Great Lakes Student Loans has a contract with the US Department of Education as a student loan servicer. The organisation serves as a servicer for federal student loans and is responsible for aiding borrowers with billing and payment issues. Great Lakes Student Loans, Inc manage almost 18% of all federal student loans.

How did Great Lakes Student Loans get your student loan account? Find out how to work with the firm to handle your student loan repayments with ease.

What Are Great Lakes Student Loans?

In Madison, Wisconsin, Great Lakes Educational Loan Services is based, although it provides student loan servicing across the United States. Students with federal loans are billed through one of six commercial organisations contracted by the Department of Education.

One of the most often appointed student loan servicers is Great Lakes. Great Lakes received the most significant share of new student loans in the recent quarterly report, accounting for 18 per cent of all new student loans.

How Great Lake Student Loans Works

Loan servicers are allocated to students with federal student loans, and they will manage your account and payments. You'll be transferred to a loan servicer like Great Lake Student Loans once the Education Department works with your college to process and payout your student loan monies. You have no say in who your service provider is.

Once your student loan servicer is assigned to your loan, they must inform you. Typically, this occurs when the first payment of the disbursement is made. All of your student loan issues will be handled by this service, from the first statement through your last payment.

You may only need to contact Great Lakes Student Loans if you have questions or want to check your balance while you are in college.

Excellent Lakes Educational Loan Services: A Quick Overview

The Better Business Bureau has given Great Lakes Educational Services a "B-" rating for more than 50 years. For this reason, some have contended that the BBB's ratings are suspicious since it obtains most of its funding from firms it rates. They believe that this creates an inherent conflict of interest.

Complaints

However vast, the Great Lakes have had its share of issues. According to the CFPB's 2020 School Loan Ombudsman Report, 3,600 federal student loan complaints were addressed between September 2019 and August 2020. With less than one per cent of complaints against Great Lakes, it is reasonable to assume that it is one of the least-complained federal loan servicers.

Class action

When it comes to pandemic relief efforts, the complaint claims that Great Lakes bungled the CARES Act by illegally submitting erroneous information about millions of its clients to the three major credit agencies, ruining borrowers' credit.

Great Lakes services my loan

You'll be assigned to an outside company called a loan servicer once you've taken out a student loan with a bank or other lending institution. When your servicer is posted to your account, which usually occurs after receiving the payments, they should notify you.

You'll be contacting this servicer for all of your student loan issues from here on out. When in doubt about the organisation handling your loans, you can typically find out by checking your credit reports or entering them into your FSA account. If you'd like, you may reach us at 1-800-4-FED-AID. If your loan is ever transferred to a new servicer, the new service will get in touch with you and let you know.

Claims against Great Lakes

CFPB and BBB have received more than 150 complaints about Great Lakes, and the latter has given the loan servicer a B-. Class action lawsuits have also been filed against the servicer for reporting inaccurate payments during the automatic government forbearance period in March 2020.

Several charges were labelled as "delayed," yet the borrower had made them. Because of this, millions of Great Lakes customers may have witnessed a decrease in their credit ratings. If Great Lakes is servicing your loans, you may check your credit reports to see if your loan payments have been appropriately recorded. If you identify any errors, don't hesitate to contact the loan servicing company.

The Great Lakes Future

In 2020, Great Lakes was one of the federal student loan servicers that did not secure a contract renewal from the federal government. This implies that Great Lakes will no longer be servicing your federal student loans. The terms of your loan will not change, but you may choose to pay it to a different financial institution. Great Lakes or your new service provider will contact you with more information if you're affected.

Conclusion

Log into your Federal Student Aid account or check your credit reports if you don't know who your loan servicer is. Your primary point of contact will be your loan servicer throughout your loan. Contact us if you need assistance adjusting payment arrangements or obtaining financial aid.