YYou’ve made the decision to refinance your student loans—great choice! It’s a smart way to potentially save money and make managing your loans easier. The next step is to collect details about your current student loans, including:
- How many lenders have you borrowed from?
- Have any of your loans been sold? (Lenders have the right to sell loans, meaning you may have loans that are now owned by a lender other than the one your loan originated with.)
- Who's servicing which loans?
- What are those account numbers?
Did you find all of your information? Not sure? If not, here are four ways you can locate your federal and private student loans.
- Your StudentAid.gov account has all the details about your loans, including the type of loan, how much you borrowed, when it’s sent out, and more.
- By logging into StudentAid.gov with your Federal Student Aid (FSA) ID, you can check your loan balance and find the name and contact info of your loan servicer.
- Any student loan you’ve borrowed or cosigned—whether federal or private—will appear on your credit report along with the lender’s name.
Four Ways to Locate Student Loans
1. Log in to My Federal Student Aid
The U.S. Department of Education has created a portal that includes a history of all your federal student aid (i.e., you won’t find information about any private student loans here). You will use your FSA ID—the same one you used to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®)—to log into your account.
Once logged in you can find the following information for your federal student loans:
- Loan balances
- Name of your loan servicers
- Contact information for your loan servicer
2. Get a Free Credit Report
U.S. consumers are entitled to one free credit report every 12 months from each of the three major credit reporting companies—Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Any student loan you are responsible for (both federal and private) will show up on your credit report, along with the name of the lender. This is a great resource for locating all of your private student loan lenders in one place. The official site for requesting your free annual report is www.AnnualCreditReport.com.
3. Look at Your Monthly Loan Statements
Your monthly loan statements will now include important information like your balance and contact details. If you receive these statements electronically, it's a good idea to create an email folder to keep them organized. For those who receive them by mail, find a designated place to store them. Having this information easily accessible will be helpful when it comes time to refinance your loan.
4. Contact Your College or University
Some of your funds may have been lent to you by your school. Contact the Financial Aid Office at the college or university where you borrowed the money for balance and pay-off information. If you chose to include loans made by your college when you refinance you will need to provide this information to your new lender.
