The Complete Overview of Student Loan Servicers

Student Loan Servicing Background

Although there are various ways how to fund education expenses, student loans are still very effective loan options chosen by students as a primary funding source. And an important role in the whole process is played by loan servicing institutions.

Student loan servicing is a part of repayment process. In other words, borrowers receive funding, attend college or university and after graduation they have to repay loans. The key point is that a loan servicer is an organization that holds your payments. You repay your loan to the service company. And a student loan servicer provides you with the tools to manage your loan successfully.

Student loan servicers are offering financial services to student and parent borrowers. There are about ten loan servicers dealing with federal student aid borrowers like Aspire, Corner Stone, Great Lakes, Mohela, Nelnet and others. If you have no idea of who your loan servicer is, you can check the information on the National Student Loan Data System.

Loan Servicing: What to Expect

Loan servicers offer a number of services for borrowers. Their main goal is to provide tools for making fast and easy payments because you repay the loan to them. Typically loan servicing organizations offer several ways of making payments that include: online payments, check payments and payments using the bank transfer. The interesting fact is that almost all students prefer to make online payments using credit cards. It’s obvious because it saves your time.

Another useful tool is the detailed information about your loans you can view like the loan balance, the date when the last payment was made.

Knowledge centers are also offered for borrowers and visitors. Each one can visit the official loan servicer’s website to find more information about loans (e.g. federal loans vs. private student loans), repayment options, postponing payments and tips on other important topics borrowers should know about.

Singing Up

All the tools are available only for registered users. It’s required to have an account in order to get the full access and start using it. Typically sing up process consists of several steps. After all steps are done and an account is created, a user can simply log in.

The Best Strategy

The most effective strategy is not only to have an account in with your loan servicer but also use all other resources. For example, if your loan servicer provides you with additional podcasts and articles on financial aid topics - use it. The practice shows that students prefer to ignore additional information. Sometimes they are too busy, sometimes they are not. But it’s important to be well-informed because things can change.

Summing up, student loan servicers are organization offering tools and resources for borrowers to help them in managing their loans. You can always look up information about your loan servicer in the National Student Loan Data System.