SoFi Blog

Since Hurricane Sandy first hit the East Coast, our thoughts at SoFi have gone out to all those affected. Much of the devastation is still being realized, and we continue to be saddened by the challenges many face as a result of this terrible storm. Beyond the significant hardship, however, we have been impressed by the resilience of people, the strength of communities, and how both neighbors and strangers can come together in these difficult times.

VentureBeat’s Christina Farr recently interviewed Mike in a post titled “SoFi’s CEO: ‘The student loan market is broken. Let’s fix it.'” Mike followed-on with his own post on what SoFi is doing to fix the student loan market. His 3 main points were:

We’ve gotten a lot of attention on the back of our $77 million B-round. Most of this attention has been positive, but there are still a few cynics out there. Notably, some people have asked, “OK – you lower loan rates – but how are you actually disrupting this market and solving the student debt problem?” Fair point, especially given how crappy student loan solutions have been to date – both from the government and private lenders.

Student loans aren’t fun, and they can be confusing. What frustrates us at SoFi is the dogma in the market that students should always exhaust their federal loan options before considering private loans. This can be very bad advice. While we agree that subsidized Direct and Perkins loans are clear no-brainers for students if you are eligible for them, things get more ambiguous with unsubsidized Direct loans and become down right murky with the egregiously burdensome Grad PLUS loan.

Just last week, we expanded our SoFi ReFi program to more schools across the country, and the response has been huge.  But we’ve been also hearing from a lot students and parents who are looking for better loan options to pay for the upcoming school year. For so many people who don’t qualify for subsidized federal loans, 6.8% is the best rate they’ve been able to find until now. And often, families needing to borrow beyond the Stafford limits have been looking at 7.9% or higher for a substantial portion of their loans.