In response to President Biden’s announcement pertaining to student loans, scammers are trying to get students to pay money or provide their social security number, said Melissa White, our financial aid director. But she said Biden and the U.S. Department of Education have not indicated how they plan to implement student loan forgiveness.
White offers the following tips to students:
- When in doubt about who is calling you, say you have a call on the other line and will have to call back. Do not call back the same phone number. Either go to studentaid.gov and call the general Department of Education number and/or login to your account and call your loan lender directly at the number it provided on your StudentAid dashboard.
- Never give your social security number to anyone that calls you.
- Never provide your debit and/or credit card information to someone that calls you.
- When in doubt, assume it is a scam. The Department of Education is not known to call or text students. Any email from the DOE will contain a studentaid.gov address. Emails from loan servicers will end with their servicer’s information. For example, Great Lakes will end with mygreatlakes.org.
- Most communication from the Department of Education will come via mail or email. Historically, mail has been the most popular unless something has been submitted through the StudentAid portal. Then email is likely.