early match refinance with laurel road

[doctorobo]

Hi WCI Readers.

I'm a current 4th year medical student that has been working on getting a private loan refinanced through laurel road. I matched into an early match specialty and was fairly certain that I read somewhere on a WCI post that all you need to do is "match" and show proof of that to refinance. Unfortunately they are giving me a hard time and are forcing me to provide a "contract" of employment showing my starting salary for PGY1 year. I have no idea when my program will provide such a contract to me on paper and was hoping to get some advice on the matter here. I figured Laurel Road would be familiar with how the match works and how such contracts are handled but they seem clueless every time I call them to explain my situation.

Can anyone help? How should I handle this? Do I just try again once I have such a contract?

[nolamd84]

Seems early to refinance to a private company. Are you sure you wouldn't use PSLF? Early match would be Ophtho, Child Neurology or Urology if I remember correctly. Depending on your load burden you could certainly use PSLF from one of those.

Not sure how Laurel Rd works exactly but expect an employment contract at orientation. Maybe in the paperwork a month or so before.

[The Physician Philosopher]

I have a student loan refinance page that discusses this, but Commonbond and Link capital will let you do that. Not sure the other programs will.

Actually. I just realized you are talking about being contracted for residency. Not an attending job. Either way,there are four resident refinance companies (commonbond only does resident refinancing the last year if you have a contract) and descriptions of each. Would be worth calling all four to see what options are.

[The White Coat Investor]

doctorobo wrote:

Hi WCI Readers.

I’m a current 4th year medical student that has been working on getting a private loan refinanced through laurel road. I matched into an early match specialty and was fairly certain that I read somewhere on a WCI post that all you need to do is “match” and show proof of that to refinance. Unfortunately they are giving me a hard time and are forcing me to provide a “contract” of employment showing my starting salary for PGY1 year. I have no idea when my program will provide such a contract to me on paper and was hoping to get some advice on the matter here. I figured Laurel Road would be familiar with how the match works and how such contracts are handled but they seem clueless every time I call them to explain my situation.

Can anyone help? How should I handle this? Do I just try again once I have such a contract?

Click to expand...

You may be thinking about the fact that you can consolidate federal loans and get them enrolled in REPAYE after match as discussed here:

https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/how-to-enroll-in-repaye-early/

Here are the two posts I've done in the last year about resident refinancing:

https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/refinancing-medical-school-loans-during-residency/

https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/new-student-loan-refinancing-options-for-residents/

There are four companies that will refinance you as a resident without an attending contract:

SoFI and Laurel Road definitely require you to graduate from med school first, although you can try and can certainly get the paperwork ready to submit on graduation day.

I don't think I've ever asked Link Capital or Splash Financial whether they will refinance you between match day and graduation day, but I think it would be weird if they did.

If you do find they'll refinance you before graduation, let me know and I'll help spread the word.

Also, for you and anyone else who reads this, remember that refinancing federal loans during residency may be a big mistake as it eliminates the protections of IDR programs and disqualifies you both from the REPAYE subsidy and PSLF. You can refinance private loans safely and if you're sure you're not going for PSLF and the REPAYE effective rate is higher than what you can refinance to, then you can refinance federal loans.

[doctorobo]

Thank you for the information. I think I will just have to wait until I graduate; however, I felt this made no sense as after the match graduation is pretty much a guaranteed (at least at my school) and I didn't want to accrue 4-5 months of a higher interest rate when I didn't have to . Will post an update once I graduate and re-apply.