In March, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) audited how the Department of Education supervises student loan servicers. The companies that actually manage your student loans.

The GAO is the federal watchdog that audits other parts of the government, so this was the government grading itself.

It went badly. Really badly.

Four of the five servicers failed to meet accuracy standards, and evaluations for accuracy had ceased since February 2025.

The GAO summarized the issue by saying inaccurate records can result in borrowers being billed for incorrect amounts or placed in the wrong repayment status.

So it's important that you have your own records of your student loans, and can manage multiple yourself.

Chances are you have more than one student loan, with some of them subsidized (the government covers interest until six months after graduation) and others unsubsidized (interest accrues while you are in school).

Here's how you keep everything straight even when others may be struggling.

Just because you were in school for four years doesn't mean you have four loans.

Oftentimes you will get a subsidized and unsubsidized loan each year, which can add up to eight loans for undergrad.

Log into your account at studentaid.gov and count how many loans you have.

Write down the servicer, principal, balance, interest rate, whether they are subsidized or unsubsidized, disbursement date, and repayment plan.

This is your ground truth before you choose which repayment plan(s) you want to use.

All of your Direct Loans have to be repaid together on one plan.

There are some exceptions relating to Parent PLUS and certain consolidation loans, not the ordinary subsidized and unsubsidized loans you are likely carrying.

You can confirm what you qualify for on studentaid.gov by logging into your account and checking your repayment plan options.

The best plan for you depends on your income and career. You can learn more about the differences between plans from last week's newsletter here.

Each of your loans has a minimum monthly payment. The amount varies by loan and by the repayment plan you pick, but the rule does not. Pay every one of them, every month.

Federal student loans do not charge late fees. That sounds like good news until you see what happens instead.

Miss your due date and you are delinquent the next day. Delinquent just means late and on the clock.

At 90 days your servicer reports you to the credit bureaus, and that mark sits on your credit report for seven years. At 270 days the loan is in default, which opens the door to wage garnishment, a withheld tax refund, and losing access to any more federal aid.

No late fee. Just the credit score you are going to need for an apartment, a car, and a phone plan.

So do not stop paying some loans to prioritize another. It will do more harm than good.

When you have extra cash to put toward your loans, that is when you can apply more strategy.

If you have extra cash to spend on your loans, you'll need to determine the “best” loan to focus on.

You will pay the lowest overall amount on your loans by tackling the loans with the highest interest rate first.

If two or more loans share the same interest rate, focus on the one with the smaller balance so you can clear it off your list and juggle less.

You already do enough queen, time to get something off your plate.

This strategy is called the “avalanche method” for paying off loans, where you pay the loan with the highest interest rate first, so you pay the lowest interest over time.

That said, another popular method (the “debt snowball”) is paying off your loans with the smallest balance first.

While this means you may pay a bit more in interest, the motivational benefit of checking off loans sooner can be more meaningful.

The strategy that works best for you is the one that gets you paying off all your loans as soon as possible.

Autopay means your servicer pulls your payment out of your checking account automatically each month.

Turning it on lowers your interest rate by 0.25%. Though right now interest lowers by a full 1% if you enroll before September 30th, 2026 (This only applies if you are already paying off your loans, though you can enroll in autopay now).

The steps are as follows:

Five steps to managing your loans effectively. Maybe not simple, but tea-clocking nonetheless.

And note, most of this applies to how to manage all of your loans in your life, not just student loans.

Loan Desk is a tool I built that holds every federal loan you have on one screen, shows which repayment plans you actually qualify for, ranks which loan to attack first, and saves a dated record of your balances.

It’s two prior products I have built, joined together so that you can manage all your student loans in one place.

The federal Repayment Calculator is still the most authoritative place to model a repayment plan, and you should use it. Loan Desk is for the part it does not do, which is holding all of your loans in one place over time.

And the usual reminder that I am not sponsored by anything I put in here. I built this one, and it costs nothing.

Log into studentaid.gov and count your actual loans.

If you are feeling really spicy, create the one-pager or excel sheet for yourself that has all your loans, and their key details like servicer, balance, rate, subsidized or not, disbursement date, and repayment plan.

The burden of truth for your loans is shifting more and more to you.

If you follow these steps you can audit your loans all by yourself. ;)

Thank you so much for being a part of this newsletter. I am grateful to write to you weekly and I hope this helps you feel more confident with your finances.

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