, I only owed at that time to COLLEGE AVE $ XXXXWhen communicating this with XXXX XXXX, they told me I needed to contact CollegeAve to send over the correct balance, but until they received the balance we agreed on a settlement offer of XXXX to reflect the XXXX dollars I had already paid in hopes they would receive it. After multiple chats and phone calls with CollegeAve, they refused to send over the correct balance and told me there was nothing that they could do. So for the past year since XX/XX/XXXX, I have been paying XXXX in order to pay off this loan. This number was agreed upon as long as XXXX XXXX received the XXXX dollars. Since they did not, I had to pay the remaining balance plus an EXTRA XXXX dollars. On XX/XX/XXXX, I was told by the Collections Agency that I have completed payments for this loan and that I no longer owe money. My account has been closed. Today, XX/XX/XXXX, I logged into my CollegeAve account and it states that I owe XXXX. When contacting them about this balance and how it is incorrect, they told me I needed to go back to the Collections Agency. While doing so, Collections again reported my account has been closed and I do not owe any more money. CollegeAve reported there is nothing they can do at this time and that I would need to pay the extra balance that is owed. Something else that is strange is that the XXXX is not due until XXXX this loan began back in XXXX, and the payments were to be completed by XXXX depending on the payment plan. I feel that I do not owe this company more money as they have already taken XXXX dollars from me and now tell me I owe more although the people who they wrote this loan off too state I do not owe more. CollegeAve has not been helpful one bit throughout this process and have completely disregarded me everytime I contact them ( which is at least 3-4x a month ). At one point they asked me to stop contacting them although they were the ones that kept changing the total of the loan that I owed. Not one company has had the correct balance that I owe and are continuously asking for money that seems to come out of nowhere and just state it is ” underpaid. ” This is extremely unfair to someone who has just graduated from college and has not began to make money. please help”

Complaint 5790545
7/20/2022
Michigan

“I am a co-signer on my son ‘s student loans that he has with XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. He graduated in XXXX of XXXX and his payments will convert to principal and interest payments next month ( XX/XX/XXXX ). I received a billing statement dated XX/XX/XXXX with a total amount due of {$250.00} for one of his loans. The payment for XXXX should be {$98.00}, not {$250.00}. I called XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX and spoke with customer service rep XXXX. She stated that they had an error in their system and sent out incorrect billing statements to their borrowers. She stated that the statement I received showed the payment due for XXXX AND XXXX but that I only needed to pay {$98.00} for XXXXXXXX XXXX payment. I asked her if they would be sending out a corrected statement because I was not comfortable shorting the payment due that was on my statement with concerns it might affect my credit. She said that XXXX XXXX would not be sending out corrected billing statements and that is how they are dealing with everyone that received an incorrect statement. She stated that I was incorrectly billed for 57 billing days instead of 30 billing days.”

For a full list of complaints made against College Ave in the CFPB’s Consumer Complaint Database, click here.

College Ave Lawsuits

College Ave has not been subject to any major legal action since its 2014 launch. Note that while this information is updated regularly, ongoing legal action is subject to change.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the most common questions consumers have about student loan refinancing with College Ave.

• Is College Ave good for refinancing student loans? College Ave may be a good option for a student borrower with a strong credit history and steady employment with an average to above-average income.

• Does College Ave have a minimum credit score requirement to refinance student loans?
  College Ave does not disclose a minimum allowable credit score to qualify for student loan refinancing.

• Are College Ave loans federal? College Ave loans are not federal. College Ave has no affiliation with the federal government or the U.S. Department of Education.

• Does College Ave charge a prepayment penalty? There are no penalties for early payments or repaying a loan in full before its term is over.

• Does checking your rates with College Ave hurt your credit score? College Ave performs a soft credit check for their prequalification process, which will not hurt your credit score. If you proceed with an application, however, College Ave will perform a hard credit check that may affect your credit score.

• Is College Ave a bank? College Ave is not a bank, nor is it affiliated with any bank.

• Can I refinance a College Ave loan? You can refinance a College Ave student loan or a student loan from another private lender. There is no limit to the number of times a borrower may refinance with College Ave. Note, however, that every new line of credit requires a hard credit check that may affect your FICO score.

• Can I refinance just some of my loans with College Ave? Yes, you can refinance some, all, or just one of your qualifying student loans with College Ave. You may choose to refinance your private loans only or refinance private and federal loans together.

• Can I refinance loans that have already been refinanced? Yes, you can refinance loans as many times as you want with College Ave. Note that each time you refinance, you will have to submit a new application; every application requires a hard credit check that may affect your credit score.

• Can my spouse and I refinance our loans together with College Ave? College Ave does not allow spouses to combine their debts into a single refinance loan.

• How long does it take to refinance with College Ave? After receiving a final loan disclosure, College Ave typically pays off all student loans within 3 to 4 weeks. The first repayment is due 25 to 55 days after loan disbursement.

• Who services College Ave refinance loans? University Accounting Service (UAS) services all College Ave refinance loans.

• Does College Ave offer a grace period? College Ave does not offer a grace period with its refinance loans.

• How often do variable rates change? College Ave uses the 1-month LIBOR to determine variable rates. Rates update monthly.

• Can I get any special rates or discounts with College Ave? Yes, College Ave regularly offers one-time deals and prizes in addition to monthly scholarship sweepstakes. This lender also partners with other organizations to offer their employees and/or members special deals.

• What happens if I file for bankruptcy? Filing for bankruptcy will not necessarily discharge a College Ave Refinance Loan.

• Does College Ave partner with any refinance lender marketplaces? Yes, College Ave partners with Credible as part of its multilender marketplace. Purefy‘s marketplace also features College Ave.

Compare Student Loan Refinance Reviews

Sources

1. College Ave, Student Loan Refinance
2. College Ave Refi Education Loan Variable Rate Application and Solicitation Disclosure
3. CFPB, Annual Report of the CFPB Private Education Loan Ombudsman
4. CFPB, Consumer Complaint Database
5. Dun & Bradstreet, Business Directory: College Avenue Student Loans, LLC
6. Better Business Bureau, Search Businesses and Charities