topic Re: Dept of Ed / Nelnet Reporting in Student Loans

Dept of Ed / Nelnet Reporting

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:02:07 GMT

I am currently a junior in college. When I pulled my recent credit report, I noticed that Dept of Ed / Nelnet is reporting my student loans individually. I am getting two new loans every semester (on subsidized, one unsubsidized). Each one of these two per semester is showing up on my credit report as a separate installment account. Isn't this killing my score by greatly lowering my AAoA? I have 2 accounts that are 2 years old, but about 8 that are less than a year old. It would seem that as I finish college, it will just keep getting worse. Is there anything I can do to get these to show up together? Has anyone had any experience with this situation?

Thanks.

Re: Dept of Ed / Nelnet Reporting

laz98 — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:36:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I am currently a junior in college. When I pulled my recent credit report, I noticed that Dept of Ed / Nelnet is reporting my student loans individually. I am getting two new loans every semester (on subsidized, one unsubsidized). Each one of these two per semester is showing up on my credit report as a separate installment account. Isn't this killing my score by greatly lowering my AAoA? I have 2 accounts that are 2 years old, but about 8 that are less than a year old. It would seem that as I finish college, it will just keep getting worse. Is there anything I can do to get these to show up together? Has anyone had any experience with this situation?

Thanks.

Hi! Welcome to the forums

Yes, virtually everyone has this happen to them with their student loans. It's very frustrating, because as you said, it greatly lowers your AAoA on an ongoing basis. Over time, however, it will be a wonderful thing to have 5 or 10 or 20 student loan accounts with very long histories that are open & reporting positively. Just make sure that you are never late, because it will kill your score.

Re: Dept of Ed / Nelnet Reporting

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:49:03 GMT

Oh well I guess. Hopefully this won't stop me from getting up to 650 before I graduate. Thanks for the info everyone!

Re: Dept of Ed / Nelnet Reporting

laz98 — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:54:33 GMT

Do you have any other accounts at all? Credit cards, car loan, etc?

Re: Dept of Ed / Nelnet Reporting

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:56:44 GMT

I have two credit cards. My own is 7 months old, and I am an AU on my wife's that is 20 months old. I have no other positive tradelines, and a few collections that range from 2-7 years old. Right now CC utilization is around 70%, but I will be paying that down over the next month (small CLs means easy to pay off!)

Re: Dept of Ed / Nelnet Reporting

laz98 — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:15:08 GMT

Getting your utilization down will certainly help your scores. The hard part sometimes is keeping it down!

Re: Dept of Ed / Nelnet Reporting

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:17:10 GMT

Yep, especially over the summer when I am in school and barely working. I'm not too worried about that. I just need to think ahead far enough to get it down when I know I will be applying for credit. If I am in the high 500s now, and based on the info I gave you, how much of a point jump do you think I might see by lowering my utilization to under 10% from the current 77%?

Re: Dept of Ed / Nelnet Reporting

laz98 — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:20:28 GMT

Oh, I'll have to let someone else tackle that question! I'm terrible at estimating those things.

I think the main thing keeping your scores down is your collections. You said some are about 7 years old. Are they coming off your reports soon?

Re: Dept of Ed / Nelnet Reporting

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:23:18 GMT

The old ones are, yes. I have a couple that are 2 years old that I am currently trying to take care of via PFD, and two that I think are not mine.

My understanding is that when the old ones fall off, I won't see much of a change since at that age, they probably aren't having a huge impact. I need to wait for all of them to be gone to see the big change, which may take a while. If these disputes and PFDs all pan out, hopefully that can be sooner. I just started this process about 2 weeks ago, so I am trying to stay patient.

My current goal is to refinance the car in my wife's name into mine (her credit is worse off than mine) and get a better interest rate than 16.5% ASAP. My long term goal is to be ready to buy a house in about 3 years.

Re: Dept of Ed / Nelnet Reporting

laz98 — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:26:27 GMT

Oh, they are having an impact, but when you have more than one collection, you often will not see a jump in your score until the last one comes off. However, if someone was actually sitting down reviewing your reports, obviously it will be better for you to have only 4 collections showing instead of 7 (just an example).

I know it's incredibly hard to be patient waiting for these things to resolve themselves. But just stay focused & you will get to where you want to be!

Re: Dept of Ed / Nelnet Reporting

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:28:36 GMT

Thanks so much for the advice and support!

Re: Dept of Ed / Nelnet Reporting

laz98 — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:29:44 GMT

You are very welcome