If you have federal student loans, you may know that while the government owns the loans, they enlist another company—a servicer—to handle the day to day business of collecting payments from borrowers. But soon, the way you pay your monthly student loan bill will be changing, and you may even find that you have a new loan servicer.
The Department of Education and Federal Student Aid announced last week the companies that have gotten contracts to service federal student loans under a new, more centralized system.
Most notably, Nelnet and Great Lakes are out of the picture as of December 2020. If your monthly statement comes from one of those companies, you can expect your loan servicing to get taken over by a different one.
Confused yet? Yeah, there’s a lot going on here. But the upcoming changes intend to make wrangling the servicers a little less like herding cats.
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Right now, there are nine student loan servicers operating on four platforms. That means that if you have several loans that are under the purview of multiple servicers, the odds are pretty good that you have to go to a few different websites—that all look completely different—to pay your bills or get information about your loans. On top of that, all the servicers have their own training methods for customer service representatives.
Under the Department of Education’s centralized program, all servicers will have consistent customer service training. Eventually, all five servicers will allow you to pay your bill through a centralized loan processing platform on studentaid.gov.
The current student loan servicers are, according to Federal Student Aid:
CornerStoneFedLoan Servicing (PHEAA)Granite State - GSMRGreat Lakes Educational Loan Services, Inc.HESC/EdfinancialMOHELANavientNelnetOSLA ServicesESCIDefault Resolution Group (a.k.a. Maximus Federal Services, Inc.)The Department of Education announcement lists the new servicers:
Edfinancial Services LLCF.H. Cann & Associates LLCMAXIMUS Federal Services Inc.Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA)Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation (Trellis Company)Nelnet will still service Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL) and private education loans, the company said in a release.
No matter your student loan servicer (but perhaps especially if you pay via Nelnet or Great Lakes), keep an eye out for correspondence indicating any changes alongside your normal monthly statements.
If your servicer is changing, you can expect to get notice by mail or email in advance of the switch, and you may need to reregister on your new servicer’s website.
In the meantime, keep paying your loans as planned, or follow whatever forbearance plan you have in place. Your servicer will let you know when it’s time to make any adjustments to how you pay.
