Ascendium: Student Loan Forgiveness & Repayment Options

Looking at your credit report and wondering who is Ascendium Education Solutions? Below is the answer to that question.

In this post, I’ll explain wh Ascendium Education Solutions is and what they have to do with your student loans.

Last year, Nelnet bought Great Lakes’ student loan servicing business, Great Lakes Educational Loan Services. Nelnet’s acquisition made it larger than both American Education Services and FedLoan. In fact, the acquisition made Nelnet the largest federal student loan servicer in America.

Although Great Lakes sold its student loan servicing business, it wasn’t all the way out of the student loan business.

Far from it.

Great Lakes remained the largest guarantor of Federal Family Education Loans.

But just because it remained in the game, doesn’t mean it could keep its name.

As part of the Nelnet sale, Great Lakes agreed to adopt a different name for its remaining student loan business.

That name?

Ascendium Education Group.

Ascendium Education Solutions serves as a guarantor of Federal Family Education Loans.

Sidenote: FFEL loans don’t qualify for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. So if you’re banking on getting your loans forgiven and you see Ascendium on your credit report or on the National Student Loan Data System, you might want to consider consolidating those loans into a Direct Consolidation Loan.

Great Lakes changed its name to Ascendium on November 15, 2018.

The name change affects only the business that wasn’t sold to Nelnet.

So if you have federal Direct Loans that were serviced by Great Lakes, you’ll still be able to go to mygreatlakes.org website to manage your loans.

Ascendium Education Group is the parent company and Ascendium Education Solutions is a subsidiary of the Group.

Ascendium Education Solutions’ operations include its:

• education philanthropy division (exploring systemic obstacles preventing the completion of postsecondary education)

• default assistance division (educating borrowers on the consequences of default), and

• suite of products (educating borrowers on financial wellness so they can achieve their education goals)

You can send letters, payments, invoices, or other materials to Ascendium at:

Ascendium Education Group, Inc. & Affiliates
2501 International Lane
Madison WI 53704

Visit ascendiumeducation.org for more information.