Submitted by Dave Bowman, Regional Marketing Director
Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation and Affiliates

We’re partners in helping students borrow responsibly, complete their education, and find repayment solutions that work for them. Providing loan servicers with valid contact information for your students is a vital step in making sure your students receive the assistance they need from their servicer throughout the life of their loans. 

Communicating contact information that changes rapidly as students transition to a new phase in life is one of the best ways to help your students succeed in life beyond campus. When loan servicers can’t connect with your students, it’s difficult to help them. There are several ways you can help. 

• •·         Encourage your students to stay in contact with you to provide their current contact information, as well as their enrollment status, as necessary. If you have current contact information, you should share it with loan servicers, which can usually be done easily online.
• •·         Encourage your students to sign up for an account on their loan servicer’s website, where they can access important account informationundefinedand many other useful resourcesundefinedand easily make updates to their contact information to make sure it is current.
• •·         Help students understand who their loan servicers are so that they can watch for and respond to important timely information they receive about their loan obligations and options. Students are often inundated with information and may not know how to differentiate their loan servicer from other organizations and companies.  

Whether it’s the spring graduates entering repayment in the next few months or the new students enrolling this fall, make sure you’re connecting them with the help they need. While we can’t always control the obstacles students face, solid relationships and clear communication provide the pathway to success.

Dave Bowman is Regional Marketing Director with Great Lakes, serving schools in Kentucky and Tennessee. You can reach Dave at (888)685-1604, or by e-mail at dbowman@glhec.org. Additional information about Great Lakes can be found online at www.mygreatlakes.org/web/FAP