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Who Are The Federal Student Loan Servicing Companies?

Every Federal Student Loan is “serviced” by a company that holds your loan and handles the logistics around it (taking payments, answering questions, changing your repayment plan, etc.).

If you have a Federal Student Loan, then yes, yours is managed by one of the Federal Student Loan Servicing Companies.

But there aren’t that many of these companies in existence, in fact, there are only a handful of them authorized to manage Federal student debt.

This Guide explains how to find out who your servicer is, how to get in touch with them, and what they can do for you.



Who is My Federal Student Loan Servicer?

When it comes time to deal with your loans, for things like changing your Federal Student Loan Repayment Plan, enrolling in a Deferment or Forbearance Program, or even just asking questions about your debt, you’ll need to contact your loan servicer.

And that means that you have to know who your loan servicer is in the first place, between you’ll end up having to contact the specific servicer holding your loan.

To find out who you loan servicer is, you have two options:

  1. You can look at the National Student Loan Data System, a website created by the US Department of Education to track who services everyone’s loans, and how much they owe
  2. You can call the Federal Student Aid Information Center (FSAIC) at 1-800-433-3243 (This is a free, Government-provided service)

Once you’ve figured out who your servicer is, then you’ll just need to get in touch with them, and the easiest way to do that is typically via phone.


When Should You Contact Your Servicing Company?

If you need to do any sort of management or make any kind of updates to your Federal student loans, those will typically be done through your servicing company.

As examples, you’ll need to contact your loan servicer when:

  • You withdraw from a program that is being funded by Federal student laons
  • You graduate from a program funded by Federal student loans
  • You drop below half-time enrollment
  • Or you stop going to school completely

After graduation, you’ll need to contact your loan servicer when:

  • You change your name, address or phone number
  • You need help making a loan payment
  • You have a question about a bill, or a question about your loans
  • You want to change repayment plans, check on loan forgiveness or cancellation benefits

My advice is to contact your loan servicer for anything you want to do, or any questions you have, related to your student loans.

Typically, the loan servicing company is the one who will be responsible for all logistics related to your debt, so they’re the ones who you’ll need to call for any sort of information requests or changes.


How Can I Contact My Student Loan Servicer?

The Federal Government maintains a list of current approved Loan Servicers, here, and here’s the contact information for each of those currently listed:

To get in touch with your loan servicer, simply call one of the phone numbers listed above, or Google their name and “contact information” to find alternative avenues (like email, live chat, etc.).


Which Federal Student Loan Servicer is the Best?

Good question!

To be honest, I don’t have any information about any of these companies being better than the others.

In fact, I’ve never heard a single good thing said about any of the servicers; people who have a good experience with their student loans tend not to end up on my site.

Instead, the people I hear from are those who are having trouble understanding and managing their loans, or contacting their servicer, so the only feedback I get is negative.

If you really wanted to know though, you could look up the student loan servicing companies somewhere like Yelp, Glassdoor, or simply by searching their name and “reviews” on Google, and you should be able to get a pretty good idea about how people feel about any of them.

I’ll warn you though; the results won’t be pretty. Most people HATE their student loan servicing companies because nobody likes sending tons of money to them each month.


Can You Change Your Federal Student Loan Servicer?

Yes, it is possible to change your Federal student loan servicing company, but only under limited circumstances.

If you feel that you absolutely must change your servicer, then you’ll have to either:

Those are the only two situations where you’re eligible to change servicers voluntarily.

However, I do want to point out that oftentimes the Department of Education will change your student loan servicing company for you, without warning, simply because of their own internal reasons.

This happens regularly, and is called a “Loan Transfer”.



What to Expect If Your Loan is Transferred to a New Servicer

If your federal student loan gets transferred to a new servicer, your loans still remain owned by the Education Department, but the transfer just means that you’ll have a new point of contact for paying and managing your debt.

If your loan is transferred, here’s what you can expect to happen:

  • You’ll receive an email or written letter from your current servicer explaining that the loan is being transferred
  • You’ll receive a letter from the new servicer providing you with contact information and any steps they need you to take to complete the transfer and resume service
  • All your loan information will be automatically transferred to the new servicer, but when you log into the new servicers system, you may only be able to see details related to your loans since they took over management
  • You will NOT be charged anything for the transfer or for the change in service
  • Your servicers will work together to ensure a smooth transfer, making sure all payments made during the transfer process get credited to your loan account with the new servicing company

As soon as you receive the welcome letter from the new loan servicer, make sure to start sending your new monthly payments to that company instead of the old servicer.

Follow the instructions in the welcome letter for doing things like creating a new online login so that you can communicate with the new servicer, and track and manage your student loans in their system.



Get Help With Your Federal Student Debt

First, asking your servicer is probably the best way to figure it out for certain, but as a backup plan, take a look through my Guides to Federal Student Loan Relief Programs.

I’ve spent the past decade writing over 100 Guides on all the assistance programs on offer, and you’re sure to find help for federal loans from one of the following pages of my site:

Alternatively, if you have Private Student Loans, then you’ll want to my look at my Guides on Private Student Loan Relief.


Get Help With Your Private Student Debt

If you have private student loans, I do want to warn you that it’s much harder to qualify for assistance, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible!

For help with private student loans, take a look at the following pages of my site:

If you have any other questions about student loans, then please feel free to post them in the Comments section below and I’ll do my best to get you a response within 24 hours!


Finally, Please Help Me Out!

Running this website takes as much time as working a second full-time job, and I can only continue to do that with your support.

If you found my site useful, then PLEASE do your part to help out by sharing a link to it on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter or wherever you communicate online.

The more people who visit FSLD, the more time I can dedicate to writing up Guides like this one and helping borrowers just like you.

Thank you for visiting, and thank you so much for your support!


Disclaimer:Information obtained from Forget Student Loan Debt is for educational purposes only. You should consult a licensed financial professional before making any financial decisions. This site receives some compensation through affiliate relationships. This site is not endorsed or affiliated with the U.S. Department of Education.

By: 

Tim's experience struggling with crushing student loan debt led him to create the website Forget Student Loan Debt in 2011, where he offers advice, tips and tricks for paying off student loans as quickly and affordably as possible.