How to Payoff your Nelnet Student Loan

Well, it’s time again to do one of my favorite things: Write up a post on making a final debt payment. I did one for when I finally paid off my last credit card here and now I can do one for my Nelnet Student Loan.  (I’m talking strictly about the steps needed to take to pay off the loan. If you want to know how to pay off debt, check out this post.)

This loan and I have kind of had a rough history. When I first had to start paying back my student loans, I thought I only had 2 and didn’t know about this one until I got a missed payment note in the mail. Whoops! I remembered taking it out, but I had figured that it had been lumped in with my other loans. Unfortunately, it wasn’t, and that is one thing that really bothers me about Nelnet student loans. Many students have payee’s coming out of their hind parts, and consolidation isn’t always the right move. It wasn’t for me because I was planning on paying them off in a few years, and once I did that, it wouldn’t matter. I also had some very low-interest rates on my student debt, and some were subsidized as well. I would rather just pay 1 person, but that’s just me.

Change Your Nelnet Loan Pay-off Schedule

With this loan specifically, I’ve gotten questions on it before regarding the payoff schedule. In short, a reader wanted to know what Nelnet did if extra was paid on the loan. Short answer: They moved your next due date forward to get their (interest) money. He also asked me what happens when you pay off the loan. Here’s what I did to pay it off. (I tried calling, but was told to go online)

First, you need to log in to your Nelnet Student Loan account. You should already know how to do this if you’ve been making payments to your loan thus far. Once you’re logged in, go to the My Account tab, and you should see this:

Nelnet Student Loan Account Summary Page

As you can see, after I made the big payment at the beginning of this month, it pushed my due date into 2014. I don’t want this stupid little thing hanging over my head (and accruing interest) until then. I want to pay it off. Above the box, you’ll see I’ve circled the “click here” to obtain your 10-day payoff quote. Once you do that, it will take you to another page that will tell you how much you need to pay them in the next 10 days for them to consider the loan paid in full. It takes into account interest that has accrued on the loan that is outstanding, estimated interest over the 10-day period (I’m assuming this was more relevant when people paid bills by paper check and snail mail), and the current principal balance on the loan. Here’s what mine looks like:

Nelnet Student Loan Payoff Information Page

So, I can happily say that I submitted the online payment on 10.21, and it cleared the bank.  Since this is the first Nelnet student loan that I’ve ever paid off (but not the last!) I was curious as to what would happen next.  Would I get a letter from the servicer saying that it has been paid off?  (Not sure, but I don’t think so)  Would my credit report score improve? (Don’t know about that, either.) Would I have not sent the right amount and owe them something ridiculous like .32 cents? (Not at all.) After the payment clears the account, here’s what my “My Account” section looks like:

Screenshot of the Payoff Information My Account SectionNo Outstanding Balance!

I now have a $0 amount outstanding – it’s awesome!  Here’s another shot of the group summary.  This is what you’ll want to see when you’ve sent them the final payment.  Notice on the “status” it says PIF by the borrower, Paid In Full.  Not sure why it still shows me needing to make a 38 dollar payment, though.  Here’s the shot:

Nelnet Student Loan Payoff Information Payment Summary Page

There is a process to pay off your Nelnet Student loans.  Make sure to keep your focus and you’ll be here in no time!  Good luck, and if you have any questions, contact me or leave them in the comments.  I’d be happy to answer them.

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22 thoughts on “How to Payoff your Nelnet Student Loan”

  1. Great stuff, we’re about six weeks away from having one of my wife’s two student loans paid off and I’m interested to see how it all goes. Thanks for posting this and congrats, it has to be a great feeling!

  2. Thanks for coming by beagle! It is a great feeling, and there’s 2 more to go. I gave a detailed post about how I did this one because my other nelnet post got a lot of questions. Onward and Upward to the next debt!

  3. Mr. Jeff as of today I have just paid a Nelnet student loan in Full.
    My loan was in deferment for 6 months and I owed 13,oo5.00. I had only borrowed $7,500.oo and I have been paying on this loan for 25 years. This bill was a nightmare. I just couldn’t get the bill down. The payment was set so low that I was only paying the interest. I got in trouble in my payments for 3 months and I needed a deferment period. During my deferment in the month of November to February I paid every dime that touched my hands, and I paid it all off, $13,005.00. Today was the last day for my deferment and it was also my last payment of $305.10. I did not know what the meaning was: PIF By Borrower. Thank you for clearing it up for me. Now I am just waiting to see if there will be some later fees tacked on.

  4. Did you check your credit reports to see if Nelnet reported the loan paid in full?

    Even though 3 of the 4 loans we took out for law school were repaid ahead of schedule a couple of years ago (every payment on time), Nelnet has not contacted any of the credit bureaus to relay that information. All the loans still show that they are in repayment.

    Fortunately for us, we have no credit card or automobile debt, so it hasn’t nicked our credit score. But for some, it would make getting a home loan more difficult.

  5. Hi Jeff, how you ever figured out why there is still a $50 in “total amount due” even after you have paid the loan in full?

  6. I just had my Nelnet loan PIF. I already knocked out most of the principal, so for the last year I was messing with them by paying about 10% of the remaining balance each month. My last statement was under $60 with a whopping 7 cents interest. My account was in good standing with the next official payment due in 2016. I guess they got tired of mailing paper statements (I kept opting out of electronic delivery), so when I logged in to make this month’s $5 payment I saw it was Paid in Full.

  7. I have a question – not sure if anyone can answer. But does anyone know what can be done to pay down loans quicker with Nelnet if you have multiple loans? I would like to target the highest interest loans first. Do they allow you to do that? Can you pay the minimum amount on a loan X, Y and Z and then pay the minimum on loan A but then pay extra to be also applied on loan A until it is paid off then move down the line?

    • I think you’ll have to call them and talk to them about that. I had a very short amount of money out from them, so it didnt make sense for me.

    • @Cyn I am wondering the same thing. Let us know if you find out. I couldnt ever get the person i talked to at Nelnet to understand what i was trying to do. Let us know if you find anything out.

    • I had 2 student loans with Nelnet (Loan A, 12,500 & Loan B 10,000) for a total of $20,500. The minimum payment for both loans totalled $265. If only the minimum payment is made ($265), there is not a way to designate the principal amounts applied to each loan.

      For a few years, I was paying $300/month via Auto Pay ($35 more than the minimum payment), but was not able to designate which loan received the additional $35.

      At the beginning of the 2013, I owed approximately $10,500 on Loan A, and $7,000 on Loan B. I submit a one-time payment of $9,500 in February 2013, and was able to select how to apply the payment ($2,500 to Loan A and $7,000 to Loan B). Within 2 days, Loan A reflected a new balance of ($10,500-$2,500) $8,000 and Loan B ($8,000-$8,000) was paid off.

      I was only able to do select which loan to designate payment to with a One-Time Payment.

  8. I had 2 student loans with Nelnet (Loan A & Loan B) for a total of $20,500. The minimum payment for both was around $265. If you only pay the minimum loan payment, there is no way to designate the amounts applied to the loans.

    At the beginning of the 2013, I owed about $10,500 on Loan A, and $7,000 on Loan B. When I submit a one-time payment of $9,500 in February 2013, I was able to select that I wanted $2,500 applied to Loan A and $7,000 applied to Loan B.

    Within 2 days, Loan A showed a balance of $8,000 and Loan B was paid off.

    Remember, I was only able to do this with a One-Time Payment. I was always paying greater than the minimum payment with the Automated Quick Pay, but was never decide which loan the additional amounts would be applied to.

  9. I am still waiting for Nelnet to report to the Credit Bureaus my new student loan amounts:

    Loan A (10,500-2,500): $8,000
    Loan B (7,000-7,000): $0

    Does anyone know if paying down a large amount of my student loans will impact my credit score?

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