Louis Beryl, a former partner at Silicon Valley VC firm Andreesen Horowitz, and Benjamin Hutchison, a former head of commercial finance at BBC, created Earnest in San Francisco in 2013. Earnest was acquired in 2017 by Navient Corp and is still run as a separate brand by Navient.

Earnest is a financial technology lender that specializes in private student loans and is rapidly growing. Earnest provides you with a variety of adjustable monthly payments with its student loans. Earnest outshines other competitors by offering its main selling point, being the market-leading 9-month grace period after graduation.

When it comes to loans, Earnest can offer you the most flexible repayment options, including the longest grace period in the industry.

Earnest at First Glance

Types of Loans: MBA, Medical, Law, Graduate, Undergraduate

APRs: 3.99% – 12.78% fixed (auto pay discount is included) and 3.99$ – 12.19% variable

Terms of Repayment: Five to fifteen (5-15) years

Amount of Loans: As much as 100% of the cost of attendance

Loan Rates and Other Fees

Earnest has two types of loans, variable and fixed-rate loans with starting price of 3.99%* APR (auto pay included), making it one of America’s lowest-interest student loans providers. Earnest offers loans for undergraduate, graduate, and MBA students, as medical and law students. It only publicizes rates on a general basis and doesn’t provide a breakdown of how rates differ between loan types. When using automatic pay to make monthly payments, an automatic 0.25% discount is applied to the APR rate. *Our lowest rates are available only to our utmost credit borrowers and include our 0.25% discount on automatic payments from a checking or savings account.

APR starting at 4.43%

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Options for Repayment

Earnest provides a selection of five repayment terms: 5, 7, 10, 12, or 15 years. In addition, it also allows you to choose any of the four repayment options while you are still in school.

1. Complete Principal and Interest: Pay off your loan in full while you are still in school to reduce the overall cost.

2. For interest only: While enrolled in school and during the interim, make interest payments but defer principal payments (0.25% APR Auto Pay discount is not available while loan payments are deferred) to strike a balance between the cost of the loan and the reduction in monthly payments.

3. Fixed: Deciding on a fixed monthly payment of $25 while you are still in school can greatly help you pay off your debt faster.

4. Deferred: To free up money in your budget, don’t make any payments while you’re in school (0.25% APR Auto Pay discount not applicable while loan payments are delayed).

After you graduate, Earnest offers a nine-month grace period before you are required to start making full principal and interest payments. This is considered the best grace period in the market surpassing the 6-month grace period or no-grace period as offered by other companies.

In addition, for the duration of the repayment term, lenders have the choice to skip one payment annually.

Rewards and Discounts

All Earnest lenders are qualified to submit an application for a $5,000 share of the $250,000 Earnest Scholarship Fund. No GPA or essay requirements for all the applicants. You only need to share a few details about yourself to get started.

Loan Application

Earnest allows you to submit an online or mobile private student application (the website is optimized for mobile). Just complete and submit the application and attach all of your supporting documents, and look over your loan options. The majority of accepted borrowers receive a final decision in less than 72 hours.

To qualify, students must be:

• Currently attending a qualified 4-year Title IV institution full-time or being enrolled to attend to

• Currently living in the United States (all states accepted excluding Nevada)

• Of legal age in their state

• Either a US citizen or permanent resident or have a co-signer who is one of these

APR starting at 4.43%

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Options for Co-signers

There are over 90% of Earnest borrowers who are granted loans have co-signers with their loans. It could only take just two minutes to verify the co-signer’s eligibility. When you apply for a loan from Earnest, you have the choice to start an application by yourself and then ask Earnest to send an email to your co-signer with instructions.

Earnest, unfortunately, does not provide a co-signer release. This only implies that until the loan is fully paid, your co-signer must have their name listed on it.

Customer Support

If we will base it on the 4.7-star Trustpilot rating, we can definitely say that Earnest is the most favored loan provider by the majority of student lenders. Contact information and responses to frequently asked questions can be found in the Help Center on the Earnest website. Earnest Operations LLC is currently based in San Francisco.

APR starting at 4.43%

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Final Thoughts

Earnest stands out in a number of ways. In the market for private student loans, its interest rates are among the lowest. Its nine-month grace period is the longest and the most generous we have ever observed among other competitors. And because of their fintech-powered program, you will receive a decision right away. The eligibility requirements are particularly strict, but cosigners increase a borrower’s chances of being approved.