Rachel Seitz

5 Types of Student Loan Borrowers (and How Climb Works for Them)

Just like there are lots of different types of student loans out there, there are also many different approaches people take when applying for one. Below, we’ve got five styles of borrowing and how we work hard to make sure our student loan application fits you — whether you’re one of these types of student loan borrowers or a combination of them!

Take our quiz to find out which type of borrower you are

The procrastinator

This is the person who always finds time to do it tomorrow, until of course the day that “tomorrow” is past deadline. (Once they’re in school, you might find them pulling an all-nighter right before a project is due.) This student will need a fast, simple process that they can get through quickly.

Fortunately, one of the people we kept in mind when designing our application was the person on a time crunch. Don’t have time to print out and sign physical documents? Can’t go through pages and pages answering questions about yourself? No problem! Our online application takes, on average, about four minutes to complete, and all documents can be e-signed through students’ online accounts. Because time and trees are both worth saving!

How Climb Helps: Fast, Simple Application

The early bird

In a 180-turn from the procrastinator, we have the early bird. When this person makes a decision, they get right down to business. As soon as they decide to go a school, they start looking at all the ways they can pay for it, including the various loan options. For the early bird, it’s better to get things done now and not have to stress about it later, but sometimes, that might mean making a decision before more information or opportunities emerge.

If you’re this type of person, you shouldn’t have to worry about being stuck in a commitment just because you like to be ahead of time. When you take out a Climb application, we only do a soft credit pull*, so applying won’t negatively affect your credit score — you can even take out multiple applications. And, should something come up before you start your class and you no longer need your loan, you can cancel easily, with no penalty.

How Climb Helps: Commitment-Free Application

The questioner

Like us here at Climb, this student loan borrower believes that the only bad question is the one left unasked. After all, it’s better to ask a question now than get surprised later on! So to be sure they’re not caught unaware, they want to be able to have consistent contact with someone knowledgeable who can help them with whatever question has just come up.

That’s why we make having a robust (and friendly) Student Success Team a priority. With offices on the east and west coasts, our team is available 9am-9pm EST, Monday through Friday. And not just through an email that gets answered days after it was sent! Our team can also be reached on the phone, or you can live chat with a member of our team right on our website.

How Climb Helps: Student Success Team

The newbie

The great thing about the programs we work with is that they’re a viable option for many people who want to forgo a traditional degree, either because of time commitment, tuition costs, program reviews, or any number of reasons. So, several of our borrowers are taking out student loans for the first time — they may not have all the answers, and they also may not even know what questions to ask.

Because of this, it’s important to have transparency in your loan application. You can check your actual offer (not just an average or range) without any commitment and can view all your loan documents, disclosures, and deadlines in one online account. You can even see how we calculate monthly loan payment amounts and how we determine which programs to work with!

How Climb Helps: Transparent Loans

The returning student

These people have already gone through a program or two, and might be in the middle of a career right now. But they want to go further, building their skills or brushing up on industry developments, so that they can either advance their career further or enter into a new one. This person also may have already taken out earlier loans, which would increase their debt-to-income ratio (DTI) and may make it more difficult to get a new student loan.

But we believe this type of person shouldn’t face such steep obstacles to continuing their education. Our approval process also looks at future-debt-to-future-income, not only their current state. If they already have loans, but their educational program is going to open them up to a salary bump, then they’ll be more likely to qualify. This makes our loans more accessible to students who might be turned away by other lenders who only look at current financial status, not the financial status that their education investment will help them reach.

How Climb Helps: Earning Potential vs. Current Earnings

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*Climb performs a “soft” credit pull to evaluate eligibility, but this soft credit check will not affect your credit score. A hard credit pull is only performed once the loan is accepted and funded.