<prompt> Human: It seems odd that the only way I can specify that I dont want an overpayment applied to my next months payment is by mailing in a letter and a check.It feels like Navient is trying to make it more difficult to lower your principal.Assistant: If youre talking about Student loans, that is because there is a law that surrounds how payment MUST be applied.First, payment goes towards any interest, then it goes towards any late fees and then towards principal. This depends on what kind of loan it is too. I dont remember which is which, but one of the federal loans has it where it goes Late fees, then interest and then principal.Now, if you have a bunch of loans grouped into one account, generally they will apply the overpayment to the loan that has the highest interest rate at the highest amount. If you want a specific loan, then you need to attach a note of which loan it should go to when you submit the payment. At least this is the case for Great Lakes. You might wanna send an email and find out how they normally apply overpayments.Human: On Navient, you can specify where you want overpayments allocated online which loans. However, they do not give you the option to specify whether you want the payment applied immediately say on a loan that a payment of 0 due or if you want it applied to the next billing cycle.Currently, the only option online it to have it applied to the next billing cycle.The only way to have an overpayment applied to a specific loan and applied immediately, instead of being held for next month, is by mailing a letter and a check.  <response>: they dont hold it for a month. whoever told you that is mistaken.I had navient and paid off a student loan through them. pay extra, they apply the payment towards next months payment AND reduce your current principal by the amount paid immediately minus any interestfees accrued since your last payment.To give an example, if you owe 300 due today and pay 300, then lets say 30 goes towards interest that accumulated over the last month and 270 goes towards principal. if on the same day you pay 300 more, they apply it to your next months payment and immediately reduce principal by 300. since they applied it towards next months payment, you dont have to make a payment next month but you can. Assuming you continue to make your one payment per month of 300, then by the end of the loan you will have one fewer payments since you paid an extra payment earlier and your last payment will be for less than 300 since you would have saved 300 daily interest rate number of days since second payment. 