Wells Fargo Student Loan Consolidation Review

As the student loan repayment challenges are increasing among borrowers, student loan refinancing market is expanding as well. They are the banks and lenders that are coming forward to help the students of America deal with their loan repayment to reduce their burden. They are able to do so by offering refinancing and consolidation facilities to the student loan holders.

The motives for refinancing and consolidating varies from borrower to borrower. This can range from the need for a new loan term, a new interest rate or to better manage the payments to be met each month. Upon consolidation, all your existing student loans are combined into a new loan which results in a single loan payment to be met each month.

Wells Fargo is one of the private banks that offer consolidation of your private student loans. Wells Fargo is one such bank that permits you to consolidate various private student loans or refinance a single student private loan. They also offer perks to reduce your interest rate such as discount depending on various factors.

Table of contents

Student Loan Consolidation review
Eligibility
Consolidation process
Rates
Repayment Terms
Should you Refinance your Wells Fargo student loan
Features
What to keep in mind about Wells Fargo Consolidation
Contact Information

Wells Fargo Loan Student Loan Consolidation Reviews

If you believe consolidating your loans is the right way to go, here are the pros and cons of Wells Fargo to help you get a better understanding of whether they are right for you.

Pros of consolidation with Wells Fargo

They refinance both federal and/or private student loans from any lender
They offer a new interest rate and new payment term based on the loan amount and creditworthiness of you and your cosigner
They offer fixed as well as variable interest rate
They provide various discounts to the Wells Fargo student loan customers
They do not charge a prepayment penalty
Through their official website, you can personalize your rate and payment calculations before you apply
You have the benefit of cosigner release

Cons of consolidation with Wells Fargo

They do not offer deferment facility
They do not have interest-only payments
If you have a poor credit history it can affect your interest rate adversely
If you miss even one payment while qualifying for cosigner release that will make you ineligible

Eligibility for Consolidation with Wells Fargo

To qualify for the consolidation of the loans, you must have the following eligibility-

You must be a U.S citizen, U.S nationalist or a permanent resident alien with no conditions
If you are a permanent resident you must have a U.S citizen cosigner with you
You as well as your cosigner must meet the bank’s requirement in terms of credit, employment, and debt-to-income requirements
There are no restrictions on minimum income or credit score necessity
The minimum requirement to consolidate your private student loans you must have at least private loan of $5000
At a time you can consolidate up to $120,000 in private loans and up to $250,00 lifetime
The term for your loan maybe 15-20 years which depends on your loan amount.

Refinance and consolidation process with Wells Fargo

Here is an in-depth understanding of the process a borrower will have to follow during the consolidation and refinancing of their student loans with Wells Fargo.

Step 1- Estimate your rate and payment before you apply

Before you apply for consolidation it is always advised to estimate your rate and payments to keep you on a safer side. You can do so by going through their official website.

Step 2: Start an application

After you have estimated the rates and payments available for you if you find them suitable for you, you can start your application process.

You can apply online by visiting the official website wellsfargo.com.

You more details you can also contact them at 1-877-315-7723.

Step 4: Detailed Loan Review

Wells Fargo has a detailed loan review process that will guide you to choose the loans to consolidate and which loans to leave out. Basically, it will help you in decision making. You can contact their Student loan Consultant for more help.

Step 5: Sign the documents

If your loan is approved they will email you a link where your documents must be signed. You can sign online or can print the same sign it and upload, fax or mail it. Once all the process is complete, you receive a final loan disclosure.

Once your loan application process is completed and accepted by the Wells Fargo, they will pay off your loans included in your consolidation and those loans will sum up to one new loan with one monthly payment.

Learn more about student loan refinancing

What are the documents required for Wells Fargo loan consolidation?

There is certain information that you may have to provide for the application process. Such as-

Your name, address, phone number, and email address
Your date of birth and social security number
Income and employment information
Residence status, monthly mortgage and rent payment
Provide details about the private loan that you want to consolidate. Details such as the lender, account number, interest rate, monthly payment, and balance.

In case you can using a cosigner the same details will be required.

When you apply, Wells Fargo will check your creditworthiness followed by a hard inquiry. The same goes for your cosigner as well. You must note that credit inquiry can affect your credit score.

Rates Offered By Wells Fargo

Though Wells Fargo offers variable as well as fixed interest rate the final interest rate that will be applicable to you depends on several factors. These factors include your repayment term and the credit qualifications of you and your cosigner.

You can choose between a variable or fixed interest rate. At the time of the application process, the interest rate options available to you will be presented from which you can choose the suitable for you.

The interest rates offered are-

Variable interest rates range from 3.50% APR (with discounts) to 9.49% (without discount)
Fixed interest rates range from 3.99% APR (with discounts) to 9.99% APR (without discount)

The range of available APRs differs by repayment term. The final APR offered to you will be based on your repayment terms and the creditworthiness of you and your cosigner.

Here’s good news to the students, the Wells Forge offers you a discount on your interest rate lower your repayment amount which is discussed later.

Repayment Terms Offered By Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo student loan consolidation offers only 15 and 20 years loan terms. However, the bank does not charge any penalty if you pay off your student loan early. Hence you can get rid of your loan before 15 and 20 years and not get charged for it.

Since they don’t have a prepayment penalty you can treat your loan term as a standard 10-year plan. Take advantage of this and start making payments towards your principal amount which can, in turn, reduce your interest payments to be met.

Should you Refinance your Wells Fargo student loan?

There are chances as well that, you can get a better rate on your student loans somewhere other than Wells Fargo as in recent years the low customer satisfaction is a solid reason to refinance your student loan from the better lender but first evaluate that are you ready as if you have federal loan then refinance may be not a good option. A comparison between lenders such as First Republic Bank offers some of the best rates in the country if you can qualify. Refinancing is a big step so all the things should be considered. Review and Analyzing the lenders for the refinancing loans can put you on the path to financial wealth and health.

Learn more about student loan repayment

Features of Wells Fargo Student Loan Consolidation

Here is a list of the features Wells Fargo has to offer which a borrower can expect to get once they go ahead with them.

Discounts offered

There are two kinds of discounts offered, they are -

1) Customer discount -

0.50% interest rate discount with a Portfolio by Wells Fargo relationship
0.25% interest rate discount with a qualified Wells Fargo consumer checking account
0.25% interest rate discount for a prior or existing Wells Fargo student loans

2) Automatic payment discount - 0.25% interest rate discount for enrolling in automatic payments during repayment.

Forbearance and deferment

The Wells Fargo allows forbearance in certain conditions such as in case you want to return to college or because of any financial hardship or any other such valid reason.

One disadvantage is that they do not provision for deferment on your student loan payments.

Do you qualify for forbearance?

You may qualify for forbearance in case you decide you want to enroll in school or in a graduate or a professional course that might allow you to briefly suspend your student loan payments. The other conditions that make you eligible for forbearance are serving in a military or if you have encountered job loss or any other type of financial hardships because of which you may not be able to make the necessary payments.

What you should know about forbearance?

Though you have suspended your loan repayment for a brief time, interest continues to accumulate during the forbearance period. When this forbearance period ends the accumulated and unpaid interest is added to the outstanding principal balance. This will end up increasing the monthly payment amount for the life of the loan.

There are no restrictions nor penalty charges on the payment made during the forbearance period which will help reduce the amount you pay in the long term.

However, if you don’t make the payments on time i.e within the 10-days grace period after the due date, the bank charges a late fee.

Co-signer release

The co-signer release is one such feature that will help you to convince a person to be your cosigner. But getting cosigner release is not that easy as it sounds. There are certain conditions that you have considered and follow them strictly in order to avoid getting ineligible for this feature. The condition is such that-

In case you miss one payment that can delay your eligibility for cosigner release
If you make your first payment on time, next you are required to make at least 24 consecutive on-time payments to be eligible for cosigner release
In case you fail to make your first repayment you still have a chance of being eligible for cosigner release provided you make 48 consecutive on-time payments.

After you fulfill one of the above conditions you can request for release wherein Wells Fargo will review your income and creditworthiness. In case your income and your creditworthiness do not match their requirements your request may be declined.

What to keep in mind about Wells Fargo student loan consolidation

Earlier the biggest problem with the Wells Fargo student loan consolidation program was its exclusivity as Only private loans were allowed, leaving federal student loan borrowers looking elsewhere but now both federal and private student loans are eligible for consolidation. But there are certain factors that should be kept in mind before applying for the Wells Fargo student loan consolidation.

1-Relatively higher interest rates

Don’t forget to evaluate Wells Fargo’s rates as they are a little competitive but comparing them with other lenders will help you in getting rates. The rates of Wellsfargo may be relatively high as lenders such as Laurel Road offer lower fixed and variable rates to those who qualify.

2-Limited forbearance for financial hardship

A borrower if the thought of pause in repayment because of shakeup in finances then Wells Fargo promises to offer you two months of relief — if you’ve previously made your payments on time and it also offers payment options and a nondescript loan modification program for borrowers who are already delinquent. This kind of offering can help a borrower to come out from the tough financial situations.

But don’t forget to check other lenders offering as well as they offer more clear-cut relief upfront like SoFi gives borrower up to 12 months forbearance in three-month increments if he/she loses a job or fall on hard times financially.

3-General customer service concerns

Overall customer service reputation of the bank was in a tough situation in recent years thus it is advised that when you are considering refinancing with national banks give its customer staff a test drive before signing any document.

Are you worried about your college tuition? Learn more about student loans

Contact Information

Wells Fargo does offer discounts to reduce your interest rate but they also have strict terms that might make it difficult to abide by during financial hardship. Hence you must be positive that you can make all the payments as per the requirements for the life of the loan.

Official Website - https://www.wellsfargo.com

You can contact Wells Fargo through at 1-877-315-7723

You will have to create an account upon which you will get access to a representative at Wells Fargo.