<p>If my son (actually I) pays off his previous year's Stafford unsubsidized loan, does his university notice it?</p>
<p>I don’t know how they’d know – we were thinking of doing the same thing for our daughter. The university would have already received the funds; you have the debt; if the debt is paid off, they still have the funds.</p>
<p>The school won’t know at all. They already have their money. The loan is a contract between your son and the funds provider. The school is no longer involved.</p>
<p>I think the school would know. They may need your son’s information to calculate his future aid eligibility.</p>
<p>See
[National</a> Student Loan Data System for Students](<a href=“http://www.nslds.ed.gov/nslds_SA/]National”>http://www.nslds.ed.gov/nslds_SA/)</p>
<p>The National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) is the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED’s) central database for student aid. </p>
<p>Grant information is reported to NSLDS daily. New loans are reported to NSLDS within 30 days of receipt of funds. If you have been making payments on a loan, the outstanding principal balance listed by NSLDS may be as much as 120 days old.</p>
<p>The only people who can access NSLDS are those individuals that need the information to calculate your future aid eligibility, or to resolve questions about your loans or grants on a need-to-know basis.</p>
<p>Why would it matter?</p>
<p>^^I agree I don’t think it matters one way or the other unless the student somehow has a pile of money in a savings account, pays off the Stafford and minimizes the student income reportable before filling out the next year’s FAFSA.</p>
<p>The university does not care one way or the other. They will “know” in that the next time you do FAFSA, your loan total will be lower. However, if they actually look for that, they are phenomenally overstaffed! It’s just not something a school cares about.</p>
<p>We paid off our daughter’s loan from last year. We received a thank you note for paying off from the govt. Nothing from the university.</p>
<p>
Was that an email or actual mail?
My son did not received anything since he paid off his loans 4 months ago.</p>
<p>Each loan servicer handles things differently. Your son’s may not send any acknowledgments. You might have him check NSLDS just to make sure everything shows paid in full, though.</p>
<p>Thank you 4kidsdad’s son!</p>
<p>PS No one sent me one either over 20 years ago.</p>
<p>4 kids Dad: we got both an email and snail mail, but in completely different months.</p>
<p>We recently helped our daughter pay off her unsubsidized loans; she’s keeping her subsidized loans for now. It didn’t involve the school at all-- we were able to arrange an electronic transfer from checking account to her loan processor (Great Lakes).</p>
<p>The only bump in the process was this. Because she had recently received a subsidized loan disbursement (in the past 45 days, as I recall), their system automatically uses the payment (intended to pay off her unsub loans) to first pay off the recent subsidized loan. The staff said this was just the way the system worked, and she had to send them an email requesting that the funds be reapplied to pay off the unsub loans. That’s what happened, eventually.</p>
<p>
Thanks, good to know that.</p>