Student loan borrowers are big business.

Wells Fargo is partnering with Amazon AMZN, -1.79% to offer a half a percentage point discount on its student loan products to borrowers with Amazon Prime Student, a discounted ($49 per year) version of its Prime service for students, the companies announced Thursday. The partnership, which doesn’t include a financial arrangement between the two firms, according to an Amazon spokeswoman, is the latest sign that the 40 million Americans contending with $1.3 trillion in student loans could be a lucrative demographic for companies.

“This is the end result of a system that basically requires borrowing to go to college,” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank. “We have put a financial burden on current students and graduates and people with less school so there’s obviously going to be a marketing opportunity or business opportunity in trying to reduce that financial burden.”

Indeed, one bank is already offering a debit card with student loan reward benefits to lure customers and other financial institutions are looking to draw in student loan borrowers through financial tools that could help them manage their debt. An entire industry is also sprouting up around offering student loan repayment as an employee benefit.

The deal announced Thursday offers both companies the chance to tap into the student loan borrower market, said Mark Kantrowitz, the publisher of Cappex.com, a financial scholarship and search site. For Amazon, the deal essentially amounts to free exposure for their product to students who need a loan, he said. (For its part, an Amazon spokeswoman said that the agreement is part of the company’s track record of “investing in great offerings for students.”)

The deal offers Wells Fargo an opportunity to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive private student loan market. Though lenders pulled back on originating private student loans in the wake of the financial crisis, more are slowly trickling back into the marketplace. Traditional banks like Wells Fargo WFC, -4.99% are also competing with upstart lenders like Social Finance and CommonBond, which offer to refinance borrowers’ student loans at a lower interest rate and come with millennial-focused perks like networking events and group dinners. Wells Fargo is also offering the Prime Student discount to its student loan refinance customers, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“Lenders are trying to figure out what is the thing that they can offer that will most attract students to their products,” Kantrowitz said.

But borrowers should do their due diligence before allowing a discount or lower interest rate to lure them, Kantrowitz said. Typically, student loan borrowers should exhaust their federal loan eligibility before turning to a private lender because the government offers borrowers certain protections, like the ability to repay according to income, rarely available with private loans, Kantrowitz said. Given that interest rates on federal student loans are currently at historic lows — regardless of credit history — many borrowers may even get a better rate with a government loan, he said.

Still, borrowers who exhaust their eligibility for federal student loans (most students can only take out a maximum of $27,000 for four years of school) may need to turn to a private loan, a government parent loan or a private parent loan as a sort of “pressure release valve,” Kantrowitz said. And in that case, this could be a good deal, particularly for a borrower already considering Wells Fargo, he said. A borrower with $6,500 in debt would save enough over the course of the loan — assuming they pay it off in 10 years — to pay for four years-worth of an Amazon Prime Student membership, he said.

Huelsman said he’s troubled by the recent trend of private companies trying to lure borrowers away from the federal student loan system, though, whether through marketing gimmicks or offers to refinance at lower interest rates. These products from private lenders could help borrowers with good credit and the confidence that they’ll continue making enough money that they won’t need any of the debt forgiveness or special payment programs offered by the government, he said.

“But for your average Joe college student or for students who struggle to repay, I really worry about pushing them out of the federal system, which while it’s really imperfect, has some safeguards,” he said.

Wells Fargo didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.