Great Lakes is a loan servicer that helps many Americans get federal student loans. As a servicer they act as an intermediary between the borrower (you) and the lender and manage the debt accordingly. By the end of 2017, Great Lakes was servicing around $224.4 billion student loans for over 7.5 million students. Early this year, this servicer was acquired by a major competitor, Nelnet. This doesn’t change much about the functionality of Great Lakes or your debt with them. It will continue to service student federal loans under the Great Lakes name. If you have Great Lakes Students loans, we are here to help!

Great Lakes is a very prominent servicer among graduates today with federal student loans. In addition to federal loans, Great Lakes manages about $8.5 billion private and consumer loans to almost a half a million borrowers nationwide. All Great Lakes loans are serviced via their online portal and payments can be made manually. They do have autopay options which slightly reduce the amount of interest you pay on the life of the loan.

With federal student loans, Great Lakes has a standard 10-year repayment plan with fixed monthly payments. But often times this is an unaffordable monthly payment, causing massive financial stress on graduates and families. Great Lakes will try and offer you alternative repayment plans, but as with any servicer they have their best interests in mind. That is why having a partner like Alliance Loan Support is so important, as we work on YOUR behalf to get you into the best possible program at the lowest amount…. not what will make Great Lakes the most money.

What to do if you have Great Lakes Borrowing?

Servicers are supposed to educate and assist borrowers with federal student loans, but don’t always act in the best interest of the student. Because of this lots of servicers have face federal lawsuits over the years. Great Lakes has had their fair share of negative feedback. With complaints about payments not being applied properly to errors in payment processing, Great Lakes boasts a whopping 1-star overall satisfaction rating with Consumer Affairs as of 2018. We understand it is tough to trust a company like this which is why Alliance Loan Support is here to help educate those with Great Lakes Student Loans on the best possible options for acquiring a lower payment. If you have Great Lakes as your servicer and are not happy, there are other options and you can always move to a new servicer by consolidating your debt into a Direct Consolidation Loan with the help of Alliance Loan Support.

The average student loan debt upon graduation for 2017 was $39,400. This kind of debt will take a while to pay off, meaning you are dealing with your servicer for years if not decades. If you are drowning in student loan debt and want to drastically reduce your payments and STOP dealing with servicers like Great Lakes give us a call and let us show you a better way forward!

As a loan servicer, Navient is essentially the handler of your loan. This means they work directly with you (the borrower) to establish an initial repayment plan and for the lifetime of the loans billing and even seeking payment of loans in default. Navient services both federal and private loans. This means you could have one or the other (federal or private) or even a combination of both.

Sallie Mae vs Navient

People often get confused when they have Navient loans or get put into one by the U.S. Department of Education as the name Sallie Mae often appears in searches with the servicer. They both originated from the same company known as Sallie Mae as well, which was a financial institution formed over 40 years ago that also was a servicer of federal and private student loans. In 2010 new laws were put in place prohibiting companies like Sallie Mae from servicing federal loans. Hence in 2014 it was announced the 2 companies would split and become completely separate corporations to deal with this new registration. This allows Navient to service both federal and private loans while Sallie Mae only services and issues new private loans.

How can you tell if your Navient Loans are private or federal? The best way to do this is to log into the National Student Loan Data System going to “Financial Review” or by logging in directly on the Navient website.

Navient School Loans and Payments

Most loan forgiveness programs are only eligible for those with federal loans from Navient. That doesn’t mean you have no options as a private loan borrower. There are ways to lower your payment via private loans. You can negotiate directly with your servicer to get lower payments or a new extended term or apply for some private student loan forgiveness options. Often times those that work in health care with private loans can get into private loan assistance programs offered by the National Health Service Corp that can negotiate lower payments or even refinancing.
If you have federal student loans from Navient there are a lot more options when it comes to loan forgiveness and debt consolidation programs. There are some important factors that go into qualifying for these from your income level to family size to the type of job you have. Below we outline from of the options for those with Federal Navient Student Loans:

• Teacher Loan Forgiveness: Just as the name suggests, this is for teachers that have been working for 5+ years with at least 1 year being at a title 1 school. This plan allows for up to $17,500 to be forgiven on the total amount of your student debt.
• IDR or Income-Driven Repayment Plans: One of the more widely used programs for those that have unaffordable payments and need immediate student debt relief. The plan is based on your current gross income and allows you to make smaller payments over an extended period of time. Once the all payments have been made in the time frame, the balance of what is owed is completely forgiven.
• Total and Permanent Disability Discharge: A program for those that are completely unable to make payments on their student loan debt as a result of a permanent disability and results in a total forgiveness of outstanding loan debt.
• PSLF (Public Service Loan Forgiveness):Navient does not offer PSLF, however if you have Navient loans contact a specialist and we can assist in getting you into PSLF. This option is available for those that work in the public sector as a service employee or even those that work for a non-profit organization. These types of plans offer loan forgiveness after a certain amount of time (usually 10 years) where the entirety of your loan is completely forgiven once you have made your payments for the allotted time frame. Payments are based on the IDR plan.

Alliance Loan Support has extensive experience with Navient Student Loans and has put thousands of borrowers in new forgiveness programs or consolidation plans to help lower and even eliminate a huge portion of their debt. You aren’t stuck making affordable payments forever, there is relief! Qualification is free with one easy phone call or online submission.