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Student Loans

Mohela Federal Student Loan Servicer: Features, Discounts, and Our Recommendations

Updated Sep 11, 2024
6-min read
Christy Rakoczy Author Photo
Reviewed by Christy Rakoczy
Christy Rakoczy Author Photo
Reviewed by Christy Rakoczy

Expertise: Student loans, mortgages, insurance

Christy Rakoczy has been a personal finance and legal writer since 2008. She has a Juris Doctor degree from UCLA School of Law and was a college instructor before she began writing for the web.

Learn more about Christy Rakoczy

Key Points:

  • Mohela services federal student loans. You cannot choose whether Mohela services your loans, but you may be assigned Mohela as your loan servicer.
  • Mohela offers a variety of repayment options, including standard repayment, extended repayment, graduated repayment, and five different income-driven plans.
  • Mohela provides a discount for autopay and makes it easy to submit payments online.

If you’ve taken out federal student loan debt, you will be assigned a loan servicer that manages them. Mohela is one of these loan servicers. You do not have a choice in servicers, so if you are assigned Mohela, this is the company you’ll have to deal with unless you refinance your loans. 

If you have Mohela student loans, you’ll need to know how to enroll in repayment plans, submit your payments, and deal with the servicer’s customer service department.

This Mohela review will show you what you need to know about dealing with the loan servicer, so you can repay your federal student loans. 

In this review:

  Mohela student loans
Loan types Direct Loans, PLUS Loans
Repayment plans Standard, extended, graduated, REPAYE, PAYE, IBR, ICR, Income-Sensitive Repayment
Ways to submit a payment Online or via phone at 888-866-4352
Customer service 888-866-4352

What is Mohela?

Mohela is a federal student loan servicer, which means it facilitates the process of repaying federal student loans. The company is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, and it describes itself as a “nationally-recognized leader in student loan servicing.”

Mohela has a staff of more than 500, and its website claims staff members are trained in federal policies and regulations relating to student loans. 

The servicer helps students select the appropriate payment plan and take advantage of programs such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Teacher Loan Forgiveness. 

What types of loans does Mohela service?

Mohela services federal student loans only. It does not service private loans. If you’ve taken out Direct Subsidized or Direct Unsubsidized Loans, or if you have taken out Direct PLUS Loans, then you could be assigned Mohela as your loan servicer.

>> Read more: Federal Direct Loans

Mohela does not fund loans directly, and you don’t apply for your loans from Mohela. You will need to complete your Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) with the Department of Education to obtain federal loans.

Once you are a borrower, you will find out whether Mohela or another company is your loan servicer. 

What repayment plans does Mohela offer?

Mohela facilitates a variety of federal student loan repayment plans, including:

  • Standard repayment: helps you pay off your loans in the shortest time, but could mean higher monthly payments. 
  • Extended repayment: gives you longer to pay with lower monthly payments.
  • Graduated repayment: Your monthly payments start low and increase over time.
  • Income-driven repayment plans, including Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE), Pay As You Earn (PAYE), Income-Based Repayment (IBR), and Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR), where your monthly payment goes up or down based on your discretionary income.
  • Income-Sensitive Repayment for Federal Family Education Loans.

You can log into your Mohela account to use the loan servicer’s Repayment Plan Evaluator to pick the plan that is right for you. 

How to make a payment

You can make a payment securely by logging into your Mohela account. You can also call customer service at 888-866-4352 to make a payment or talk with a customer service representative about repayment plan options. 

Mohela provides a discount on your interest rate if you sign up to have payments automatically withdrawn from your bank account. Setting up automatic payments makes it easier to ensure your student loan payment is made each month.

If Mohela services multiple student loans for you, your payment is generally applied evenly across all loans. If you are focusing on repaying one loan ahead of schedule and want to make larger payments on just that loan, you will need to contact Mohela to provide special instructions. 

Is Mohela safe?

Mohela is a legitimate student loan servicer that has entered into a contract with the U.S. Department of Education to service student loans.

It is a safe and reliable loan servicer to do business with, and you don’t have to worry about providing the company with your bank information or other personal details. 

However, while Mohela is a trusted business, it has also been the subject of numerous complaints from borrowers regarding the efficiency of its services. 

Mohela complaints

Some of the top complaints made about Mohela by customers include:

  • Problems administering the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program: Borrowers have complained that Mohela provided bad advice about eligibility and requirements, failed to send them the proper paperwork, or set up payments improperly. Many borrowers allege Mohela’s mistakes affected eligibility for the program and cost them money. 
  • Excessive phone calls: Some borrowers complain Mohela contacts them too frequently, including making constant telephone calls as soon as a payment to the loan servicer is even a day or two past its due date. 
  • Problems with loans being transferred: Borrowers who have had loans transferred to Mohela or transferred from Mohela to another servicer complain about errors during the transfer process. These errors included the wrong loan amount being reported.
  • Customer service problems: Customers complain Mohela representatives provide incorrect information or fail to follow through when they make promises to borrowers. 

Mohela customer service

You can contact Mohela customer service during its business hours: 

  • 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Central Time on Monday through Thursday.
  • 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central Time on Fridays.

Here’s its contact information:

  • Phone: 888-866-4352
  • Fax: 866-222-7060
  • Submit a request for assistance via mail:

633 Spirit Drive
Chesterfield, MO 63005-1243

(Note: Mohela has indicated you should not submit payments to this address.)

You can also visit the Mohela.com contact page to send a secure message to the loan servicer. Mohela indicates that contacting the servicer online and uploading documents can result in faster service than sending documents through the mail. 

Mohela alternatives

While there are other student loan servicers that also administrate federal student loans, you do not get to choose which servicer you are assigned.

If you are unhappy with Mohela, you can look into federal student loan consolidation through the Department of Education. If you take out a Direct Consolidation Loan, it is possible you will be assigned a different servicer for your new loan.

You can also refinance student loans through a private student loan lender. You will give up access to student loan forgiveness and income-driven repayment options if you refinance federal student loans privately. 

>> Read More: Guide to student loan servicers