A few Reddit members received an email today from Great Lakes about their student loans informing them that credit card payments won’t be an option beginning January 1, 2017.
The letter indicates that this change is due to a new rule from the US Department of Treasury for all federal student loan servicers. As such, I assume it will affect all federal student loan providers. The change was made known on 12/21/16 and will go into effect on 1/1/17.
We’re writing to you because our records show that within the past six months you’ve used a credit/debit card to make a student loan payment. On December 21, 2016, we were notified that per the U.S. Department of Treasury all federal student loan servicers can no longer accept credit card payments, effective January 1, 2017. We realize this may be an adjustment and we’re here to help in any way we can.
This change will only affect federal student loans providers, like Navient. Max out whatever payments you can now before January 1st.
A few things that will still work:
- You can still use a bill payment service such as Plastiq to pay student loans with a credit card, albeit with a fee
- You can still buy Gift of College gift cards with a credit card and use those to pay the loans, albeit with a fee
- You can still use debit cards so Visa/MC gift cards might still work (Great Lakes clearly includes “debit and prepaid credit cards”)
