Which Federal Loan Servicer Is The Best

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Whether you realize it or not, federal educatee loan servicing is non handled directly by the fed itself. If you used federal student loans to fund some (or all) of your college tuition, you lot have had to deal with a federal pupil loan servicer.

In 2010, the Obama administration terminated the Federal Family Education Loan Programme (FFELP). Since so, all student loan funds are disbursed directly by the Department of Education through its Straight Loan program. Despite this, diverse organizations assist with treatment educatee loans afterwards they have been funded.

These loan servicers are organizations that handle payments, refinancing, client service, and anything else you may need. But who are these mysterious organizations? And is one amend than the remainder?

How Many Student Loan Servicers Are There?

federal loan servicing

Here is the electric current list of federal student loan servicers:

CornerStone
FedLoan Servicing (PHEAA)
Granite State – GSMR
Great Lakes Educational Loan Services, Inc.
HESC/Edfinancial
MOHELA
Navient
Nelnet
OSLA Servicing

Even within this list, in that location accept been numerous changes over the years. For example, American Education Services (AES) is not on the higher up list. Although AES yet exists, they are no longer servicing new federal student loans equally of the finish of the FFELP program in 2010.

Other changes have occurred, as well. Nelnet caused Bang-up Lakes, which is meaning considering Great Lakes is one of the largest servicers co-ordinate to the Department of Education.

Not-for-Profit Servicers

It's likewise worth noting that five of the to a higher place servicers are not-for-profits:

CornerStone
GSMR
HESC
MOHELA
OSLA

Although FedLoan'due south parent organisation, PHEAA, is a not-for-turn a profit, FedLoan itself is actually for-turn a profit.

Equally of June 2019, if we add together upwards all outstanding loan data from the "Servicer Portfolio past Loan Status" spreadsheet, we can run into that not-for-profits hold a tiny fraction of total outstanding debt – just over 9%. That is despite the fact that there are four for-turn a profit servicers (and Nelnet acquired Great Lakes), just there are v non-for-profits.

*Information source: Department of Education, Federal Educatee Assist*
Servicer	Total Outstanding Debt ($billions)
PHEAA (FedLoan, AES)	$315.7
Great Lakes	$209.8
Nelnet	$158.4
Navient	$193.3
Not-for-Profit Servicers	$88.7

If you recall it seems equally though the majority of student loan debt is in a relatively small number of hands, you lot'd be correct in your cess.

How Exercise I Discover Out Who My Student Loan Servicer Is?

The quickest and easiest way to find out who your pupil loan servicer is would exist to visit the National Student Loan Data Arrangement (NSLDS). Logging into the organization requires yous to have an FSA ID; unremarkably, y'all create this when you initially apply for federal student aid.

If you lot accept never created an FSA ID, there is a course to create one. You lot should merely create i FSA ID for yourself, and you cannot create ane on behalf of someone else.

As a note, information technology is mutual for student loans to modify easily (more than on that below). If that does happen with your student loans, y'all volition only be notified if you have up-to-engagement contact information. Be sure yous proceed it up to date; otherwise, yous could go a new servicer and non fifty-fifty be aware.

Can I Change My Educatee Loan Servicer?

Unfortunately, there is no way to modify your federal student loan servicer direct. You cannot but login to the NSLDS and say you want to change your servicer. The but way to modify your servicer is to refinance with a private lender.

Refinancing with a Individual Lender

When you refinance with a private lender, they will "buy out" your remaining educatee loan residual and issue a new educatee loan on their ain terms. However, yous should proceed with caution when going this route, primarily because yous may requite up some valuable borrower protections.

Indeed, despite the bug with federal student loan servicers, the loans themselves come with protections that private lenders may not offer.

For case, while some private pupil loan lenders volition abolish your student debt in the unfortunate effect of your death, not all of them will! With federal student loans, your pupil debt volition automatically be canceled if that e'er does happen.

Loans Tin can Be Sold To Other Servicers

In that location is one other way your servicer may change, and that is if your loans are sold. It is a common occurrence in the pupil loan industry for loans to change hands. Loans are packaged off and then sold betwixt servicers.

That said, you lot don't have any control over this process as a borrower. These sales include loans for many borrowers – not but yours.

Which Federal Pupil Loan Servicer is the Best?

For a number of reasons, it is difficult to say who the all-time federal student loan servicer is. As mentioned above, you lot more often than not cannot request a new student loan servicer.

Borrowers aren't able to compare the different loan servicers, but allow'south have a look at how many complaints each servicer has.

Servicer	Total Complaints	Full Borrowers (Millions)	Borrowers per Complaint
PHEAA (FedLoan, AES)	10,222	half-dozen.85	670
Groovy Lakes	1,532	6.71	4,380
Nelnet	3,389	5.14	1,517
Navient	xxx,976	5.4	174
Not-for-Profit Servicers	885	5.41	half-dozen,112

Notation: Federal Student Assistance does not issue data for each not-for-profit student loan servicer. Nosotros only have the totals for all not-for-profit servicers, which is what you lot see in a higher place.

Not-for-profits tend to have fewer complaints than for-profit educatee loan servicers in the CFPB's Complaint Database. The servicer with the fewest complaints listed is OSLA, with only 45 complaints.

Navient has by far the about complaints, with over 30,000. This is despite the fact that they take the smallest portfolio of the for-turn a profit federal pupil loan servicers.

Out of the non-for-profits, MOHELA has by far the most complaints, with 546.

Comparing The Number of Borrowers per Complaint

In looking at the last column from the above information, we can see that non-for-profit servicers fare the all-time. Higher numbers are amend because that is the number of borrowers for which at that place is one complaint.

Think of information technology similar this: for not-for-profits, i out of every 6,112 borrowers raises a complaint with the CFPB. For Navient, though, one out of every 174 borrowers raises a complaint. That'south quite a difference.

Needless to say, this makes not-for-profits expect significantly more desirable. Notice that Dandy Lakes isn't far behind, with one of every four,380 borrowers raising a complaint with the CFPB.

However, remember that Nelnet acquired Nifty Lakes in 2018. Nosotros'd like to think that will brand Great Lakes better, it's tough to be entirely optimistic. Just fourth dimension will tell how that acquisition will play out.

Out of the not-for-profits, MOHELA has by far the most complaints with 546.

To wrap up this section, not-for-profits seem to fare the best, but Great Lakes is not far backside (for now).

Since every federal student loan servicer is different, they may handle customer service differently. Nevertheless, in the tabular array beneath, you can see all of their phone numbers and links to their website.

Servicer	Telephone	Contact Hours (EST)
American Education Services (AES)	ane-800-233-0557	Mon-Fri, 8:thirty a.one thousand. to 9:00 p.g.
CornerStone	one-800-663-1662	Mon-Thurs, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Friday, eight:00 a.thousand. to 7:00 p.chiliad.
FedLoan	1-800-699-2908	Monday-Friday, viii:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.yard. TEACH Grant support: Monday-Fri, viii:00 a.m. to ix:00 p.yard.
Granite State	1-888-556-0022	Mon-Fri, eight:00 a.chiliad. to vi:00 p.1000.
Great Lakes	1-800-236-4300	Monday-Fri, eight:00 a.thousand. to ten:00 p.m
HESC/Edfinancial	one-855-337-6884	Mon-Thurs, 8:00 a.m. to viii:30 p.thou. Friday, 8:000 a.m. to 6:00 p.grand.
MOHELA	1-888-866-4352	Monday-Thurs, viii:00 a.m. to x p.m. Fri, 8:00 a.thousand. to 6:00 p.m.
Navient	one-800-722-1300	Mon-Thurs, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Friday, 8:00 a.thou. to 8:00 p.grand.
Nelnet	ane-888-486-4722	Mon-Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
OSLA	ane-866-264-9762	Mon-Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

What You Should Know About Federal Educatee Loan Servicing

Due to our somewhat limited data, it is difficult to determine exactly which federal educatee loan servicer is best. We can see that OSLA has the fewest complaints, only we don't know their total number of borrowers.

Great Lakes appears to have the best track tape of the servicers for which we have complete data. Still, Slap-up Lakes was acquired by Nelnet.

Not-for-turn a profit servicers appear to exist rated meliorate in general, despite not knowing how many borrowers they accept.

Go along in mind though that you cannot change your servicer unless you refinance – or your pupil loans are sold to a different servicer.

Anyone who is considering refinancing should explore repayment options first, as refinancing with a individual lender may mean giving up federal student loan protections.