Student Loan Servicers: Who Has Your Loan and How to Deal With Them

Your student loan servicer is the company that sends your bill. It isn’t your lender. For federal loans, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) owns the loan and assigns a servicer to handle billing and paperwork for you, at no cost. You don’t get to pick which one.

That’s why it matters who it is. When you want a lower payment or a mistake fixed, the servicer is who you call first.

And knowing where to go when they don’t fix it saves you a lot of hold music.

The current federal student loan servicers

These are the servicers for loans ED owns, with the official web address for each. Use these addresses rather than a search result, so you land on the real site.

Notice who’s missing. Great Lakes, FedLoan Servicing, OSLA, Granite State and Navient aren’t on ED’s list. If an old statement or email has one of those names on it, log in to StudentAid.gov to see who has your loans now.

A few loans never show up on that list at all. Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) loans that a bank or other company still owns are serviced by that holder, and Perkins Loans the school still owns are handled by the school. Private student loans aren’t on StudentAid.gov, so check your statements or your lender’s site for those.

How to find your servicer

1. Log in to StudentAid.gov. Use your StudentAid.gov account username and password.
2. Open your Dashboard and go to My Aid. Select “View loan servicer details.” You may see more than one servicer, since different loans can sit with different companies.
3. Write down each servicer and the loans it has. Then make an online account on each servicer’s site.
4. Can’t get in? Call the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-433-3243 and they’ll point you to your servicer.

Looking for NSLDS? The old NSLDS student website was retired. The same federal loan records now live in your StudentAid.gov account, and the My Aid page has a “Download My Aid Data” button that gives you a file with your loans, grants and contact details. It’s handy to keep a copy before a transfer.

Your servicer is assigned after your loan is first paid out, and the servicer contacts you after that. So if you just borrowed and haven’t heard anything, that’s normal.

What your servicer can do for you, and what it can’t

Think of your servicer as the billing and help desk for your loan. Call or log in when you want to:

• Change your repayment plan, including income-driven plans like RAP. Our guide to student loan repayment plans shows which one fits.
• Ask for a deferment or forbearance when you need a pause.
• Set up autopay. On eligible Direct Loans it cuts your rate by 1% through June 30, 2028, if you enroll by December 31, 2026. Here’s how to set up student loan autopay.
• Get help when you can’t make a payment, before it turns into a missed one.
• Update your name, address or phone number, or ask about something on your bill.

A couple of things you can also do yourself on StudentAid.gov: apply for an income-driven plan and submit a consolidation application. Public Service Loan Forgiveness paperwork goes through the PSLF Help Tool there too.

And what can’t it do? It can’t change your interest rate, because federal rates are fixed by law. It can’t help with private loans. And you can’t pick or swap your servicer by asking, since ED makes the assignment.

If your loan gets transferred

ED moves loans from one servicer to another now and then. ED still owns your loans and the terms don’t change.

Only the company handling them does.

Here’s what you’ll get. First an email or letter from your current servicer saying the transfer is happening. Then a welcome letter from the new servicer with its contact information and anything you need to do. Payments you make during the switch are supposed to be credited to your account at the new servicer.

1. Save your records before the switch. The new servicer may only show your online history from the day it took over, so download your payment history and recent statements from the old one.
2. Wait for the welcome letter, then send payments to the new servicer. If you pay through your bank’s bill pay, update the payee.
3. Create your online account on the new servicer’s site and check that your plan and autopay look right.
4. Working toward forgiveness? Keep your own copies of your payment history and any PSLF paperwork, so you can spot a missing month later.

How to complain when your servicer gets it wrong

A wrong balance or a payment that never got applied? It happens. Here’s the order that works.

1. Go to the servicer first, and keep a paper trail. Note who you talked to, when, and what they said. Follow up in writing, ask for a copy of your customer service history, and send letters by certified mail with a return receipt.
2. Still stuck? File with the FSA Feedback Center. Submit it at StudentAid.gov/submit-feedback with your notes and copies attached.
3. Answer wrong or incomplete? Ask the Ombudsman for an escalated review. The FSA Office of the Ombudsman is neutral and confidential. Request it in the Feedback Center under “Manage My Cases,” by mail to U.S. Department of Education, FSA Ombudsman Group, P.O. Box 1854, Monticello, KY 42633, or at 1-800-433-3243.
4. File with the CFPB as well, if you want. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau takes student loan complaints online or at (855) 411-2372. It sends your complaint to the company, and most companies answer within 15 days.

Two limits. The Ombudsman doesn’t handle private student loans, so use the CFPB for those. And it won’t process a payment, deferment, forbearance or discharge request for you. Those go straight to your servicer.

What happened to Navient?

Navient isn’t a federal Direct Loan servicer. Its contract with ED to service Direct Loans ended in 2021, and it’s not on ED’s servicer list.

Then in September 2024, a federal court entered a CFPB order that permanently bans Navient from servicing Direct Loans, bars it from consumer-facing FFEL servicing and from buying FFEL loans, and makes it pay $100 million in redress to borrowers plus a $20 million penalty.

That came after a separate deal. In January 2022, 39 state attorneys general announced a $1.85 billion settlement with Navient. It canceled about $1.7 billion in subprime private student loans for about 66,000 borrowers and paid $95 million in restitution (about $260 each) to about 350,000 federal borrowers who’d been steered into long-term forbearance.

If you had federal loans with Navient, check StudentAid.gov to see who services them now. More background is in our Navient lawsuit explainer.

Before you call: a quick prep list

Have your account number, your last statement and your latest tax return handy, since a plan change usually needs income. Know what you want before you dial, whether that’s a lower payment or one specific fix. And if you’re already behind, say so on the first call.

Next stepBehind on payments? Read how to get out of student loan default before you call