Ascent Co-signed Review: Private Student Loans

Our Take

4.5

TalkFinance rating

The bottom line: Ascent is an online lender that offers three options for student loan borrowers: a traditional co-signed loan, a non-co-signed credit-based option and a non-co-signed future income-based option. Its co-signed loan is best for students who want to use a co-signer and pay off loans fast. Its non-co-signed credit-based option is best for borrowers with at least two years of credit history who can meet income requirements. Its non-co-signed future-income option is best for upperclassmen with no credit, income or co-signer.

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on Ascent Co-signed website

Ascent Co-signed

FIXED APR

3.24 - 12.19%

VARIABLE APR

1.85 - 10.35%

MIN. CREDIT SCORE

540

Pros & Cons

Among the best for payment flexibility.
You can see if you’ll qualify and what rate you’ll get without a hard credit check.
Stands out for features that enable faster loan repayment.

Students enrolled less than half-time are not eligible.
Co-signer release not available to international students.

Compare to Other loans

TalkFinance rating

CHECK RATE

EST. APR

LOAN TERM

5, 7, 10, 12 or 15 years

LOAN TERM

10 to 15 years

LOAN TERM

5, 8, 10 or 15 years

MIN. CREDIT SCORE

540

MIN. CREDIT SCORE

Mid-600's

MIN. CREDIT SCORE

Mid-600s

Full Review

Ascent is an online lender that offers options to student loan borrowers with and without a co-signer.

The co-signed loan is a good fit for borrowers who want to pay off loans fast and have a creditworthy co-signer. Your interest rate could also be up to 11% lower by using a co-signer, so consider that option first.

If you don't have access to a qualified co-signer, Ascent offers two non-co-signed options: credit-based and future income-based. In this case, consider the credit-based non-co-signed loan before the future income-based loan for the best interest rate.

The future income-based loan — available only to juniors and seniors with a 2.9 GPA — is one of only a few available to borrowers with no credit, income or co-signer.

For its non-cosigned credit-based loan, student borrowers must have more than two years of credit history with a credit score of 680 or above and meet minimum income requirements.

Ascent borrowers can allocate overpayments to multiple accounts or a single account, and they also can make biweekly payments via autopay. These features help borrowers pay off debt faster.

Ascent at a glance

Generous forbearance options.
Offers co-signed and non-co-signed credit-based loan borrowers multiple in-school repayment options including interest-only, flat-fee and deferred.
Borrowers who don’t have a co-signer or credit history can qualify.

How Ascent could improve

Ascent could improve by offering:

Advertised fixed interest rates below 10%.