<p>I recieved my financial aid package from school B that has subsidized + unsub + Parent PLUS loan which covers tuition and all. BUT I havent recieved my aid package for school A yet, would it be safe to say that I will get about the same amount or even more since School A tuition is higher than school B?</p>
<p>How can it be safe to say that when we have no idea what School A is, what their aid policies are, and whether you might qualify for merit or a preferential pkg.</p>
<p>That is my question.
or maybe I’ll rephrase… Are Parent PLUS loan uniform?
What is it based on?</p>
<p>YOU did NOT GET a PLUS loan. Neither did your parents. The school is saying that they are NOT giving you the money for that amount that needs to be paid and are REFERRING your parents to the Parent Direct Loan Program (PLUS) so that if they don’t have any better ideas, they can apply for a loan there on line and IF one or the other qualifies for the loan, which does do a credit check on the borrower and no outstanding amounts can be on that report that are 90 days outstanding, then they can take out the PLUS at about 7% annual interest. If your parents have a relationship with a bank or credit union, they may be able to do better than that in these low interest times. </p>
<p>Usually, it’s the schools that do not meet full need that do this with PLUS,making it look like they have given out more aid than they have. It is possible that the other school gives you more of a package, maybe even full coverage so there is no need to refer your parents to PLUS, or they many not have their award letter so that the PLUS option is in there as though it were part of the award, which it is not. IMO, it is extremely deceptive of schools to do this. </p>
<p>PLUS is just an option. The school could have told your parents to call Wells Fargo, or Chase or BankAmerica just as easily. It’s just part of the federal direct loan program for qualified by credit check parents to be able to borrow for their kid for school.</p>
<p>^^^PLUS loans are still administered through the schools, not through private banks:</p>
<p>Federal Parent PLUS loans are obtained from the US Department of Education’s Direct Loan program through the college’s financial aid office. Students must file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) at fafsa.ed.gov to become eligible for the Federal Parent PLUS loan and the unsubsidized Federal Stafford loan, even if they do not expect to qualify for need-based federal student aid. Contact your college’s financial aid office to apply for a Federal Parent PLUS Loan. - See more at: <a href=“Federal Student Loans | Edvisors”>Federal Student Loans | Edvisors;
<p>PLUS are not guaranteed. In addition, your parents will need to repay right away AND the amounts add up (wo if they have to pay $250 each month your first year, they have $500 each month your second year… and $1,000 by your senior year. Each month for years!) AND they have to apply every year. Each year, parents get denied and the kid is stuck, forced to drop out of school.
School B, which pretended to package PLUS loans, did NOT offer sufficient financial aid. Hopefully your other school(s) offer more.
To have a better idea, use the Net Price Calculator on School A and School B’s websites. </p>
<p>Understood. Thank you all so much for the clarification</p>
<p>For Parent Plus loan, you do not repay immediately after you get the loan. You have 6 months after the student graduation to start repaying. The interests immediately accrue after loan disbursement, thus it is recommended to start repaying as soon as possible to avoid more interests being added to the loan amount.</p>
<p>I should add that you also start repaying the parent plus loan when the student has less than half-time enrollment.</p>
<p>I thought just to tag with an ongoing Decision on PLUS Loan. </p>
<p>When a Parent can apply for a PLUS loan for Year 2014-2015 ? I read like don’t apply before 90 days the start of school. Does one of the parent use his/her PIN key to start the Loan process. ?
Can a Parent start the process early just to make sure they don’t get denied. </p>
<p>I have seen some Schools mention in their FA pkg the amount of PLUS loan needed and some schools don’t mention anything about PLUS loans, are they both same and one just not putting in a fine print.</p>
<p>You can borrow up to the school’s official Cost of Attendance ( COA which does include estimates for variable expenses such as transportation, supplies, books, misc) minus any other aid you get. The parent goes online and uses the FAFSA PIN to start the process, which includes on line “counseling” with mini quizzes, loan app which is instantly approved or not. Then the MPR (Master Promissory Note needs to be signed which is only good for 90 days, I believe, which then allows the funds for the first terem to be released to the school at the start of the term) The school’s bursar office takes out what is directly billed to the student. Other aid , other than possibly outside awards and non school related loans (like HELOC or against 401Ks) is also funnelled through the school, and any excess is usually not released until a few weeks into the semester. Some schools won’t release funds to student or parent until after the drop date. How the funds are released is up to the school’s bursar office, so that is something to ask that office.</p>
<p>^^ So a parent can at least start the Loan approval process as early possible just to make sure they get approval or not, if approved they can wait to sign MPR so it falls under 90 days, Correct?</p>
<p>Can we start the process before we say YES to School or do a student has to accept the admission first then a Parent can start .</p>
<p>Does the student has to follow the same for Stafford Loans also. ?</p>
<p>School says a due date of 8/1 but loans normally get disbursed on 8/15 to the School, will that be an issue or their is a 15 day grace period like a mortgage payment.</p>
<p>Thanks for your info…</p>
<p>You can apply for the purpose of getting a credit check done well in advance. </p>
<p>I did that when my son was applying to colleges - probably around October of the year he was applying (before he had even submitted any applications). I was concerned about possible issues with my credit history – it did turn out that I would be denied because of something on my credit history that was a contested debt. So I submitted a written dispute with the credit reporting agency. The issue was not resolved with the time provided by law – so the credit agency removed the item – and later after my son was accepted to college, I qualified for the PLUS loan without a problem. </p>
<p>So it is definitely a good idea to apply for credit approval early on if you have any concerns about whether or not you will qualify. </p>
<p>PLUS is not like a standard credit check. Income is not an issue. If you have outstanding payments due over 90 days, that’s the flag. I don’t know if that credit check has to be done within that 90 day period so it’s not like you are home free if you are clear in June for August. </p>
<p>They DO run a credit check to approve for PLUS. The do NOT consider income, but they absolutely do base the decision on credit score & credit report info. The parent does need to qualify based on a clean credit check.</p>
<p>I agree that an old credit check wouldn’t help if the person had new issues arise in the interim – I had to be approved AGAIN after my son was admitted to college and I re-applied. But in my case I knew I had some past issues that would not recur in the future – but I didn’t know whether they were serious enough to stand in the way of PLUS loan approval. So that is what I needed to find out at the time. Running the check early gave me enough time to fix the problem on the report.</p>
<p>Thanks, We not expecting any issues since we never late in our payments and everything is current, no bankruptcies or Lien or judgments either . Do have a Higher Debt Ratio which lower our scores to ~700 but I was told they dont look at that aspect of the Report. </p>
<p>Does Parent has to do Counseling also or only the students…??
I dont see option for 2014-2015 for PLUS loans on the studentloans.gov site, so how one can pre-verify…</p>
<p>If you know you have a good credit score you have nothing to worry about… so no need for pre-applying. You are allowed to borrow up to the full cost of attendance wherever your kid attends. But if you wanted a pre-check, you could go to the site of any lender that administers the loans and fill out a credit app – I just checked and there’s an online form on the Sallie Mae site that promises a credit result in “as little as 15 minutes.”</p>
<p>Keep in mind that too many credit inquiries can bring down a credit score – so it might be counter-productive to submit an application “just to see.” </p>
<p>^^ Oh Ok I got it now, we will just wait till end of May since We dont want inquiries on our Report. Now a days few Credit cards Companies post Credit Score on the monthly bills, like Discover do it on ours… We know that our CR is clean…</p>
<p>Will I get denied a PLUS loan if I have a old collection account on my credit report but other than that everything else is good. And I have a credit score of 700?</p>