Firstmark Student Loan Review

Student loan repayment is a dicey task for both debtor and lender. 70% of students have a burden of repaying student loan which they have undertaken for their college degree. So, it is important to choose a legitimate loan company which provides loan at considerable interest. Due to this reason, the first name that strikes one’s mind when it comes to rendering a student loan is Firstmark Student loan.

Firstmark is a part of a student loan servicer popularly known as Nelnet, which serves over 5 million borrowers in their private and federal loans. Being a student loan servicer, Firstmark itself doesn’t lend the loan amount to students for their studies but helps students to organize their payments by providing customer service for the doubts one might have. Firstmark was started in 1997, and since then it is helping students to organize paying off their loan through tools known as an autopay system. This helps banks to find the qualified borrowers to lend money without worrying about the routine administrative duties which come along the student loan payments. Citizen Bank is one of the reputed clients of Firstmark which provide refinancing services to students.

Before we get into Firstmark specifics, let’s point out the differences between federal and private loans.

The Difference Between Federal Loans and Private loans

A federal student loan is more comfortable to undertake than private loans. As during the application process, federal loans have slightly fewer variables to decide upon.

The main and the most significant difference between the private and federal loan is that in private loan the interest rate is both fixed and variable. Whereas in the federal loan the interest rate offered is fixed.

Unlike the federal loan, private student loans do not entertain annual borrowing limits which helps a student to render loan of more value than just tuition fees if they desire. But private lenders need a cosigner against the money approved for the loan.

The private loan comes with an option of 5, 10, 15, or 20-year repayment term while federal loans have their standard repayment term of 10 years.

Firstmark Student Loan – Information and Review

What does Firstmark do?

Firstmark offers a variety of repayment options to the borrower. The student can scheduled payments of interest only or partial payment during school only which will help them in repaying the loan amount with ease. But, after entering into repayment status, the minimum payment against the loan amount has to be paid each month in order to avoid any additional fees.

Being an in charge of collecting monthly student loan payments on behalf of the designated bank, the lenders’ partners with Firstmark to help them in collecting their payments. The interest rate and the eligibility terms are set up by the lenders, and the Firstmark handles their payments to make sure that the borrowers are repaying their loan on time.

Firstmark give the opportunity to the lenders to invest their time and resources in seeking down the new borrowers rather than worrying about the repayment from the existing borrowers.

Firstmark deals with repayments on private student loans, not on federal loans. Firstmark works with a number of lenders for both new and refinance private student loans.

How does the Firstmark Student Loan work?

Firstmark does not provide options for a loan to the borrowers, but they can have their loan serviced through Firstmark by rendering loan through their partnered lenders.

Borrowers are given the choice to schedule an automatic monthly payment, which further will be deducted by Firstmark on monthly basis from the designated bank account on the scheduled date of every month via KwikPay service.  The borrower is also given facility to initiate the payment via phone by calling on 1888-538-7378.

Customer service agents are also available at your service to answers all the questions you have about the loan. The company also have specialized customer representatives who are experts in particular areas of loan repayments such as releasing a co-signer, late fees, repayment schedules and regarding interest only or partial payments.

Eligibility for the loan

Firstmark being a payment collector does not determine the eligibility criteria for the personal student loan. The loan has to be borrowed from a private student loan lender such as Citizen one and Citibank which works in collaboration with Firstmark.

There are a number of factors that determine the eligibility for undertaking the loan. Some factors include the choice of school and major, credit history, whether one has a co-borrower or not, etc.

After confirming the eligibility of the student to undertake the loan by the lender, the lender will further tell the student loan servicer name, after the loan is paid out to the borrower.

The borrower can also look at the credit report or the most recent student loan statement to know the name of the servicer or to check if Firstmark is listed.

The borrowers can also switch the servicers if they want. It is important to read all the documents carefully that come with the loan.

The Process of Signing Up on Firstmark

First, all you need to do is to make sure that your lender works with Firstmark, then you have to follow these steps to create your account.

1.       Enter the web address www.firstmarkservices.com and then click on Register now for a new registration.
2.       After this, the borrower needs to enter some details such as Social security number, full name, email address and date of birth etc..
3.       After filling the details the user has to create a username and password and then click on “Submit”
4.       The user needs to verify the contact information and is allowed to make any changes if needed and then click on “Submit”.
5.       After submitting all the details the user is needed to select an image from the display which will further help the user to recognize that he is logging into a secure Nelnet website.
6.       Next, three security questions have to be selected from a bunch of questions to answer. These questions have to be selected carefully as they will be used in the future to confirm your identity upon login when the user will log in from a new device.
7.       Last is to review the term and conditions and select the checkbox if you are agreed to them. Then you can open your account by clicking on “Go to my account”

About Stilt

Stilt provides loans to international students and working professionals in the U.S. (F-1, OPT, H-1B, O-1, L-1, TN visa holders) at rates lower than any other lender. Stilt is committed to helping immigrants build a better financial future.

We take a holistic underwriting approach to determine your interest rates and make sure you get the lowest rate possible.

Learn what others are saying about us on Google, Yelp, and Facebook or visit us at https://stilt.com. If you have any questions, send us an email at team@34.82.110.37.

Frank Gogol

I’m a firm believer that information is the key to financial freedom. On the Stilt Blog, I write about the complex topics — like finance, immigration, and technology — to help immigrants make the most of their lives in the U.S. Our content and brand have been featured in Forbes, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and more.

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