iHelp Student Loans Review: Student Loans From Community Banks

Owned and operated by ZuntaFi, iHelp has been serving students and their families since 1978 and continues to maintain its pristine A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau.

iHelp offers both private student loans and student loan refinancing. The application process to begin your search for a loan can be performed at any local branch of any of their participating institutions or online.

With federal students loan payments set to unfreeze soon, many borrowers may be considering refinancing their loans in order to reduce their interest rate and payments. Wondering how iHelp's rates, terms, and benefits stack up to the competition? Check out our full iHelp student loans review below to find out.

What Is iHelp Student Loans?

iHelp student loans is the branding that ZuntaFi uses for its family of private student loan products. Founded in 1978, the company was known as Reunion Student Loan Finance Corporation until August 2020 when it changed its name to ZuntaFi.

While eligible borrowers can apply for iHelp student loans online, many are directed to them instead by local community banks. The banks do the actual lending, but they rely on iHelp for the student loan servicing. This model is similar to how LendKey works.

If you refinance with them, you can get loans ranging from 10 to 20 year terms. They offer the following rates:

iHelp Student Loan Refinancing

iHelp offers student loan refinancing in all 50 states. To apply, you'll need to have graduated from one of the platform's list of supported schools. After selecting your school, you'll be able to view your borrowing options.

Rates And Terms

iHelp's refinance loans can come with either fixed, variable, or hybrid interest rates. The fixed interest rates are available in 5-, 8-, or 12-year terms. The variable and hybrid rates, meanwhile are only available on 20-year loans.

You can borrow from $10,000 to $250,000 with an iHelp refinance loan. As of November 2021, these are the rates that are being offered:

• Fixed Rate: 3.92% to 5.60% APR
• Variable Rate: 2.68% - 3.64% APR
• Hybrid Rate: 3.34% - 3.93% APR

Hybrid interest rates are fairly unique in the student loan industry. CommonBond is one of the only other major companies to offer them. With iHelp's hybrid-rate loans, you'll pay a fixed rate for the first five years and then after that is adjusted every five years to the current average rate.

How Does iHelp Student Loan Refinancing Compare?

iHelp is unique in that offers hybrid interest rates and helps borrowers connect with community banks (which may be more willing to offer customer-friendly, market-beating rates). Its 20-year loans are also longer than some other top refinance lenders offer.

But unlike LendKey, which one of its main competitors, iHelp doesn't offer fixed rates on those loans with 20-year terms. It also isn't currently offering any refinance bonuses to borrowers. Here's a quick look at how iHelp compares.

iHelp Student Loans

iHelp has a variety of private student loans. These include: undergraduate, graduate, medical school, and flight school loans. Loan amount start at $1,000 with aggregate maximums of $100,000 for undergrads and $150,00 for graduate borrowers.

Unergraduate and graduate student loans are available nationwide, but medical school and flight school loans are only available in a handful of states each. Here is the state availability for iHelp flight school and medical school loans.

Once again, to qualify for these loans, you'll need to be attending one of the schools that is supported on the platform. This can be a bit more difficult if you're trying to take out a loan medical school or flight school.

If you're a Florida resident, for example, you'll only find one eligible flight school (International Aerotech Academy) and one eligible medical school (Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine – Bradenton).

Rate And Terms

The specific rate and loan terms that you see with iHelp can vary based on the state that you live in and the school that you attended. But as a rule, they only offer 20-year terms with either variable or hybrid rates. Here are the current rates as of November 2021.

Undergraduate and graduate loans:

• Variable Rate: 2.09% - 6.77% APR
• Hybrid Rate: 4.12% - 7.78% APR

Medical school loans:

• Variable Rate: 2.77% - 5.14% APR
• Hybrid Rate: 5.60% APR

Flight school loans:

• Variable Rate: 10.97% APR

We were disappointed to see only one term available with iHelp (and a long 20-year term at that) Many of the other top private student loan lenders available today offer much better term flexibility. But what's even worse is the fact that there aren't any fixed-rate private student loan options with iHelp whatsoever.

Note that in California, Idaho, and Utah, 15-year terms are available for medical school loans. But a fixed rate still isn't an option. The 15-year medical school loans that are available in those states come with interest rates than range from 4.52% to 8.78%.

In-School Loan Repayment Options

While you're still enrolled in school, you'll have three repayment options for your iHelp student loans:

• Full payments
• Interest-only payments
• Full deferment

iHelp doesn't offered fixed $25 monthly payments like many other lenders offer. However, you can fully defer payments while you're in school which is something that LendKey doesn't allow.

How Do iHelp Student Loans Compare?

With only 20-year terms available in most states and no fixed-rate options, we don't recommend iHelp student loans for most borrowers. However, if you're trying to pay for flight school, it could be worth considering. 

You might also want to apply with iHelp if its hybrid rates are lower than what other lenders are offering on their fixed-rate loans and you're confident that you'll be able to pay off your loan within the first five years before the rate adjusts. 

If neither of rare circumstances apply to you, you're probably better off choosing a different lender from our list of favorites. Check out this quick table for a look at how iHelp compares:

What Borrower Protections Are Available?

This is another area where iHelp falls short. Rather than providing a clear hardship forbearance policy, it simply says that "During financial difficulty, forbearance may be available for
limited periods of time to delay required payments."  We also couldn't find any details regarding deferment for returning to school, military deferment, death discharge, or disability discharge.

One a positive note, iHelp does offer two alternative repayment options. The first is Income Sensitive Repayment which bases monthly payments on your gross monthly income,
but never less than your accrued interest. Borrowers can also choose Graduated Repayment which begins with payments that are greater than or equal to your monthly accrued interest and gradually increases over time.

How Do I Apply?

As previously mentioned, you can apply for an iHelp student loan at a local branch of one of its partners banks or online. By using the online application, students and parents can see if they qualify for a loan with one of iHelp's lender partners without having to apply separately at several different institutions.

The iHelp site operates throughout the entire United States of America and is easily accessed when trying to determine what interest rate you may qualify for. There are certain prerequisites and information you need to know before purchasing a student loan. Here are a few things to consider when you investigate iHelp:

• To be eligible for the pre-qualification process, you, or a co-signer, must have at least three years’ worth of a viable credit history and a minimum annual income of $24,000.
• In addition to the three years of a credit history, the potential borrower must also have a debt to income ratio of less than 45%.
• Applicants must also be of legal age where they live.

If you meet iHelp’s initial requirements, you will be turned over to one of their affiliated lenders.
Borrowers with cosigners can request to have the cosigner released from the loan after making at least 24 on-time payments.

Are There Any Fees?

iHelp doesn't charge any application fees, origination fees, or prepayment penalties. You will be charged a fee, however, if you're late on a payment. This late fee is either 5% of the past due amount or $10, whichever is lower.

Is It Safe And Secure?

Yes, ZuntaFi's website is encrypted with 256-bit encryption and has been verified by DigiCert. SecureTrust has also validated that ZuntaFi is in compliance with the PCI DSS, which means that your credit card information should be secure.

It doesn't appear that ZuntaFi has ever suffered a data breach to date. But it's worth noting that no company that receives a lot of personal information from customers is immune to all security threats. 

ZuntaFi says that it does not share your private information with other financial companies for the purposes of joint marketing. You can see their full privacy policy here.

How Do I Contact iHelp?

IHelp's customer service team is available by phone or email. New applicants can call 800-645-7404 or email gethelp@zuntafi.com. If you're an existing customer, you'll need to call 800-592-1270 or email service@zuntafi.com.

Customer service hours for new loan originations is Monday – Friday, 8 AM - 6 PM (CST).The loan servicing team, meanwhile, is available weekdays from 8 AM – 5 PM (CST).

ZuntaFi, iHelp's parent company, has a 40+ year track record and has developed a reputation during that time of providing solid customer support. The company has been accredited with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) since 2015 and currently has a perfect A+ rating.

Is It Worth It?

iHelp can be a helpful tool for finding student loans from community banks. However, we think that Credible is a better way to compare, as they make the process smooth from end to end.

Remember, always compare your lenders at Credible before getting a student loan. And don't forget that College Investor readers get up to a $1,000 bonus when they refinance with Credible.

iHelp Student Loans FAQs

Let's answer a few of the most common questions that people ask about iHelp student loans:

Is iHelp legit?

Yes, iHelp's parent company, ZuntaFi, has been involved in the student loan industry for over 40 years and currently offers both private student loans and student loan refinancing.

Does iHelp offer income-driven repayment (IDR) plans?

As a private lender, iHelp can't offer federal IDR plans. But it does offer its own income-based payment option that it calls "Income Sensitive Repayment."

Can you get a fixed-rate loan with iHelp?

For refinance loans you can; but the company's private student loans only come with variable or hybrid interest rates.

Does iHelp offer a bonus?

No, there aren't currently any iHelp cash bonus offers.

iHelp Student Loans Features