Fifth Third Bank Student Loan Services & Alternatives
You can’t get a student loan from Fifth Third Bank, but its partner CommonBond offers both new loans and refinancing. Many other companies also provide excellent student loan options.
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Fifth Third Bank is an Ohio-based bank that operates more than 1,150 branches across the Midwestern and Southern United States. It offers a variety of deposit accounts and lending services to its customers.
While the bank offers a product called Fifth Third Momentum, which aims to help student borrowers manage their debt, the bank does not have any student loan options for borrowers attending college.
If you’re in the market for a student loan, we have put together a list below of alternatives worth considering, even if you already bank with Fifth Third.
In this review:
What student loan services Fifth Third Bank does offer
If you bank with Fifth Third, you won’t be able to get a student loan directly from the bank. However, it does offer some assistance to student borrowers.
Fifth Third Momentum
Fifth Third Momentum is a program that helps people with checking accounts at Fifth Third Bank pay down their student debts. The program uses the popular round-up system that many other financial tools use to make small, automatic payments against your balance.
When you sign up for Fifth Third Momentum, you’ll link your debit card and student loans to your bank account. Every time that you use your debit card, Fifth Third automatically rounds your purchase up to the nearest dollar. The bank then sends the rounded-up amount to your loan servicer to pay off your balance.
For example, if you buy a coffee for $3.46, Fifth Third deducts $4 from your checking account and sends $0.54 of that $4 to your lender. This makes every purchase an opportunity to pay off some of your student debt.
>> Read More: How to pay off student loans fast
Student loans & refinancing through a partnership with CommonBond
 | | |
|---|---|---|
| Product Type | Student Loan Refinancing | Private Student Loans |
| Rates | 2.60% – 6.45% | 3.31% – 9.74% |
| Loan Amounts | $5,000 – $500,000 | Not disclosed |
| Term Lengths | 5, 7, 10, 15, or 20 years | 5, 10, or 15 years |
Though Fifth Third Bank doesn’t offer direct student loans, that doesn’t mean it won’t help people find loan options. The bank partners with CommonBond to help its customers find new loans or refinance their existing ones.
CommonBond’s loans include an automatic 0.25% interest rate discount for setting up automatic payments. You also get borrower protections, such as the option to put your loan in forbearance and a six-month grace period after you leave school before payments come due.
Refinancing options have similar perks, letting you reduce the interest rate of your existing student loans.
For additional information, check out our full CommonBond student loan review.
Fifth Third Bank student loan alternatives
Fifth Third Bank doesn’t offer student loans directly, and CommonBond might not be the right choice for everyone. If you’re still looking for the right student lender, consider the options below.
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Private student loans
It generally makes sense to take out as much as you need (or as much as you can) in federal student loans. They offer low interest rates and a lot of borrower protections, such as the option for income-based repayment and loan forgiveness. However, you might need to borrow more than the federal government is willing to lend.
That’s where private student loans come into play.
You can check out our guide to find the best private student loans with a full breakdown of your options, but here are a few of those companies.
| Company | LendEDU Rating | Rates | Loan Amounts |
| College Ave | 5/5 | 1.79% – 11.98% | $1,000+ |
| Earnest | 4.8/5 | 2.74 – 12.78 | $1,000+ |
| Ascent | 4/5 | 3.41% – 15.00% | $1,000 – $200,000* |
*This is the maximum loan amount for cosigned loans. Non-cosigned loans have a much smaller maximum loan amount.
College Ave
College Ave is our top-rated private lender. It offers flexible term options, letting you extend your payments for as long as fifteen years, and gives you a choice between fixed and variable interest rates.
College Ave offers loans as small as $1,000 or as high as 100% of your school’s certified cost of attendance. Like CommonBond, it also offers a cosigner release option after you make 24 consecutive payments. One drawback of College Ave is that the company offers limited forbearance options.
Earnest
Earnest offers private student loans with low interest rates. You can knock the rates even lower with a 0.25% discount when adding a cosigner to your loan.
One perk of working with Earnest is that the company offers a nine-month grace period after you leave school. That gives you more time to find your financial feet after college before you have to make payments. You also have the freedom to skip one payment per year, penalty-free.
One drawback of Earnest is that its eligibility requirements tend to be stricter than those of other lenders.
Ascent
Ascent offer students options for loans both with and without cosigners, which can be helpful for borrowers who don’t have someone willing to cosign a loan. However, loans without cosigners are capped at $20,000. If you get a cosigner, you can borrow up to $200,000.
One nice perk of borrowing from Ascent is that you get a reward for graduating. Ascent will give you a graduation bonus of 1% of your loan’s balance if you meet the requirements.
Student loan refinancing
Refinancing your student loans often gives you the chance to reduce your monthly payments and interest rate. If refinancing makes sense for you, there are lots of lenders that help students refinance their loans.
You can check out our guide to find the best student loan refinance companies, but here are a few companies to consider.
| Company | LendEDU Rating | Rates | Loan Amounts |
| Earnest | 5/5 | 3.50% – 8.77% | $5,000 – $500,000 |
| ELFI | 4.5/5 | 3.50% – 6.69% | $15,000+ |
Earnest
Earnest is our top-rated refinancing option. Interest rates are low, and the minimum credit score required is just 650. Earnest also doesn’t charge origination or prepayment fees. Earnest makes it easy to schedule additional payments to pay off your loan faster and save on interest.
When you refinance, you can extend your loan term up to as long as twenty years. While long-term loans tend to cost more than short-term ones, they can help you minimize your monthly payment. You also have the flexibility to skip one payment per year if you need to.
ELFI
Education Loan Finance (ELFI) has competitive interest rates and excellent customer service, which makes it an excellent lender to work with if you need to refinance your existing debts. It also offers up to twelve months of loan forbearance for those who need it. If you can qualify for the loan on your own, ELFI lets you refinance without a cosigner.
ELFI’s most significant drawback is its $15,000 loan minimum. If you don’t need to borrow that much to refinance your debts, you’ll have to work with a different lender.
