Great Lakes Student Loans Refinancing

When a student has several Federal Student Loans, they easily get confused with the repayments and information related to it. If you're thinking of refinancing your Federal loans, you can get relieved by tracking your numerous loan bills, thereby paying one single amount to all your other loans.

If a student has a Federal Student Loan, then they must have a loan servicer. The great Lakes student loans are one of the major service providers used by the Federal Government to service Federal Student loans. They act as an intermediary between borrowers and the Department of Education.

This service provider administers the loan, handles repayment, customer service, and more. Great Lakes was recently acquired by another Federal Loan servicer called Nelnet, still, it works on its original name.

List of contents

Great Lakes Federal Student Loan Servicer
Refinancing with private lenders
Steps to Refinance Loan
Consolidation your Great Lakes student loans
Contact information

Great Lakes Federal Student Loan Servicer

Great Lakes is a Federal Student Loan service provider that provides opportunities to student borrowers to avail Federal student loans funded by the US Department of Education. If a student has multiple Federal Loans, he/she gets an option to combine all the loans, pay one single monthly repayment for all the loans. It is taking out another new loan to pay off all your Federal Student Loan for you, by replacing multiple Federal loans with a single new loan.

Great Lakes does not provide federal loan borrowers the services like consolidation and refinance. These services can be availed with Direct Consolidation Loan with Private Lenders.

Refinancing Federal Student Loan

There is no option to refinance your Federal Student Loan by Great Lakes, but it can be done by private lenders. When you refinance your Federal Student Loan with a private lender, this loan will be converted to a private loan.

Pros and Cons of Great Lakes federal student loans

Know the reasons to refinance with great lake considering their pros and cons.

Advantages

A great benefit you get by refinancing is that the borrower has an opportunity to lower the interest rate payable and this could bring down the monthly repayment.
A borrower who refinances may save up to $253 per month as this could be a great option to lower total cost. An average borrower who refinances can save about $16,000 over the life of the loan.
Refinancing can help one to replace different Federal Student Loans with one single loan, which helps borrowers to manage the loan and payoff easier.
It helps borrowers to decide in reframing the term of the loan, choosing between lengthening the term to reduce monthly repayment or shortening the term to get debt-free sooner, by paying less interest amount with higher monthly repayment.

Disadvantages

A borrower has to be very clear or aware of the consequences of refinancing federal student loans by a private lender.
When a borrower refinances a federal student loan, it ultimately converts into a private loan. This process would result in a borrower losing all the benefits from Federal programs such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Income-Driven Repayment Plans.
The private lender also provides these similar benefits to its borrowers in the period of hardship, but it's not the same as the Federal government.

Refinancing with private lenders

Federal Student Loans cannot be refinanced by Federal Loan servicers. It can only be refinanced by Private Lenders. This option can be chosen by the borrowers not only to consolidate the loan but also to reduce the interest rate payable.

By refinancing these loans, you get to consolidate multiple loans with single monthly repayment, wherein Direct Consolidation Loan can combine multiple Federal loans, but refinancing helps to consolidate both Federal and Private loans.

Terms and interest rate

Refinancing would not only provide an option to choose terms but also help to lower the interest amount payable. Fixation of interest rate mainly depends on borrowers' credit score and financial position. In cases where the borrower has less credit score and get unqualified, there are options for such borrowers to have a cosigner whose credit score is good to avail refinancing.

This benefit of refinancing at a low-interest rate is that it ultimately reduces total cost, and the option of reframing terms is the main reason why borrowers refinance Federal Student Loan. This refinancing helps to choose loan terms. Some borrowers do choose a long term to reduce monthly repayment while others tend to choose a short term to get debt free earlier than the actual period.

Refinancing made feasibly

Refinancing Great Lakes Students loan with a private lender is very much easy. This is done by evaluating many lenders since one of them would be chosen to refinance your loan. Thus comparing several refinance service provider helps borrowers to determine the best refinancer with borrower-friendly features.

Steps to refinance loan through Great Lakes

The borrower must be wise in deciding the private lenders by comparing the interest rate they would offer.

1. Criteria

Lenders have their criteria to be fulfilled by the borrowers to enjoy comparatively less interest rate, but the borrower can compare the interest rate of the various lender by using an online loan calculator at the same time

2. Filling

Online lenders would have a process to fill all related information on an online application, the borrower has to fill in details of current student loans and information of work and salary.

The lender makes detailed checks on the borrower's financial position and credit score to make an initial offer. Once your refinance gets approved with a private lender, all communication-related to refinance will be done with Great Lakes.

Explore the Best Student Loan Servicers in the market

Consolidating your Great Lakes student loans

Great Lakes consolidation takes all of the separate loans that Great Lakes services for you and covert it one federal Direct Consolidation loan. You can leave your loan serviced with Great Lakes or select another loan servicer by consolidation process.

Here are the steps you’ll have to take to apply for your student loan consolidation:

1.Prepare your application information

First, collect all the data that are required in the application process so that you can finish the loan consolidation application in one session. In the application they will ask you to pick a repayment plan that fits your financial situation best, for this, you can use Great Lakes’ Repayment Planner to identify your collect planner and compare other plans too. This process is now very easy as by just login you can choose the planner and complete the application process faster. Here it also helps in analyzing the other repayment plans with different terms to pay back your consolidation loan so choose that plan which helps you in saving the most.

2.Estimate your monthly payment

For estimating your monthly payment you can check on the student aid official site where you will get an option to select “Consolidate My Loans” under the “Manage Loans” tab in this you can try a You can do a student loan consolidation demo to calculate your monthly payment.this will help you through the consolidation process and get an estimate without completing an official application.

3.Apply for student loan consolidation

You can visit the student aid government site to start the application process in which you need a Federal Student Aid ID to log in and in that you can select one of the federal; student loan servicer to finish the consolidation and service your direct consolidation, Great Lakes as considering one of the good choices because of its fast and convenient process.

4.Track your application

If you select Great Lakes as your student loan servicer, you can expect to hear from the company within one to two days after you submit your application and will notify with up to date throughout the consolidation process like when your application was received, any further action is needed and when the process will be finished giving a borrower an idea that how time will be required and you may also be able to monitor your application through your Great Lakes account.

Confused about borrowing money for college? Learn about student loans and get your queries cleared

Contact information

If you decide to refinance your loans with Great Lakes and require for information, you can check their website Great Lakes

You can also contact them via :

Phone #: (800) 236-4300

Email: borrowerservices@glhec.org <borrowerservices@glhec.org>;

Fax: (800) 375-5288 or (608) 246-1608

Location: Great Lakes
PO Box 3059
Milwaukee, WI 53201-3059

Refinancing Federal loans with Great lakes is not possible but loans can be consolidated from them under Direct Consolidation Loan.

It is possible to refinance Great Lakes Student loans through Private Lenders, where borrowers are free to decide the private lender to refinance their loan. By refinancing the loan, it would get converted to a private loan where the borrower ultimately cannot get benefits from Federal Programs.

Refinancing Great Lakes student loans with private lenders would help borrowers to lower interest amount payable, a borrower gets an option to choose loan terms and can save a huge amount on the total cost.