Great Lakes Higher Education Corp. is among 7 firms that service federal loan financial debt by accumulating and also tracking settlements. If Great Lakes is your student loan servicer, below’s what it can aid you do.
Register for online access to your account. As soon as you have access you can speak to Great Lakes, access your month-to-month invoicing statements and also pay costs.
Enroll in autopay. My Great Lakes Student Loans can deduct your settlements immediately from your savings account. Signing up for autopay will certainly decrease your passion by 0.25 portion point.
Enroll in income-driven settlement. You can ask for income-driven payment, which limits your pupil loan payments to a percent of your revenue, by finishing a paper type with Great Lakes. (You can apply online on studentaid.gov and afterwards recertify your income annually online too.).
Refine deferment and also forbearance demands. Great Lakes can help you temporarily quit making payments or reduce your repayment quantity if you qualify. This assists you stay in good standing to avoid default. However throughout any kind of periods of deferment or forbearance, passion can remain to construct.
Refine month-to-month repayments and additional payments. Great Lakes will certainly track and also accumulate your payments. If you wish to make extra settlements, you can instruct Great Lakes (online, by phone or by mail) to apply added repayments to your current balance. Or else, it may use the additional total up to following month’s settlement rather.
” EVEN MORE: Trainee loan servicers: Who are they and what do they do?
Your loan servicer is assigned by the united state Division of Education when your loan is disbursed to your college for the first time. The name of the business sending you a federal loan bill on a monthly basis is your servicer. If your loan payments haven’t begun or you’re not sure which business is your servicer, visit to My Federal Pupil Help to learn. You can also connect with any of the loan servicer get in touch with centers by calling 1-800-4-FED-AID.
Servicers exist to help you, yet they might provide selections that are best for the firm, not the debtor. That implies they can not alter exactly how payments are processed and also may not recommend one of the most advantageous settlement alternative for you. It’s essential to know your payment alternatives so you can know the right concerns to ask.
If Great Lakes reported your account in error during auto forbearance.
Almost 5 million debtors whose government student loans are serviced by Great Lakes might have seen their credit history dip because their financial debts were erroneously reported to the significant credit score bureaus throughout the automated six-month forbearance that started in March 2020.
Your stopped settlements might have been reported as “delayed” as a result of a coding error. The stopped repayments need to have been reported as if you had actually made them. If you were current when forbearance started, for instance, the condition ought to be “present.”.
Deferred condition is not a scoring aspect under FICO credit scoring formulas, the ones most commonly utilized to make financing decisions. However deferred status can lower the credit report produced by VantageScore solutions– the scores most frequently supplied completely free to consumers as a method to track their credit rating.
Great Lakes says it is dealing with credit rating coverage firms to deal with the inaccuracies. Once the information on the underlying credit record is appropriate, credit scores ought to be unaffected.
Customers ought to inspect their credit records from each of the three credit rating reporting bureaus at AnnualCreditReport.com, the totally free, government-run site.
Great Lakes asks that borrowers contact it straight if their credit history records are incorrect. Call 800-236-4300. Obtain extra information on contacting Great Lakes customer service or making a grievance below.
Am I stuck with Great Lakes up until my loans are paid off?
Loans are sometimes transferred from one servicer to an additional by the Division of Education and learning.
The Division of Education and learning is intending to change the trainee loan servicing landscape by signing brand-new servicing contracts with five firms to eventually take over all loan servicing. That means your loan servicer is likely to transform. Great Lakes is scheduled to proceed servicing loans via December 2023.
Before servicing agreements ending, consumers need to do the following:.
Download and install and save your settlement background from your online account or request a copy from your servicer.
Update your contact info with your most recent address, phone number as well as e-mail address.
You’ll be alerted when a loan servicing transfer happens, and you’ll handle repayments with the brand-new servicer. All servicers deliver the exact same options and also programs, however customer care may vary from one to an additional.
