Education

Generally, repayment must begin within sixty days after the final loan disbursement for the academic year. There is no grace period for these loans. This means that interest begins to accumulate at the time the first disbursement is made. Your parents must begin repaying both principal and interest while you are in school.

Yes, your parents will have an opportunity to cancel their loan after they sign the promissory note. Your college must notify your parents in writing whenever it credits your account with your PLUS Loan funds. This notification must be sent to your parents no earlier than 30 days before and no later than 30 days after the college credits your account. Your parents may cancel all or a portion of their loan if they inform your college that they wish to do so within 14 days after the date that your college sends this notice, or by the first day of the payment period, whichever is later. Your college can tell you the first day of your payment period. If your parents receive PLUS Loan funds directly by check, they may refuse the funds by not endorsing the check.

Currently Plus Loans can be obtained at a Fixed interest rate of 8.5%. Your parents will be notified of interest rate changes throughout the life of their loan. Interest is charged on the loan from the date that the first disbursement is made until the loan is paid in full. This loan is based on credit-worthiness and the parent starts repayment 60 days after the full disbursement of the loan. The parent may borrow up to the student's cost of education, excluding awarded financial aid.

Grace Period is a short time period after graduation during which the borrower is not required to begin repaying his or her student loans. The grace period may also kick in if the borrower leaves school for a reason other than graduation or drops below half time enrollment. Depending on the type of loan, you will have a grace period of six months for Stafford Loans or nine months for Perkins Loans before you must start making payments on your student loans. The PLUS Loans do not have a grace period.

Graduate Assistantships are either teaching assistantships or research assistantships. Teaching assistantships and research assistantships receive a full or partial tuition waiver and a small living amount. Teaching assistantships are required to perform teaching duties. Research assistantships are required to perform research duties not necessarily related to the student's thesis research.

A Financial Aid Transcript also abbreviated as (FAT) is a record of all federal aid received by the student at each school attended. If you have previously attended an institution of higher education and are now applying for financial aid from the different university, the university will require a Financial Aid Transcript from each of the schools previously attended, regardless of whether aid was received or not. They are required to do this by federal law. You have to submit a Financial Aid Transcript even if you were in high school at the time. An electronic Financial Aid Transcript process will be in place soon which will eliminate the need for the student to submit a FAT. The FAT is not the same as an academic transcript.

Fellowship is a form of aid given to graduate students to help support their education. Some fellowships include a tuition waiver or a payment to the university instead of tuition. Most fellowships include an amount to cover reasonable living expenses. Fellowships are a form of gift aid and do not have to be repaid.

Endowment Funds are funds owned by an institution and invested to produce income to support the operation of the institution. Many educational institutions use a portion of their endowment income for financial aid. A school with a larger ratio of endowment per student is more likely to give larger financial aid packages.

The code abbreviations on the bottom of the Student Aid Report represent intermediate results in the need analysis. The meanings of the codes are as follows: EFC = Expected Family Contribution, TI = Total Income, ATI = Allowances Against Total Income, STX = State and Other Tax Allowance, EA = Employment Allowance, IPA = Income Protection Allowance. CAI = Contribution from Available Income, DNW = Discretionary Net Worth, APA = Education Savings and Asset Protection Allowance, PCA = Parents' Contribution from Assets, AAI = Adjusted Available Income, TPC = Total Parents' Contribution, TSC = Total Student's Contribution, PC = Parents' Contribution, SIC = Dependent Student's Income Contribution, SCA = Dependent Student's Contribution from Assets.