Talk to almost any university graduate, and you’ll hear horror stories about the nation’s looming debt crisis built on the backs of higher education. It’s a source of macro-economic concern, with roughly $1.2 trillion in student debt on the books at various lenders and now Earnest, which began as a personal lending company, is stepping into the breach. The company has launched a new student loan refinancing service offering loans with annual payment rates as low as 1.9%. The online service is also instantly flexible, with options to change the rates of repayment at automatically reduced rates, based on a user’s decisions. The company estimates that they can save college students roughly $12,500 on average, compared with traditional refinancing options.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/27/new-loan-refinancing-tool-and-17m-round-shows-the-importance-of-earnest/