Looking for a low interest loan to finance your higher education? Private student loans from Discover may be the product you want.
With no fees, low interest rates, and forbearance options, Discover is a market leader in private student loans.
But these loans aren’t for easy money.
Borrowers need an excellent credit score or a cosigner to get the loans. Think a private student loan from Discover makes sense for you? We’ll explain the loan features and scenarios where a private student loan from Discover makes sense.
Discover Undergraduate Loan
Cover up to 100% of school-certified costs with a Discover Undergraduate Loan at an eligible school for your Bachelor's or Associate's degree.
- Interest Rate
- Cosigner Requirements:
- In school deferment:
- Repayment terms:
- fees
- Rewards
0.25% interest rate reduction when you enroll in auto-debit for your loan. 1% principal loan reduction if you earn a 3.0 GPA or higher.
When Does This Loan Make Sense?
With Variable rates as low as 3.87%, the undergraduate student loan from Discover sounds like a good deal, but almost everyone should avoid it. Most students should be able to pay for an undergraduate degree with a combination of savings, federal loans, scholarships, and work.
Federal loans offer more flexible repayment terms, and your parents or grandparents won’t have to cosign on the loans. If you’re contemplating private loans for your undergraduate degree, you may need to find a less expensive school.
Need to know more about avoiding student loan debt? Check out these pieces:
Discover Graduate Loans
Graduate Loans from Discover cover loans for Law School, Health Professional Schools (such as Medical or Dental school), MBA programs, and traditional Graduate and PhD programs. With loans from Discover, you can cover up to 100% of your school certified costs.
- Interest Rate
- Cosigner Requirements:
- In school deferment:
- Repayment terms:
- fees
- Rewards
25% interest rate reduction when you enroll in auto-debit for your loan. 1% principal loan reduction if you earn a 3.0 GPA or higher.
When Does This Loan Make Sense?
Private graduate student loans make sense in some circumstances. If you expect to have a high salary and low unemployment following graduation, private loans are a reasonable way to finance your education. Of course, it’s easy to delude yourself about your job prospects following graduation.
To keep you in check, Georgetown published an unemployment and salary guide for students. You’ll never want to borrow more than your expected first year salary following graduation.
Loans from Discover make particular sense for students with established credit histories who can qualify for great interest rates without a cosigner. The graduate school loans from Discover aren’t as flexible as Federal Student Loans, but they carry low interest rates.
If you need to borrow for graduate school, weigh the flexible repayment terms of the Federal Student Loans against the low interest rates of private loans. It’s up to you to decide what’s best.
Discover Residency Loans
Following medical school, most doctors move into a residency program. While most residency programs pay doctors, doctors must pay for housing and moving costs. Plus, residents often experience the high costs of starting a family during residency.
With the Discover Residency loan, you can cover the cost of your residency, internship, relocation and board exam review.
- Interest Rate
- Cosigner Requirements:
- Loan Limits:
- In residency deferment:
- Repayment term:
- Fees:
- Rewards:
$18,000 for Allopathy, Dentistry, Optometry, Osteopathy, Pharmacy, Podiatry and Veterinary Medicine. $5,000 for Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy and Physician Assistant.
When Does This Loan Make Sense?
If possible, avoid taking out loans during residency. A resident’s salary is small, but it should cover the expenses associated with residency. Consider negotiating for a relocation package if moving costs will drive you into debt.
If you can’t qualify for a relocation package, don’t turn to loans just yet. First consider opening a 0% APR credit card.
Use the 0% credit card to finance expenses for a few months, and then work on aggressively repaying the credit card.
Discover Bar Exam Loans
Law students can cover their living expenses and bar exam costs with a low interest loan from Bar Exam Loan from Discover.
- Interest Rate
- Cosigner Requirements:
- Loan Limits:
- deferment:
- Repayment terms:
- Fees:
- Rewards:
5.12-9.87% Variable
6.99-11.49% Fixed
When Does This Loan Make Sense?
Ideally, a young J.D. can find a job with a firm who will pay their salary while they study for the Bar Exam. Increasingly, such an arrangement is fairy tale. Many law school graduates need a loan just to become firm legal. If you cannot cover living expenses in between graduation and the bar, consider a few options. First, cut costs to the bare minimum.
You’re practically living in the library anyways, so renting a bedroom in a house is fine. Next, try to cover your costs using any remaining savings a 0% APR credit card. If that fails, go on to a private residency loan.
Discover Consolidation Loans
Law students can cover their living expenses and bar exam costs with a low interest loan from Discover.
- Interest Rate
- Cosigner Requirements:
- Loan Limits:
- deferment:
- Repayment terms:
- Fees:
- Rewards:
0.25% interest rate reduction when you enroll in auto-debit for your loan.
When Does This Loan Make Sense?
If you graduated from school with debt, and you’ve got a steady job with a decent salary, it might make sense to consolidate your debt and lower your interest rate. Consolidating to a private loan means you lose income based repayment options.
But with Discover, you’ll retain the ability to defer loans if you return to school. If you want to refinance your student loan, be sure your credit is in great shape and shop around for the best interest rates and terms that fit your life.
What if I have trouble paying my Discover Student Loan?
Discover wants their borrowers to succeed and repay their student loans. As a result they’ve created several programs to help borrowers avoid delinquency. In addition to offering a 6-9 month in school deferment program (when you don’t have to make payments), these are the plans Discover offers.
- Early Repayment Assistance - A 3-month extension of your grace period.
- Payment Extension - If you fell into delinquency, Discover will revive your loans if you make 3 consecutive payments in 90 days.
- Reduced Payments - Reduce your payments to just the interest arount for six months
- Forbearance - Payments stop for six months, but interest continues to accrue
- Hardship - Discover reduces your interest rate for six months
To find out if you qualify for one of these programs call the Discover Repayment Assistance team at 1-800-STUDENT.
Compare all your student loan options at Credible.
Have you considered a Discover student loan before? Do you use any of Discover's other products?
Discover Student Loans Review
-
Loan Options - 100
-
Rates & Fees - 90
-
Customer Service - 70
-
Ease Of Use - 80
-
Rewards & Perks - 80
-
-
Summary
Discover student loans is an online private student loan lender that has one of the largest amounts of loan options available to borrowers. They have decent rates and some perks for borrowers as well.
Julia Lenhard says
For 3 months in a row I have had difficulty paying the loan on line and have had to call them up to make payments. As a cosigner, I do not have as much information about the loan as the borrower such as details about payments etc. I have been paying the loan for the person who stopped paying but I feel like I am seen as a money bag by discover and treated as a second class borrower by them. I hate it taking me an hour to make a payment each month. Why cant they just fix their online problems.