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Great Lakes Student Loans – What You Should Know

The name Great Lakes, what does it stand for? Great Lakes Higher Education Corp is a federal student loan servicer and a subsidiary of Nelnet. Is that all? No, there is more. Great Lakes is one of the privileged 11 loan servicing companies who had a contract with the federal government to service student loans. Therefore, this article will center on Great Lakes Student Loans.Great Lakes Student Loans

Recently, the federal government announced that its student loan servicing contracts with Great Lakes end on the 14th of December 2020. That’s really bad news; but on the government side, it’s a great change. An innovative one for that matter.

The reason why the federal government is dropping Great Lakes is to increase the customer service support experience in order to improve accountability. Henceforth, student loans will be paid and manage from one central website.

That said, this post is about Great Lakes. Yes, I took the time to talk about great lakes, it’s strength, and what they don’t do right as well as how to switch to other student loan servicing companies. This is in the event that the federal government contract with Great Lakes ends by December of this year.

Great Lakes Student Loans Review

The primary job of Great Lakes to help students find the best repayment plan loans and as well as process federal student loan payments.

Great Lakes was one of the largest student loan providers and guarantors in the United States. It was. But right now, the federal government student loan contracts end by December.

Before now, Great lakes were among the four largest companies which service United States federal student loans: Great Lakes, Nelnet, Navient, and the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency. In 2018, the loan servicing part of the organization was sold to Nelnet.

Great Lakes

As it stands, In caps, Great Lakes services both Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) loans and Federal Direct Loan Program loans. But their services expand to;

  1. Direct Unsubsidized
  2. Also, Direct PLUS
  3. Direct Subsidized
  4. Finally, Direct Consolidation
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Great Lakes Student Loans Products

Great Lakes offer borrowers different loan from products that are geared towards helping borrowers finance their needs. Below are some loan products offered by Great Lakes:

  • Student loan repayment – It’s a service that helps student repay their loan monthly or through auto repayment options.
  • Alternative repayment plans – Income-driven repayment plan is a service offering of Great Lakes to borrowers who can’t afford or struggling to meet up with their monthly repayment plan. With this service, you can contact Great Lakes and you will be guided on how to apply for an alternative repayment plan.
  • Student loan consolidation – federal Direct Consolidation Loan helps you easily different outstanding federal loans with different due dates.
  • Deferment and forbearance – in the event you are faced with a financial crisis, you can contact Great Lakes for loan repayment postponement.
  • Loan forgiveness – finally, in the event you work full time with a non-profit organization or government agency, you can contact Great Lakes and discuss your loan forgiveness intention to pursue Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). As a PSLF candidate, Great Lakes will transfer your loans to FedLoanServicing, the designated PSLF loan servicer.

Great Lakes Student Loans Repayment

There are several ways you can repay your Great Lakes student loans. Thus, you can pay back your loans via Phone, mobile app, mail, and the best option online.

Loan Repayment Via Phone

It’s so easy to pay back your student loans by placing a phone call to the customers representative via the official customer service line at 1-800-236-4300.

Great Lakes Student LoansLoan Repayment Online

To repay your student loan online, you will need to register or sign up on the Great Lakes loan management portal and login with your username and password. That said, to create a new account, you will need some credentials such as Social Security number and date of birth.

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After you make ready those credentials, head to sign up page using the following URL at https://mygreatlakes.org/educate/registration/identify.html and enter the above information and tap the continue button to proceed with the sign-up process.

If you Dislike your Current Loan Servicer – Here are easy Ways to Switch to a New Student Loan Servicer

Its great news to hear that you can switch to a new loan servicer, right? But the downside is that students who are under the federal government student loans get fixed to a particular loan servicer company by the Department of Education.

What does that mean, it simply means you can’t switch to new loan services. However, you can apply for loan forgiveness or refinance with a private lender.

That said, before you refinance, be aware that you are going to lose your federal government repayment plans and PSLF.

As a result, you will probably pay a higher interest rate. But in the event, you want to refinance and get away from Great Lakes you can check out other student loan companies like SoFi, Earnest, and Laurel Road.

How to submit a Complaint

For customers who have complaints to report, you can file your complaints through the following government websites:

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/contact/feedback

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/getting-started/

https://www.bbb.org/consumer-complaints/file-a-complaint/get-started

The websites listed above are all legit websites available for students who are under federal government student loans to file complaints when they experience an issue and get their issue resolved.

However, when filing your complaints make sure that you state what issue you are faced with, how you would want it resolved, and as well attached every necessary document for reference.

Customers Complaints of Frequent Issues with Great Lakes

As it stands, there hasn’t been an outburst of negative complaints against Great Lakes. But there exist three major complaints often filed or reported by borrowers.

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It includes; false payment reports, extra payment demand, and unrecorded payments made by borrowers. Must customers involve resolved this by keeping track of all the payments made at the time of payments even with auto payment enrollment? Another issue borrower’s face is the inaccurate report of loan information when it deals with filing for deferment or forbearance.

Finally, borrowers also face uneasy loan repaying options with Great Lakes which gets them stuck even when they want to refinance or opt-out.

 Contact Info

Phone number: (800) 236-4300

Email: borrowerservices@glhec.org

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MyGreatLakes

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mygreatlakes

Fax: (800) 375-5288

Mail

Great Lakes

PO Box 7860

Madison, WI 53707-7860

Hope this content was worth your time? We took out time to ensure this article comes in with the latest update. Feel free to keep your view with us in our comment box. Thanks for your time.

Author

  • Christian Ehiedu

    I write for Educational, Financial, technology, and social media content producers. I am deep into doing credible research that will benefit you the reader. You can contact me on https://shopfortool.com/. Tumblr, Chris Adam Facebook, Shopfortool Pinterest Account. I am a Technician and a woodworker. I have lots of years of experience in Technical work. I did some per time work at an electrical store. Having gathered lots of experience in the use of various tools link Mechanic Tools, Woodworking Tools, Power Tools, and Plumbing tools, I decided to put up this blog to help advise intending buyers or new biz on the right tools to buy on the market. My social Handle:

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