Direct unsubsidized, but there's a limit to how much you can take out, so the rest of your loans up to the COA (determined by your school) will be Grad PLUS loans.
You fill the FAFSA out and you wait for your school to get back to you with your financial aid package. FAFSA's priority deadline for the 2020-2021 year was 3/2/2020 so I'd apply asap if you haven't already. Then, a month or a few months before school starts, your school will send you that fin aid package with these amounts and their rates, and you accept them. After, you'll sign MPNs and the loans will be disbursed to your acct before tuition is due.
Yes. Schools are plenty busy with COVID and with summer aid for continuing students, so you will likely not hear back from them until just a month or two before school starts.
At some point you should get an email about siging a master promisory note, as well as 1 or 2 other similar documents that will detail the loans. To my knowledge this is a contract that you sign before you can get a disbursement of funds to your account, I would expect that you would be getting notified via email of this soon unless it has already happened. This is all just from memory, but should be pretty accurate.
I filled out FAFSA early february, do I need to fill out another application for grad PLUS?
No, what will happen is once you fill out FAFSA, the government coordinates with the school who sets a cost of attendance, which will determine the amount for the portion of loans that are grad plus as well as the direct loan amount (the loan that is the lower % interest). Before you can be offered these loans you will have to sign a promisory note, then the school through their own portal will show you the loan offer at which point you can accept, decline, or accept a portion of the total loan offerred (you will be offered up to the amount of the cost of school + cost of living. Schools should have provided a projected financial breakdown in the folders they give to you when you interview).
Federal student loan interest rates should be determined and announced some time in May and will apply for the 2020-2021 academic year. I predict they will fall to 4.xx%, but don't quote me on this.
Seeing the 4% range is jarring, so I did a little search and that would be correct for the direct loan, so long as rates stay steady from what they were in march. This will save dental students thousands of dollars in payback.
