I'm mixed here. In the early yrs, their American based customer service was great and easily accessible. they helped me lower payments when i hit a financial snag, and easily consolidated my loans back in 2001. (I'll sneak in here that their interest rates were outrageous. I paid $17,000 in interest on $37,000 in loans.) But since then their customer service has gone down the toilet. Their automated system is the worst, "sorry, I did not understand your reply" seems to be the only automated response. It's near impossible to get a live agent and when you do it's a statiky, barely audible someone at a phone center in India. Their english is fine (it is a national language there after all) but their knowledge of the company and loans is zilch. I decided to just pay off the last huge chunk of my loan rather then deal with them any more. And they tell me it will take 30 days after final repayment to be classified as "paid in full". The company has changed a lot and if I were a student again today i wouldn't borrow from them.

When I think of student loans the first brand that comes to mind for me is Sallie Mae. During my application process with Sallie Mae, the representative made me feel very comfortable. They were very patient telling what all of my options were. Getting a student loan is a big responsibility, so good customer service was important to me. Their website is excellent. They give you different options for deferment if you need and to lower your payments. During tax time, you can even log in to see the amount of taxes you paid on your student loans as well.

So I took out student loans for my undergraduate schooling and because I didn't know anything about Sallie Mae, I consolidated them elsewhere. However, since I started Graduate School and educated myself a bit about student loans, I took out from Sallie Mae again and I'm going to stick with them. They have an online website that gives clear cut explanations and solutions to your loan questions/problems/answers, etc... and they also send out emails if you sign up with them that give you ways of saving money. They work with UPromise, which links to pretty much every type of card you own- credit/debit/store saver cards, etc...and when you purchase through them, you save money on your Sallie Mae loans...HOW AWESOME IS THAT??? They also have sweepstakes to win money to pay for college and a financial planner on their site. They are great!!!