SoFi Blog

If you’re looking to take out a student loan to pay for an undergrad or grad degree, you’re about to join the club of Americans also carrying large amounts of student loan debt—$1.4 trillion total across the U.S., in fact. While taking out the loan may be the right move to pay for school, that decision is also paired with another one that could have impacts down the line on your long-term financial goals: your student loan repayment terms.

Student loan repayment terms can factor heavily into how long it takes to back your student debt, so you’ll want to make the right call out the outset. To make sure you can pay off that debt faster later, steer clear of these four common mistakes when choosing your loan terms:

The IRS expects to process more than 153 million tax returns by April 18th, with more than 70% of those returns getting refunds. The average refund issued last year was $2,860. If you filed early, your refund may already be tempting you to spurge. Before you do that, consider these ideas that can improve your financial health.

In our #SoFiStartups Q&A series, SoFi co-founder Dan Macklin sits down with startup founders who have gone through the SoFi Entrepreneur Program, where we offer mentorship, access to investors, and student loan deferment for founders of young startups. In a candid conversation, he speaks from one entrepreneur to another about their experiences founding a company.

Medications can improve the quality of your life—when you remember to take them, that is. This is the insight at the heart of Pillsy, a smart pill bottle that syncs wirelessly to your phone and beeps when you forget a dose. The set-up lends an effortless, tech-assisted hand to help you keep track of your vitamins and medications.

But if this solution sounds deceptively simple, that’s because it is. In fact, it took the Seattle-based startup two years to get to where they are today, on the verge of launching their product. Challenges like manufacturing cost-effective hardware, wrestling with Bluetooth, and developing a user-friendly format didn’t make Pillsy easy to bring to life. As co-founder Otto Sipe describes the process, “It was long and there were a lot of rewrites along the way. Along the lines of—Oh, this is completely not going to work.“

We use tech for just about everything these days. If the need exists, as they say, “there’s an app for that”—whether it’s food delivery, laundry service, or borrowing a car.

So for the complicated process that is searching for your first home, it’s no surprise that a few innovators are giving it a tech upgrade. Apps and online tools simplify the more labor-intensive parts of house hunting, from learning real estate lingo and weighing mortgage options to finding new listings and investigating neighborhoods.

Here’s a tour of some of the most useful house-hunting websites and real estate apps to use on the path to buying your dream home.

It’s no secret that the average doctor is saddled with tons of student loan debt when starting practice. In fact, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the average doctor graduates medical school with $190,000 in student loans—6x the national average.

Having a strategy to quickly and efficiently pay down your student loans is critical to long-term financial success, so we’ve put together a few personal finance tips and tricks for doctors to help them pay down student loans faster in 2017. These tips are relevant to all doctors, regardless of specialty or income.