Citizens Student Loans Review 2022

Citizens offers private student loans and student loan refinancing to borrowers nationwide. Depending on where you live, you may be directed to the website for Citizens One, the national lending division for Citizens.

Citizens student loan refinancing

Best if:

• You want to refinance a large loan balance
• You already bank with Citizens

Citizens student loan refinancing: Interest rates and loan details

Citizens offers a wide selection of loan terms and high maximum balances for students and parents who want to refinance student loans.

Citizens student loan refinancing review

With competitive rates and high maximum loan balances for qualified borrowers, Citizens can be a good choice for student loan refinancing — particularly if you are already a Citizens customer.

If you can prove that you have the income needed to repay your debt, Citizens will refinance up to $750,000 for students. A bachelor’s degree or higher is required to refinance.

How to qualify

Citizens (and Citizens One) will refinance both private and federal loans. Citizens does not publicize the minimum income and credit score required to be approved for refinancing.

Repayment

Citizens offers a choice of five repayment terms on student loan refinancing, ranging from 5 to 20 years. That can make it easier to match your monthly payment to your budget.

If you agree to have payments automatically deducted from your bank account, you’ll qualify for a 0.25% interest rate reduction. There’s also a 0.25% loyalty discount if you’ve got another account with Citizens.

If you applied with a cosigner, you can apply to have them released after making 36 consecutive on‑time payments. It’s not the fastest cosigner release in the industry — some lenders will take applications after 12 or 24 months — and cosigner release is not available at all on the Education Refinance Loan for Parents.

How Citizens student loan refinancing compares to other lenders

How to refinance student loans with Citizens

Citizens can be one of the best companies to refinance with — for certain borrowers. Because every lender that offers refinancing determines the rate they’ll offer you on a case-by-case basis, it’s impossible to know your lowest possible rate without first comparing multiple lenders.

With Credible, it’s easy to compare top rates from Citizens and other student loan refinancing lenders with just one simple form. You can even check prequalified rates with just a soft credit pull (so it won’t affect your credit).

Find Your Student Loan

Citizens private student loans

Best for:

• Professional students (law, medicine, and MBA)
• Parents who can qualify to take out big loans
• Citizens customers

Citizens student loans: Interest rates and loan details

Citizens offers generous loan limits on private student loans to qualified borrowers. There’s a decent selection of loan terms and repayment plans, allowing undergraduate, graduate students, and parents to tailor loans to their needs.

Citizens private student loans review

Citizens offers private student loans with some interesting features, like the ability to apply once and be approved for additional loans over multiple years. But Citizens offers fewer loan terms and repayment plans than some other lenders — particularly if you’re a parent.

Citizens will loan up to $350,000 to qualifying parents and students taking out medical school loans or pursuing careers in dentistry, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine. MBA and law school students can borrow up to $225,000.

But the longest loan term offered by Citizens is 15 years, and parents can’t take more than 10 years to repay their loans. Though, for some borrowers, a 10- or 15-year repayment term on a six-figure loan will mean a budget-busting monthly payment.

Depending on the rate you qualify for, Citizens student loans can be competitive with federal PLUS loans, particularly after factoring in upfront fees on parent PLUS and grad PLUS loans.

How to qualify

To qualify for a Citizens student loan, you’ll need to be enrolled at least half-time in a degree-granting program. If you’re not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, you can apply with a creditworthy cosigner who is. Most students won’t have the income or credit history needed to qualify for a loan without a cosigner.

You can request prequalified rates from Citizens and other lenders through Credible without affecting your credit.

Multi-year approval

Since students will typically need to take out loans every semester or year they’re enrolled, Citizens offers multi-year approval. Once you’ve been approved for your initial loan, Citizens can just do soft credit inquiry whenever you come back for more loans. Just keep in mind that you can still be denied, and international students aren’t eligible for multi-year approval.

Repayment

Most borrowers will have the option of paying their loans back over 5, 10, or 15 years, although 15-year loans are not available to parents. Students can defer making monthly payments altogether until six months after leaving school or make interest-only or full payments. Parents, however, don’t have the option of deferring payments until after their child’s graduation — but they can make interest-only payments while the student is in school.

If you authorize automatic payments from a bank account, you’ll qualify for a 0.25% interest rate discount. If you’ve got another Citizens account, that can qualify you for an additional 0.25% loyalty discount.

How Citizens student loans compare to other lenders

How to take out student loans with Citizens

Citizens makes applying for a student loan online easy and has helped many students and their families cover unmet educational expenses. Before taking out a private student loan, make sure you’ve taken advantage of any scholarships and grants you may qualify for, and researched your federal student aid options and the best ways to pay for college.

Because there are so many lenders competing for your business, it’s smart to compare rates you can qualify for with multiple lenders offering the best private student loans. Credible lets you fill out one simple form and request rates from top student lenders including Citizens, without affecting your credit score or putting your personal information at risk.

Find Your Student Loan

How Citizens can improve

Citizens stands out from some of its competitors for its willingness to provide or refinance large student loans. It could improve by:

• Providing a wider selection of loan terms for its student loans
• Providing more transparency around minimum income and credit requirements