Laurel Road Student Loan Refinance Review: Best for Medical Professionals (Plus Up To $1,050 Bonus)

What you need to know:

• Laurel Road is a great refinancing option for medical professionals and parents.
• Parents can refinance Parent PLUS loans in their child’s name.
• Laurel Road offers fellowship and residency refinancing loans.
• You can get a refinancing bonus up to $1,050 with our Student Loan Planner® referral link.

If you’re looking to refinance undergraduate, graduate or Parent PLUS student loans, Laurel Road is one of the top refinancing lenders out there. Laurel Road refinances student loans for medical professionals, high-income earners and high-debt borrowers, as well as Parent PLUS borrowers. Read on for our full Laurel Road student loan refinance review.

Laurel Road student loan refinancing review

Laurel Road

5.0 out of 5

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Laurel Road: Best for medical professionals

• Positives: Flexible repayment terms, profession based discounts
• Allows cosigners: Yes, cosigner release available after 36 months
• Deferment or forbearance available: Yes, up to 12 months
• Interest rates: Fixed starting at 5.44% APR; Variable starting at 5.49% APR
• Student Loan Planner® bonus: $300 for refinancing 50k to 100k, $1,050 for refinancing over 100k, OR interest rate discount if applicable.

Visit Laurel Road Up to $1,050 Bonus More Information

Laurel Road is a student loan refinancing option for everyone. But it's geared toward those in medical professions and toward Parent PLUS borrowers. For example, a unique perk that Laurel Road offers is residency and fellowship refinancing loans. This can help a lot of medical students who've recently graduated.

Unlike other student loan refinancing companies, Laurel Road is a bank. As a bank, Laurel Road has the capital necessary to offer lower interest rates compared to some of its competitors. On the other hand, its underwriting requirements (e.g., 660+ credit score) can make getting approved without a cosigner more difficult.

Laurel Road review: Pros and cons

In this Laurel Road student loans refinance review, consider these pros and cons and compare them to other student loan refinancing rates and terms to find the best fit for you.

Pros

• Flexible student loan repayment terms. You can choose from various loan terms, including terms ranging from 5 years up to 20 years.
• Refinancing is available for those in fellowship or residency. Medical residents can score better interest rates while in residency.
• Check interest rates without a hard credit check. Your credit won’t take a hit by getting your preliminary rate. It's a soft credit check, so checking rates is without consequence.
• Up to 12 months in forbearance available. If you face economic hardship, you can put your payments on pause for up to 12 months.
• Cosigner release available after 36 months. In order to get your cosigner released, you’ll need to qualify by meeting underwriting criteria and making consecutive, on-time payments for three years.
• Can refinance Parent PLUS loan in child’s name. If you’re a parent with Parent PLUS loans, you can refinance the loan into your child’s name.
• Ability to earn a refinancing bonus. You can earn the better of a cash bonus of up to $1,050 OR an interest rate discount of 0.25% if you are a member of certain professional organizations.
• No application or origination fees. Laurel Road also doesn't charge prepayment penalties.
• Autopay discount available. Receive a 0.25% discount for making automatic payments from a bank account.
• No maximum loan size. You can refinance school loans of any amount. However, loans over $500,000 may require additional review before you get a refinance offer.
• Fixed interest rates and variable rates. Choose the option that works best for you, whether that's a fixed APR or variable APR.

Cons

• Not great for borrowers with less than $50,000. Based on our data, we found Laurel Road offers the best rates for people who need to refinance a loan amount that is more than $50,000. So, if you have a large amount of student loan debt to refinance, it may be a good option.
• Available to high-income earners mostly. Refinancing with Laurel Road is best if your debt-to-income ratio is low, and you have a higher income.
• Late fees. If you make a late payment, there’s a late fee of $28 or 5% of the late payment which is charged within 15 days of the due date.
• Two loans. If you refinance a loan amount that is more than $300,000, it may be refinanced with two or more loans.

Eligibility requirements

In order to qualify for a refinancing loan with Laurel Road, you must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident with a four-year or graduate degree. Eligible borrowers must also have a minimum credit score of 660 and demonstrate proof of income.

Laurel Road can also serve those who want to refinance up to $50,000 for associate degree loans. You’ll need to be in an eligible healthcare field to qualify and must meet other eligibility requirements.

Application process

If you decide that Laurel Road is a good fit for your refinancing needs, you can apply on its website through an online application. Our most recent student loan refinancing survey found that borrowers ranked Laurel Road’s application experience #4 out of eight total lenders. This makes sense given the application’s straightforward form.

First, after creating a Laurel Road account, fill out a quick refinancing application online. You’ll need to provide your personal information, such as your employment and income status, educational history and student loan balances that you’d like to refinance to get a new loan.

While filling out the application, you’ll have the option to add a cosigner if you don't meet Laurel Road's credit score and income requirements (although a cosigner isn’t required to get a refinancing loan). The cosigner will receive an email from Laurel Road to upload any necessary documentation.

Then, you must accept Laurel Road’s loan terms and conditions and consent to a soft credit pull to see the interest rate you qualify for. If you want to move forward with your application, you must provide additional documentation:

• Photo identification
• Two recent pay stubs
• Payoff statements for your current student loans

After reviewing your information, Laurel Road will provide its final interest rate offer. To accept the loan, you must select a loan type and repayment term and then electronically sign the promissory note to move forward with the disbursement.

Should you refinance with Laurel Road?

Laurel Road consistently ranks as one of the top lenders in the student loan refi market. With its low interest rates, flexible repayment terms and positive customer interactions, Student Loan Planner® gives it a solid 5 out of 5 stars.

However, the student loan refinancing market can be volatile, particularly in 2024 where the usual funding sources for banks and credit unions aren’t as good as previous years. So, it’s best to shop around with all of the top refinancing lenders to get the best interest rate.

We’ve seen Laurel Road dominate the 15- and 20-year fixed-rate offerings for refinancing loans. Although it’s a long repayment loan term that we don’t necessarily recommend, it could offer lower loan payments. Additionally, you can use the refinancing ladder approach and refinance your student loans again down the line to manage your loan balance.

Laurel Road has decent variable interest rates, but with so much interest rate action at the Federal Reserve, you’ll likely be better off with fixed rates unless you’re paying the loan off in less than three years.

Laurel Road may not offer you the best five-year terms, but they’re quite competitive for a 10-year loan term. If you want a shorter repayment term, consider Earnest or LendKey for refinancing your loans.

As with all student loan refinancing lenders, we recommend you strongly consider the impact of refinancing federal student loans and the loss of forgiveness and other benefits. If you refinance federal student loans, you'll forfeit eligibility for repayment options such as income-driven repayment and benefits like student loan forgiveness.

Laurel Road focuses on medical professionals with high debt

If you’re a medical professional, Laurel Road should be at the top of your list when considering the best refinancing lenders.

We surveyed over 3,900 of our readers in January 2024 and found that Laurel Road performs overwhelmingly well with high-income professionals who generally have very large student debt amounts. The following professions gravitated toward Laurel Road:

• Dentists (43% of market share)
• Nurses (22% of market share)
• Optometrists (83% of market share)
• Pharmacists (25% of market share)
• Physical therapists (30% of market share)
• Physicians (45% of market share)
• Physician assistants (55% of market share)

For reference, Laurel Road only led the market for dentists, optometrists, physician assistants and physicians in 2022. So, it’s been able to appeal to a broader audience of healthcare professionals over the last couple of years.

That said, Laurel Road appears to be less aggressively priced in 2024 than it was last year. So, even though it might have been a powerhouse with some of these professions recently, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will continue to throughout 2024.

Refinancing medical school loans for residents and fellows

Laurel Road stands out with its option to refinance during fellowship and residency. Here’s some feedback from one of our readers:

“Laurel Road continues to amaze me by focusing its efforts on easing the stress of student loans for physicians. It also offers various interest rate reduction perks.” 

January 2024 Student Loan Planner Reader Survey

Keep in mind that you should probably not refinance as a fellow or a resident because of the new SAVE plan’s interest subsidies and low monthly payments. However, it can occasionally make sense.

For example, if you make too much money to get subsidies on your interest, have private student loans with a high-interest rate or your spouse earns a lot and you’d like to keep the student loans in your name, then refinancing while still in training can be a smart thing to do. Private loans have less risk with refinancing, and you may be able to score better student loan rates.

If you do a medical student loan refinance as a resident with Laurel Road, they’ll let you pay $100 a month until you’re done with your residency or fellowship program. It's not quite a full deferment of payments, but it's almost certainly less than what your full payment would be.

You’ll then be expected to make normal monthly payments. Keep in mind that if you pull the trigger with refinancing loans, you won’t be eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) or any other income-driven repayment program.

Refinancing Parent PLUS loans

Laurel Road is one of the few lenders that allow borrowers to refinance Parent PLUS loans into the child’s name. However, the child must meet Laurel Road’s standard lending requirements on their own.

Here’s what one of our readers had to say:

“Laurel Road made the process of taking the Parent PLUS loans that were originally in my mother’s name and transitioning them to my name very easy.”

January 2024 Student Loan Planner Reader Survey

Laurel Road refinance cash bonus

If you refinance with Laurel Road through Student Loan Planner®, you’ll receive a cash bonus based on how much you refinance. Get $300 to $1,050 while refinancing toward a lower rate (if you refinance at least $50,000) and better loan terms with this lender. Note that if you are eligible for an interest rate discount due to your membership in a professional association, you're not eligible for a cash bonus (unless you refinanced more than $250,000, in which case you'd get the $500 bonus from Student Loan Planner®, and that's it).

More importantly, refinancing can save thousands of dollars on your student loan interest over the life of the loan.