Student Loan Billing Unit to Lay Off 234

Costa Mesa Service Center Inc., a company that handles billings for student loans, announced Monday that it plans to lay off 234 workers and move the workload to its Long Beach headquarters.

The center will close June 30, and severance packages and placement counseling are being offered to the 163 permanent and 71 temporary employees who work at the Orange County office of parent company AFSA Data Corp.

The center handles the accounting and billing of $7 billion in student loans that require an extra degree of processing as required by the federal government, Vice President Mary Bushman said. Much of the extra work on those loans is now complete, she said.