<p>Hi, this may be a dumb question. I thought it would be easy to look up on my D's school web site, but it's not! She has spotty internet access and no easy phone access, so I am doing the legwork for her.</p>
<p>D accepted a Fed Stafford loan (unsub) of $7,500 for this year. Half was dispersed for Fall semester. She's studying overseas and has been very frugal, so she is finding she will not need the spring dispersment. But there seems to be no way to cancel that at this point.</p>
<p>Is it too late to adjust the loan amount? And if so--if she doesn't need the money is the best thing to immediately pay off that amount once it is dispersed?</p>
<p>I'm in a place where I can't really call the school today, but thought ya'll financial aid veterans might know. It is (thankfully) the first loan she's had to take, so I am sort of clueless.</p>
<p>If there is the chance that she might need money for next year, she may prefer to take this loan, and just bank it for the present. She can pay it back as soon as she discovers that she truly does not need it if that would turn out to be the case.</p>
<p>For the subsidized staffords, the interest rate of 3.4% only applies for this school year. Next year and afterwards, the rate is still supposed to be 6.8%, unless Congress keeps granting extensions. Each extension costs the Feds several billion. Therefore, I’d recommend taking out the maximum amount of subdized Staffords now, and banking your cash in a 529 for a later school year. (I realize at $7500 you had also been planning on taking out $2,000 of non-subsidized staffords, which should be minimized).</p>
<p>I don’t think that it even needs to go into a 529. It is my understanding that this money isn’t included in the FAFSA calculations if it is still sitting in the bank. kelsmom would have the correct answer though, so IUmom07 might want to send her a PM and find out for certain.</p>
<p>thanks!
D has a good merit scholarship which brings her costs well under our EFC, so I’m not worried on the effect on FAFSA–we will NOT qualify for need–but thanks for mentioning it.</p>
<p>Maybe we will just bank it for a bit, to double check reality vs actual costs.</p>
<p>If you want to cancel the second disbursement, the school most likely has a form you can complete - I work at a small school, where we ask students to submit a signed statement asking us to cancel. I am not a fan of borrowing unsub loans “just in case.”</p>
<p>kelsmom–thanks for your input–I am going to call tomorrow between meetings & see if it’s something I or my D can take care of remotely/easily. I really think she can get by w/out it. She managed to keep her expenses way down while studying abroad, and the best I can figure, she will not strictly need it. Unless the job she has lined up on campus on return falls through somehow…but even so.</p>
<p>And you are right, borrowing it when not strictly needing it = not a great idea.</p>
<p>She can always ask for it later next semester, if she finds she needs it. As long as she requests it enough before the end of the term to allow for processing, it can be reinstated.</p>
<p>Just a follow up in case anyone else is ever searching for info–Kelsmom was 100% correct. There was a special form/request that had to be done via the Financial Aid office, and there was nothing online or in the FAQs about it. Maybe some schools spell it out, but my kid’s school didn’t. But once I asked, they took care of it right away.</p>