Great Lakes Higher Education Corp. is one of 7 business that service government loan financial debt by accumulating and also tracking settlements. If Great Lakes is your student loan servicer, here’s what it can assist you do.
Register for on the internet access to your account. Once you have access you can contact Great Lakes, accessibility your monthly payment declarations and pay costs.
Sign up in autopay. Student Loans Great Lakes can subtract your repayments immediately from your checking account. Registering for autopay will certainly lower your passion by 0.25 percentage factor.
Sign up for income-driven repayment. You can request income-driven repayment, which restricts your trainee loan payments to a percent of your income, by completing a paper form with Great Lakes. (You can apply online on studentaid.gov and after that recertify your income annually online as well.).
Process deferment and forbearance requests. Great Lakes can help you briefly quit making payments or lower your payment quantity if you certify. This helps you remain in good standing to stay clear of default. But throughout any durations of deferment or forbearance, rate of interest can continue to develop.
Refine monthly payments and also additional payments. Great Lakes will certainly track and also collect your payments. If you wish to make extra repayments, you can instruct Great Lakes (online, by phone or by mail) to use extra repayments to your present balance. Otherwise, it may use the added total up to following month’s settlement rather.
” MORE: Pupil loan servicers: That are they and what do they do?
Your loan servicer is appointed by the U.S. Division of Education when your loan is disbursed to your college for the very first time. The name of the firm sending you a federal loan costs on a monthly basis is your servicer. If your loan payments have not started or you’re not sure which company is your servicer, log in to My Federal Pupil Aid to learn. You can additionally get in touch with any of the loan servicer call facilities by calling 1-800-4-FED-AID.
Servicers exist to aid you, yet they might use options that are best for the firm, not the borrower. That means they can not alter just how payments are processed and also may not suggest the most advantageous settlement option for you. It’s crucial to understand your payment options so you can know the ideal questions to ask.
If Great Lakes reported your account at fault during car forbearance.
Virtually 5 million borrowers whose government student loans are serviced by Great Lakes may have seen their credit scores dip because their financial debts were mistakenly reported to the major credit history bureaus throughout the automatic six-month forbearance that started in March 2020.
Your paused payments might have been reported as “delayed” as a result of a coding mistake. The stopped settlements ought to have been reported as if you had made them. If you were current when forbearance started, as an example, the condition needs to be “current.”.
Deferred status is not a scoring variable under FICO credit report formulas, the ones most generally used to make lending decisions. Yet deferred status can lower the credit rating produced by VantageScore solutions– ball games most generally offered for free to customers as a way to track their credit report.
Great Lakes states it is dealing with debt coverage agencies to deal with the mistakes. Once the details on the underlying debt record is right, credit scores need to be untouched.
Customers must inspect their debt records from each of the 3 credit history reporting bureaus at AnnualCreditReport.com, the free, government-run site.
Great Lakes asks that consumers call it directly if their debt reports are incorrect. Call 800-236-4300. Get extra info on getting in touch with Great Lakes customer service or making a grievance here.
Am I stuck with Great Lakes until my loans are paid off?
Loans are occasionally moved from one servicer to one more by the Division of Education.
The Department of Education is planning to change the pupil loan servicing landscape by authorizing brand-new servicing agreements with 5 firms to at some point take over all loan maintenance. That implies your loan servicer is likely to change. Great Lakes is set up to proceed servicing loans with December 2023.
Prior to servicing contracts finishing, consumers must do the following:.
Download and install and save your settlement background from your online account or demand a copy from your servicer.
Update your get in touch with details with your newest address, phone number and also email address.
You’ll be informed when a loan maintenance transfer occurs, as well as you’ll take care of payments with the new servicer. All servicers provide the very same alternatives and programs, however client service might differ from one to another.