With Student Loan Balance, Sign in to your student loan repayment account to:
- check your balance
- see how much you’ve repaid towards your loan
- see how much interest has been applied to your loan so far
- make a one-off repayment
- set up and amend Direct Debits
- tell the Student Loans Company (SLC) if you’ve changed your contact details
- tell SLC if you’re going overseas for more than 3 months
This service is also available in Welsh (Cymraeg).
You can also make one-off repayments towards your student loan, or towards someone else’s loan, without signing in.
Before you start
To sign in you’ll need your:
- customer reference number or email address
- password
- secret answer, for example your mother’s maiden name
If you do not know these, you can reset them using the email address you had when you applied for your loan. Contact SLC if you’ve changed your email address.
How To Find Your Student Loan Balance
If you borrowed money from the U.S. Department of Education, there are a few different ways you can check out your student loan balance.
1. Head to the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS)
The Department of Education runs the NSLDS. From here you can create a Federal Student Aid ID (FSA ID) or log in with your existing account.
The NSLDS will tell you:
- How much you’ve borrowed
- The type of loan you have (for example, whether it’s subsidized or unsubsidized)
- Each loan’s interest rate
- Payment status
- Your loan servicer
If you have a few loans, you might have a couple of loan servicers.
2. Contact Your School
Sometimes not all loans show up in the NSLDS. Loans that you didn’t take out yourself—like parent PLUS loans—would show up under your parent’s report, not if you searched yourself. Along with that, not all loan entities report to the NSLDS frequently. This means you might not find all your loans, especially if you’ve recently borrowed.
If you want to make sure all your loans are accounted for, contact your school’s financial aid office. They’ll be able to look up your account information, including all the loans that were processed in your name.
Keep in mind that while you might be able to get information about the lender who provided your loan while you were in school, there’s a chance your loan has changed hands since then. You can still contact the loan servicer on file, but you might have a little bit more digging to do if you find out your loan has moved to a different company’s portfolio.
Checking Your Private Student Loan Balances
Each private student loan lender handles them differently; there’s no national database for private loans. If you’re unsure where to start, use these tips:
- Reach out to your college or university. Your school’s financial aid office will have your original loan details and can let you know what company originated your loan.
- Contact your original lender. Your original lender might still be your current loan servicer, but that’s not always the case. Contact the originating lender to see if they can point you in the direction of who has your loans now. You might have to reach out to many servicers to find the most up-to-date one.
- Review your credit report. If you don’t know the original lender or where to find them, use AnnualCreditReport.com. This lets you pull credit reports from the three major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. You’ll see details on your original loan servicer, giving you a starting point.