How To Remove Student Loans From Your Credit Report

If you’ve struggled with your student loan repayment, then you’ve probably seen the impact on your credit score. Late or missed payments and defaulted accounts appear on your credit report and can lead to a significant drop.

In some cases, it may be possible to remove a student loan account or payment history from your credit report. However, you can usually only remove inaccurate information. 

Can student loans be removed from your credit report?

While it is possible to remove student loans from your credit report, it’s not a likely scenario. Generally speaking, you can only remove inaccurate information from your credit report. You can’t remove accurate information simply because it’s negative or harmful.

However, negative marks will eventually fall off your credit report. And even before that happens, their impact will lessen over time. So, if you have a missed payment that has lowered your credit score, know that you’ll probably see your score bounce back eventually, as long as you make all future payments on time.

When it’s possible to remove or dispute student loan data

You can remove or dispute student loan information on your credit report if it’s inaccurate. In some cases, you may be able to remove an entire account, and in other cases, just one mark, such as a payment that was incorrectly marked as missed.

Here are some examples of inaccurate information you can have removed:

• Incorrect name or account number
• Incorrect account due to an error or identity theft
• Closed account incorrectly reported as open
• On-time payment incorrectly reported as late or missed
• Incorrect account or payment dates
• Duplicate accounts or payments
• Inaccurate account balance or payment amount

“Disputing information is necessary when you find errors, discrepancies, or unrecognized accounts on your credit report, which could signal identity theft,” says Bethany Hubert, a financial aid specialist at Going Merry by Earnest.

It’s crucial to dispute errors right away to prevent them from hurting your credit score.

How to dispute student loan errors with credit bureaus

To dispute errors on your credit report, you’ll have to contact the credit reporting company that has the incorrect information listed on your credit report.

All three credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, have forms on their websites that you can use to dispute inaccurate information. You can also file a dispute either over the phone or through the mail. If the error occurs on all three credit reports, you should dispute it with all three bureaus.

Once you file the dispute, a credit bureau is required to investigate it within 30 days. During that time, it will contact the company that reported the information, which must look into the dispute and report back to the credit bureau.

The credit bureau will then decide whether to keep the disputed information on your credit report and will provide you with a written explanation. If the information is removed, the credit bureau is required to send a corrected copy of your credit report to any creditors or employers that have requested it.

How long student loans stay on your credit report

Your student loan account will remain on your credit report as long as the account is open and you’re continuing to make payments on it. 

Once the account is closed, it’ll stay on your credit report for up to 10 years. This is good because it means your years of on-time payments will stay on your credit report and continue to have a positive impact on your credit score during that time.

Negative information will be removed from your credit score even sooner. Late or missed payments, collection accounts, and accounts not paid as agreed only stay on your credit report for as long as seven years. 

During that time, the negative marks will affect your credit score. While the immediate impact may be significant, especially for defaults or collection accounts, it will lessen over time.

Tips to protect your credit while repaying student loans

Your student loans can have a significant positive or negative impact on your credit score, depending on how responsibly you repay them. It’s important to take steps to protect your credit while repaying your student loans (and any other debts you have).

Set up autopay

“The single best strategy is to set up autopay to ensure you never miss a due date, as payment history is the largest factor in your score,” says Hubert. 

In addition to helping keep your credit score intact, setting up autopay on your loans comes with a discount of 0.25 percentage points on your interest rate.

Be proactive about communications

Another way to protect your credit is to be proactive about communicating with your loan servicer if you’re having difficulty making your loan payments.

“If you struggle financially, act early by asking your servicer about deferment for forbearance, or enroll in an income-driven repayment plan to lower your monthly bill,” says Hubert.

If you miss a loan payment, your loan servicer is likely to report it to the credit bureaus. But if you reach out before it comes to that, you may be able to make arrangements that will help you avoid that negative credit impact.

Review your credit report regularly

Finally, check your credit report on a regular basis to make sure you immediately spot any errors that could be harming your credit score. Then, if you find errors, you can act quickly to have them removed.

You can get a free annual credit report from each of the three credit bureaus on AnnualCreditReport.com. You can also set up an account on a credit monitoring tool, which will alert you when something new is added to your credit report.