I have to choose which lender I would like to use for my Stafford loans. Is one lender any better than the other? I was leaning towards Sallie Mae but I saw over at SDN that some people were recommending Access group. Any thoughts? Thanks!
I've only used Educaid who uses Sallie Mae for their servicing. Don't know about Access. Never had a problem with them.
I don't know Sallie Mae's policy but try to find a lender that offers no origination fee and no guarantee fee and will offer the most options for repayment. AccessGroup is good as is T.H.E. and NowLoans.
There is a decent chart on Tulane’s site:
http://www.tulane.edu/~finaid/stafford03-04.shtml
I am a little confused about the ‘3.3%’ cash or credit comment in the far right of some of the boxes. Is this some sort of rebate on the total loan amount after being in repayment? Or is it the interest rate at which we borrow?
Someone with more financial savvy explain it, please!
- Tae
Everyone who is in the process of checking out loans, be sure and click on the link from our home page to NOWLoan$.
And, if you can, get to the conference the end of the month. NOWLoan$ representative, Carmen Stanton, will be doing a presentation on financing medical school.
My financial aid office at GWU strongly preferred all of us to use T.H.E. Since my eyes sorta glaze over when they start talking abaout money, I just took their suggestion and went with them.
Before you make an independent decision about a lender, talk with the financial aid people at your school. It WILL be easier to use a lender that they're working with a lot.
If the financial aid officers act a little wishywashy when picking the 'best' lender it is because they are not supposed to favor one over another. They typically have a preferred lender list that you can choose from and you can usually ask them to tell you which have the no origination/guarantee fees, etc. But they are not supposed to say 'this one is the best.' It seems most are about the same however so don't fret about it too much, just pick one.
I think I am going with THE. They do all sound about the same except for origination fees. My guess is that in the long run all the different choices even out.
Can anyone tell me how disbursement works? As in, do they apply funds toward tuition, and then write you a check for your own account for living expenses? It would be a pain to go to financial aid every week or month for my bills.
Here’s how it works at GWU: the lender will send the money (total amount being borrowed) to your school once per semester. Your school’s accounts office cuts you a check for the living expenses portion.
Our FA office has “emergency funds” available for folks who have to pay rent before their FA comes in, for example.
Please do spend some time with the FA folks at your school. You’re going to have to work a LOT with them in the future and if they don’t seem helpful at first, give them many more chances to show you all the things they’ll be able to do for you.