Loan/Financial Aid Question

[flotus]

Hi all,

I know I will need GRAD plus loans on top of the traditional federal loans offered for tuition and COA. I have about 50k in undergrad loans.

Will GRAD plus loans be in my financial aid package from the school or will I need to apply for those separately from the ones in my schools financial aid package?
I’m so confused. I want to make sure I know when and where to apply for all the aid I will need, since I will be living off of them primarily.

(I have completed my FAFSA and sent it to all schools)

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[flotus]

second question - when I log onto my federal aid page, it says I have 10 installment loans (5 unsub, 5 sub). Lets say I were to start repayment now, would I have to make 10 separate payments a month? Does the gov't consolidate them into 1 payment or do I have to manually do that on their website? (Obviously I wont be paying until after vet school and there will be way more than 10 by then)

Can I consolidate all unsub, sub, and grad plus loans into one payment? or will it be separate?

Thanks!!

 

[SkiOtter]

You should get the full yearly cost of attendance from your vet school’s financial aid package and shouldn't have to do anything other than fill out the FAFSA each year.

 

[flotus]

You should get the full yearly cost of attendance from your vet school’s financial aid package and shouldn't have to do anything other than fill out the FAFSA each year.

Will that be in the form of GRAD plus loans? or how will we know what kind of loans. I assume we accept them via the school and it will tell us what kind we are accepting?

 

[WildZoo]

Will that be in the form of GRAD plus loans? or how will we know what kind of loans. I assume we accept them via the school and it will tell us what kind we are accepting?

Yes it will tell you how much is the regular unsubsidized and how much is grad plus

second question - when I log onto my federal aid page, it says I have 10 installment loans (5 unsub, 5 sub). Lets say I were to start repayment now, would I have to make 10 separate payments a month? Does the gov't consolidate them into 1 payment or do I have to manually do that on their website? (Obviously I wont be paying until after vet school and there will be way more than 10 by then)

Can I consolidate all unsub, sub, and grad plus loans into one payment? or will it be separate?

Thanks!!

You can choose which loans your payments go towards, and if you're not consolidating it is recommended to pay off your highest interest loans first, which will probably be the grad plus ones (don't quote me on that).

If you are going to do any kind of income based repayment plan you have to consolidate. I am unsure if there is a benefit to consolidation if you're doing standard repayment, never looked into it.

VIN does a really good webinar on all of this every year and has various resources in their student debt center that you can look through. I wouldn't worry too much about the consolidation and repayment logistics at this stage.

 

[flotus]

Yes it will tell you how much is the regular unsubsidized and how much is grad plus


You can choose which loans your payments go towards, and if you're not consolidating it is recommended to pay off your highest interest loans first, which will probably be the grad plus ones (don't quote me on that).

If you are going to do any kind of income based repayment plan you have to consolidate. I am unsure if there is a benefit to consolidation if you're doing standard repayment, never looked into it.

VIN does a really good webinar on all of this every year and has various resources in their student debt center that you can look through. I wouldn't worry too much about the consolidation and repayment logistics at this stage.

Thanks so much! I’m sure I’ll definitely do IDR (I’m sure most people do?), so I’ll have to consolidate.

Thanks so much for the information!! <3

 

[JaynaAli]

I don’t know that you actually have to consolidate to use something income-driven? Many do but it’s not required I don’t think? I never considated and was on an income-based plan with my loans for four years. My required payments were applied across all of my loans and I could target any extra payments to the loans of my choosing if/when I made extra payments after deciding to pay them off.

But consolidating ASAP after graduation is one of the “tricks” you can use to lock in a zero payment for the whole next year (if you consolidate before you start a job you can truthfully say you have no income and they will set your payment to zero for the next year…maybe technically they would want you to update your income when you start working but they won’t check or ask you to update it until your yearly recertification time). if you waited until the grace period they give was up you’d have income then and your payments would be based on that income. So it saves money in the long run (IF you will be doing income based repayment and you’re on track for loan forgiveness in the end) to lock in that $0 income and get the clock ticking towards forgiveness. Consolidating used to also be a way to change servicers if you don’t like who you were assigned to initially. And I think in the past when people had loan types that weren’t eligible for income based repayment you could consolidate in order to make those new consolidated loans eligible but that’s less of a concern for the new folks.

 

[flotus]

I don’t know that you actually have to consolidate to use something income-driven? Many do but it’s not required I don’t think? I never considated and was on an income-based plan with my loans for four years. My required payments were assigned equally across all of my loans and I could target any extra payments to the loans of my choosing if/when I made extra payments after deciding to pay them off.

But consolidating ASAP after graduation is one of the “tricks” you can use to lock in a zero payment for the whole next year (if you consolidate before you start a job you can truthfully say you have no income and they will set your payment to zero for the next year…maybe technically they would want you to update your income when you start working but they won’t check or ask you to update it until your yearly recertification time). if you waited until the grace period they give was up you’d have income then and your payments would be based on that income. So it saves money in the long run (IF you will be doing income based repayment and you’re on track for loan forgiveness in the end) to lock in that $0 income and get the clock ticking towards forgiveness. Consolidating used to also be a way to change servicers if you don’t like who you were assigned to initially. And I think in the past when people had loan types that weren’t eligible for income based repayment you could consolidate in order to make those new consolidated loans eligible but that’s less of a concern for the new folks.

I see, so even if you don’t consolidate, you still only make one payment and it is automatically split up to each loan for you? You wouldn’t have to make each individual payment to each single loan yourself (if all loans were federal and not private)?

 

[JaynaAli]

I see, so even if you don’t consolidate, you still only make one payment and it is automatically split up to each loan for you? You wouldn’t have to make each individual payment to each single loan yourself (if all loans were federal and not private)?

Correct. I didn’t have grad plus loans but that’s my understanding even for those. My monthly payment was like $150 and the servicer
applied that payment to all three loans based upon amount owed for each loan. Like my loans were for 20k, 16k, and 16k. Each month during residency I had to pay $150 and it applied like $45 to both of the 16k loans and like $55 to the 20k loan. Once I got my specialist job and knew I’d pay them off, I let it autodraft my income based payment that applied to all the loans and I started making extra payments to my loan with the largest percent interest. If you consolidate I think it averages your interest rates.

 

[WildZoo]

I don’t know that you actually have to consolidate to use something income-driven? Many do but it’s not required I don’t think? I never considated and was on an income-based plan with my loans for four years. My required payments were assigned equally across all of my loans and I could target any extra payments to the loans of my choosing if/when I made extra payments after deciding to pay them off.

But consolidating ASAP after graduation is one of the “tricks” you can use to lock in a zero payment for the whole next year (if you consolidate before you start a job you can truthfully say you have no income and they will set your payment to zero for the next year…maybe technically they would want you to update your income when you start working but they won’t check or ask you to update it until your yearly recertification time). if you waited until the grace period they give was up you’d have income then and your payments would be based on that income. So it saves money in the long run (IF you will be doing income based repayment and you’re on track for loan forgiveness in the end) to lock in that $0 income and get the clock ticking towards forgiveness. Consolidating used to also be a way to change servicers if you don’t like who you were assigned to initially. And I think in the past when people had loan types that weren’t eligible for income based repayment you could consolidate in order to make those new consolidated loans eligible but that’s less of a concern for the new folks.

Ah my bad, it must have been something that was heavily recommended and over time my brain stored it as a required action