Student Loan Lender Methodology

At Fox Money, we want to help you feel confident in your money choices. We promise that our recommendations and advice are our own, though we may receive compensation from our lender partners when you use their services.

How we evaluate student loan lenders 

To determine the best student loans, we studied two dozen student loan lenders, looking at over 1,000 pieces of data. We then crunched the numbers to figure out which lenders are doing the best overall and in specific areas.

This methodical approach aims to guide borrowers like you toward lenders that best suit your financial situation and requirements.

1. Choosing lenders: We picked lenders to review based on their size, how often they show up in online searches, and lender type (bank, online lender, etc.).
2. Setting the criteria: We decided what things are important to review in a lender — such as its loan terms (interest rates, repayment time, eligibility, etc.) and other loan features (like if it allows cosigners).
3. Collecting and checking data: We used lender websites, worked with lender representatives, and scoured our own internal data, making sure another party checked that each data point was accurate and up to date.
4. Cleaning up and scoring data: We cleaned up the data and gave scores to lenders based on different criteria, comparing each lender to its competitors.
5. Weighting scores: We gave different weightings to each criterion depending on how important it is for different kinds of borrowers (such as minimum credit score for borrowers with bad credit).
6. Giving star ratings: We added up the scores for each criterion to give an overall star rating out of 5 to each lender.