Written By Melanie Lockert
As a federal student loan borrower, you don’t have a say in choosing your loan servicer. Instead, the U.S. Department of Education assigned you a loan servicer which receives your payments and answers your loan questions. Aidvantage is one of five federal student loan servicers. It’s a major loan company in the space, managing student loan repayment for 13 million borrowers.
Given its size and history, borrowers shared plenty of Aidvantage complaints in our January 2024 Student Loan Planner Reader Survey. Keep reading to learn more about the servicer’s biggest shortcomings, according to the student loan borrowers it serves.
What is Aidvantage?
Aidvantage is the loan servicing division for the company, Maximus. Maximus took over federal student loans that were previously managed by Navient, after the latter exited the federal loan servicing space toward the end of 2021.
As a federal student loan servicer, Aidvantage works with borrowers to oversee and support their student loan repayment. It accepts borrowers’ monthly payments and can help discuss different repayment options. The company can also process an income-driven repayment (IDR) plan application; however, it doesn’t recertify your income and family size for you. Borrowers are responsible for recertifying annually.
The loan servicer also can’t change your interest rate — though, there’s an interest rate reduction of 0.25% for enrolling in automatic monthly payments. Additionally, Aidvantage doesn’t help you manage your path toward forgiveness through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program.
| What Aidvantage does | What Aidvantage does NOT do |
|---|---|
| Manage student loan repayment | Change your interest rate |
| Help you navigate repayment options | IDR recertification (borrower must submit this) |
| Process IDR applications or deferment requests | Track Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) progress |
Top 5 Aidvantage complaints from borrowers
As part of the January 2024 Student Loan Planner Reader Survey, we asked respondents to share who their loan servicer is and their top complaints. Here, we break down the top 5 Aidvantage complaints from 218 borrowers in the survey.
1. Lack of information
Student loan repayment can be confusing and complex. Now that student loan payments have resumed and the SAVE plan is available, borrowers have a lot of questions. One of borrowers’ top Aidvantage complaints is about a lack of information — and sometimes just wrong information.
One survey respondent lamented, “I can’t ever speak to anyone and the information they do provide is garbage.” Another respondent states that there are “delays and gaps in information.”
More borrowers said they were given inaccurate information about their loans and received misinformation over the phone.
A borrower said, “They are completely clueless. Every time I call I get incorrect information such as saying I don’t qualify for SAVE because of my income. They have absolutely no clue about SAVE.”
The SAVE plan doesn’t come with an income requirement, making it very accessible to federal loan borrowers.
2. Problems with payments
Student loan borrowers with Aidvantage had a range of complaints regarding payments. One respondent said the servicer was slow to process their payment and they had issues having the auto-pay interest rate reduction applied to their loan.
More serious Aidvantage complaints include rejected or returned payments. One borrower said, “Payments were not processed for months and kept getting rejected…” citing that the loans then “accrued interest that could have been paid from months of payments being rejected.”
Another borrower had a similar frustrating experience saying, “Several times they refunded my loan payments, for no reason, causing me to accrue additional interest, even though I paid to avoid that issue.”
More Aidvantage complaints include miscalculated payments, especially when it comes to IDR plans, which are supposed to make payments more affordable.
3. Poor customer service
If you’re having an issue with your student loans, you should be able to rely on your loan servicer for support. However, poor customer service was among the top Aidvantage complaints.
A borrower had a pointed response: “They have no clue what they are doing and have unqualified customer service representatives working all of our loans.”
Another respondent said Aidvantage has “zero customer service and the website is completely lacking in information and there’s no transparency.”
Though many of the complaints are around Aidvantage’s poor service, another complaint was that there weren’t enough customer service agents to serve borrowers.
4. Website user experience
Before calling customer service, many borrowers first visit the servicer’s website to self-troubleshoot and find answers. But one borrower complained that “sometimes their website is inaccessible.”
Many other responses shared similar feelings about a poor website user experience. “Their website is so clunky and I feel like I just click in circles and never get to go anywhere,” said a respondent.
Other borrowers said it was difficult to navigate the website when searching for specific information like dates, documents, etc. Aidvantage’s site is described as being “beyond outdated, not intuitive, and not enough to support those with debt.”
5. Not helpful with forgiveness
Federal loan borrowers can take advantage of forgiveness programs to help wipe out student loan debt after meeting certain eligibility requirements. Unfortunately, one survey respondent stated that Aidvantage “can’t ever answer any questions I have about loan forgiveness.”
Even worse, another borrower said, “I qualify for discharge/forgiveness. However, the servicer has ignored every communication that I’ve submitted.”
Get Started With Our New IDR Calculator
What can you do if Aidvantage is your servicer?
If you’re one of the borrowers with many Aidvantage complaints, you may want to do anything to get rid of them. As noted above, you can’t choose your loan servicer or change to a different one — at least through traditional routes. There are a few ways to work around this, but each option should be considered carefully.
Apply for a Direct Consolidation Loan
Through this option, you can consolidate more than one federal loan into a single payment. It’s free to do and the interest rate will end up being a weighted average of all of your loans.
Pros of consolidation:
- Simplify repayment with one monthly payment.
- Choose a new loan servicer.
- No application fee.
Cons of consolidation:
- May lengthen repayment term.
- Paying more due to capitalized interest.
- Potentially miss out on certain benefits like interest rate reductions or some instances of loan cancellation.
Refinance your student loan
Use a student loan refinancing lender to refinance your federal loans. This can give you a new loan servicer. Here’s the catch. The refinancing loan eliminates the federal loans and you’ll have a single private student loan. Because it’s now private, you no longer have the option to get on an IDR plan or have your loans forgiven.
Pros of student loan refinancing:
- Choose a new private lender/loan servicer.
- May qualify for a lower interest rate.
- Can choose different repayment terms.
Cons of student loan refinancing:
- Loss of federal benefits like IDR and forgiveness.
- May pay more in interest if you choose a longer repayment term.
- Variable rates can make payments unpredictable.
See if you qualify for PSLF
Borrowers who are going after PSLF, your loans will be transferred to MOHELA, the official loan servicer for this particular loan forgiveness program. If your Aidvantage complaints are becoming unbearable, explore whether you qualify for PSLF. Although this approach doesn’t necessarily let you choose your servicer, it lets you switch servicers to MOHELA.
Pros of PSLF:
- Loan is transferred to MOHELA, the only servicer for PSLF.
- If successful, you can have a portion of your debt canceled.
- Forgiven amount is tax free.
Cons of PSLF:
- MOHELA is the only servicer option available.
- Must meet specific requirements for forgiveness.
- 10-year public service requirement might impact your income opportunities.
Get help with Aidvantage complaints and more
Consider whether the options outlined above can help you address any Aidvantage complaints you’ve experienced. You can also submit a formal complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Loan servicer complaints are pretty common and an unfortunate reality for student loan borrowers. If you feel stuck with Aidvantage or a different loan servicer, Student Loan Planner can help create a student loan debt payoff plan for you. Our team of experts work with you to develop a plan that you can feel confident about. Book a consult today.
Not sure what to do with your student loans?
Take our 11 question quiz to get a personalized recommendation for 2024 on whether you should pursue PSLF, Biden’s New IDR plan, or refinancing (including the one lender we think could give you the best rate).
