Student Loan Refinancing: FAQs

The interest rate is the percentage of the loan amount charged for borrowing. The APR (Annual Percentage Rate) reflects not only the interest rate but also includes specific fees charged by the lender. ELFI does not charge any origination or other finance fees, so the interest rate and APR on your loan will be the same.

ELFI does not require you to do anything extra to get the best rate we can offer. All borrowers are required to make payments with an electronic or digital transfer. Therefore the auto pay discount is already reflected in your approved interest rate.

ELFI’s variable rate loans are based on either the 3-Month LIBOR or the Prime Rate of Interest (please see below for clarification). The interest rate on an ELFI variable rate loan may increase or decrease as the 3-Month LIBOR index or the Prime Rate of Interest increases or decreases. These indexes can be found in resources like The Wall Street Journal.

Please Note: New variable rate ELFI loans applied for after 7:00 PM EST on January 7, 2022, will use the Prime Rate of Interest appearing in the Money Market section of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) as the benchmark rate index. Borrowers who have an existing variable rate ELFI loan(s) that use the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) as the benchmark rate index will continue to have LIBOR as the benchmark rate index on their loans. ELFI will notify borrowers with existing variable rate loans originated prior to 7:00 PM EST on January 7, 2022, of the expected change from LIBOR to an alternative benchmark rate index in the future.

Rates are subject to change without notice, until a Student Loan Approval Disclosure is provided by ELFI. After receiving a variable rate loan, the rate is subject to change quarterly on January 1st, April 1st, July 1st, and October 1st. Variable rate fluctuations can be directly linked to changes in common financial indexes, such as the WSJ Prime Rate. For more information about how variable rates are calculated, please view the Application and Credit Agreement.