The Lender Who Puts You - The Student - First: Skills Fund - Skills Fund: Revolutionizing Higher Education

The Lender Who Puts You - the Student - First

April 30, 2018

With student debt at an all-time high, and more and more lenders emerging onto the market, it can be hard to determine your best option when it comes to selecting your educational loan.

Applying for, and taking out, any sort of debt is a decision that carries a lot of weight - so it should be clear-cut, right? Why do lenders make it so difficult to understand the real cost of a student loan?

The answer is disappointingly simple: their incentives are not aligned with yours.

Skills Fund is education financing done right. We've blown up the expected smoke and mirrors of a student loan to introduce a solution that is simple, inherently transparent, and (most importantly) true to our mission of placing your success first. This is about changing careers and lives, after all.

So we've put our money where our mouth is. Much like a student has a variety of training programs to choose from, often times they need to make a decision on which lender to use as well. Here's how Skills Fund places you and your outcome first - in a way no one else can.

FULLY UPFRONT LOAN TERMS - ONLY WITH SKILLS FUND

What does fully upfront mean? Fully upfront means we share the details and make the process clear and simple.

With Skills Fund, expect to be able to compare the payment options for your program before you start your loan application. We keep our options simple and provide many opportunities for you to learn and connect with our helpful team.

RATE CLARITY

Skills Fund: We've made it radically simple: you can see your interest rate and estimated Annual Percentage Rate options (APR - full cost of borrowing funds) before applying. With Skills Fund’s fixed interest rates, you can be sure that your rate won’t change during repayment. Some lenders offer variable-rate loans, which means a student's interest rate might increase during repayment.

PAYMENT CLARITY

You can see all the payment options for your program before you apply. Depending on your program, we offer several easy-to-understand plans. Your repayment plan and term will determine how and when you’ll repay your loan and how many payments you’ll make. You can start making monthly payments while you’re in school, or you can make no payments until three months after you finish your program, then make 36 monthly payments or make 60 monthly payments, depending on the repayment option you’ve chosen. Before you apply, you can preview the loan options and terms available for your program.

Cosigner (A.K.A. Co-Borrower) - Dependent Incentives

Skills Fund: If you are empowered to change your life and career with a transformative educational program, shouldn't you be empowered to secure the lowest rate to finance your education on your own? Skills Fund believes you should.

Our low, fixed, transparent rates are the same for all students - even if you opt to add a cosigner. The incentive is on you, not on you finding someone more credit worthy to lower to your rate.

Climb Credit: Under "How to Qualify for a Better Rate" on Climb's homepage, it clearly states "Everything is better with someone else. Apply with a co-borrower and you will likely get a better rate. A co-borrower can be anyone who promises to pay if you can’t, often a relative or someone close to you."

Sallie Mae: Similar to Climb, directly on Sallie Mae's homepage for their Career Training Smart Option Student Loan, "You may have a better chance of approval if a parent, relative, or other creditworthy individual cosigns for your student loan."

Meritize: Similar to Climb & Sallie Mae, within the Student Loan FAQs, it states, "Having a cosigner will improve your loan options, but because Meritize Loans do not rely on conventional credit models, it’s possible you could be approved even without a cosigner."

WHY IS THIS INFORMATION IMPORTANT?

Setting expectations and helping you to make an informed decision is everything in understanding educational ROI - or your Return on Education (ROE). When you're considering making a significant personal and financial investment in a skills training program, it's important to weigh the full cost of financing into your decision.

You deserve more of your student lender, and Skills Fund is committed to playing its part to lead to your long-term professional and financial success.

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