Exit Interviews 2012
| FINAL EXIT SESSIONS | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Wednesday, April 11 | 2:00 P.M. | WCC 3018 |
| Thursday, April 12 | 9:30 A.M. | WCC B010 |
| Friday, April 13 | 12:30 P.M. | WCC 1019 |
| Monday, April 16 | 4:00 P.M. | WCC 2019 Milstein West B |
This page is designed to provide you with information that will help you understand your rights and responsibilities as a student loan borrower and serve as a resource for you over the next several months prior to and during the first few months of repayment. It is our hope that the following information will help you make a smooth transition from borrowing to repayment, create and maintain a good credit history, and avoid defaulting on your loans.
The three main questions students have regarding their loans are:
Q. What loans do I have? A. There are three resources for you; Your HLS Borrowing Summary Sheet (need Harvard PIN); the National Student Loan Data System (need your Federal PIN); your credit report, and your promissory notes.
Q. Where are my loans? A. Check the National Student Loan Data System to see which lender holds and services your loans. For private loan information, you will need to rely on the information you receive from your lenders.
Q. When do I have to pay them? A. All student loans come with specific and sometimes, federally mandated repayment terms. You will find most of this information on the Exit Loan Programs page listed below. Your best reference is your lender.
The number one reason graduates default on a loan is because they miss their first payment! Be certain to update your contact information with each of your lenders/services and avoid defaulting!!
Loan Programs
For specific repayment information regarding each of the loan programs reviewed at your Exit Interview, please visit our Exit Loan Programs page. You will be directed to another page that will summarize each program's repayment information.
Federal Loan Deferments
Loans taken out prior to law school
If you borrowed loans prior to entering law school and deferred those loans while enrolled at HLS, you will now need to contact your lender to find out your repayment start date. It may be that you have used all of your grace period and are to begin repayment 30 days after the last day of class (not graduation date). However, you may not have used your grace period and thus still have a number of months before you are required to make a payment, depending on the program. Again, you will need to contact each lender in order to find out when your first payment is due.
Keep in mind that you are responsible for the repayment of the loan even if the bill goes to the wrong address. Hopefully you have been in contact with your lenders during your time at HLS in order to update your address as often as is necessary. If you are unsure of your prior loan history, you will need to look it up on the National Student Loan Data System. This site will give you your federal loan history. If you borrowed non-federal loans, and are uncertain as to who your lender is, you will need to contact the school through which you borrowed the funds. They may be able to help you contact the private loan company if you do not have those records. If they cannot help you, keep in mind that all loans are listed on your credit report. While each credit report (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) has similar information, you'll want to look at all three reports to ensure that you have accounted for all of your borrowing history and to verify that all of the information is correct.
Loans taken out after law school
If you decide to continue your education by enrolling, at least part time, in a degree seeking program you can defer your federal loans (Direct/FFELP Stafford, Perkins and Grad Plus). The loans will defer in the same way as they did while you were enrolled at HLS. In other words, if the loan accrued interest while you were enrolled at HLS, then it will continue to accrue interest while you are pursuing your new degree. If the loan was subsidized, then you will not accrue interest while enrolled in your new degree program. You should always contact the lender to verify their deferment policy and procedures. Many lenders have an online application making the deferment process very easy. Be sure to check on the status of your loan once you do submit a deferment form since the lender will require a payment from you if the deferment is not received or approved by the payment due date.
Economic Hardship Deferment, Unemployment Deferment, Military Service or Post Active Duty Deferment
There are several other types of deferment. Many students who go into a clerkship will request Economic Hardship deferment for the length of their clerkship. Talk to your lenders about economic hardship deferment options. If you are unemployed during a deferral period or at any point in time during repayment, you may qualify for an unemployment deferment on your federal loans. Similarly, if you are in active military service or post active duty, you may qualify for a deferment on your federal loans. If you qualify for any of these deferment options, your subsidized loans will continue to receive their subsidy i.e. the federal government will pay the interest on these loans during your deferment period.
Direct GradPLUS deferment: Federal Direct GradPLUS loans which were first disbursed on or after 7/1/08 are eligible for a 6 month Post Enrollment Deferment. This will be an automatic deferment and your “last day of class” date will be reported to the lender by Harvard Law School's Registrar's Office.
Federal Loan Forbearance
Forbearance is different from deferment in that it helps students experiencing financial hardship to lower their monthly payment amount during repayment. Forbearance is not tied to enrollment status. If you have borrowed federal student loans, you are eligible for up to three years of forbearance. It is unlikely that a lender will give you three years of forbearance all at once. You will most likely receive six to nine months of forbearance and then have to re-apply if more time is needed. In order to obtain forbearance, you must submit the appropriate paperwork to each lender from whom you are requesting forbearance. The lender will review your application and negotiate a lower monthly payment with you. Sometimes the lender will give you a zero monthly payment amount based on your income and debt; however, many lenders will require you to make interest-only payments to minimize the amount of interest you will pay overall, since interest accrues during forbearance. Keep in mind that during forbearance any unpaid interest is capitalized and added onto the principal balance when the loan comes out of forbearance. If you choose to consolidate your loans and at some point need to request forbearance, you may lose any repayment incentive benefits that a specific lender offered. Check with the lender before applying for forbearance, then weigh the pros and cons according to your personal finances.
See if you qualify for an Economic Hardship Deferment before you request forbearance.
Keep in mind that private lenders are not required to offer you any forbearance options but most lenders will work with a borrower in order to assist them in making on-time payments. Additionally, you may lose your borrower benefits if you put your loans into forbearance since many of them require the first 12 payments to be made on time. Additionally, a private loan lender or servicer may charge a fee for the use of forbearance. For more information on forbearance contact your lender.
Electronic Debiting
Many lenders offer interest rate reduction of 0.25% to students who have their payments withdrawn electrically. This is an easy way to make payments and to avoid defaulting on your loans. You’ll also save time and money! Some lenders also require you to receive electronic bills in order to receive this benefit. You’ll receive information from your lender regarding electronic debiting just prior to entering repayment. If not, just look on their web site for details on how and when to sign up.
Keep in mind that some lenders do not allow you to sign up for electronic debiting until you enter repayment. So don’t forget to make that first payment on time in order to keep all of your “on-time” benefits. Some students lose out on their repayment benefits because they miss their first payment. Don’t let that be you! Know when your first payment is due on each loan and be sure to have the payment in by or before the due date.
It’s a good idea to create a separate checking or savings account just for the repayment of your loans. You may not want your lenders to have access to your main checking account for security reasons. Once you set up a separate account, calculate how much money you will need to transfer into the account each month (watch for quarterly interest rate changes with your variable rate loans). Be sure to monitor your account once a month when paying bills.
Logistics of Repayment
Most lenders will send you one monthly billing statement for all the loans you have borrowed through their programs. Most of the time a simple phone call can turn these little books into a bill or electronic statement.
Additionally, the date by which the payment is due each month can be changed by calling the lender. If the lender says that your loan is due on the 20th of each month and you don't get paid until the 25th of each month, simply call the lender and tell them about your situation. They will be happy to adjust the due date within reason.
The federal loans come with 5 different repayment options with various repayment lengths. You can go in and out of these options as you wish. This is not true for private loans. Private loans have a fixed repayment term. You may contact the lender to ask about the possibility of formally shortening the repayment term to 10 years from the 15 or 20 year terms that are typically standard if you wish. However, change in the length of repayment for a private loan is at the discretion of the lender. Students interested in LIPP should be aware that LIPP only provides assistance on the ACTUAL required payment and, although not required, recommends that participants place all of their loans on 10 year repayment terms if possible. Estimated payments will not be considered for LIPP purposes.
Prepayment of Loans
There are no prepayment penalties on any of the loans that you have borrowed while in law school. You can prepay a loan at any point in time without being locked into a fixed amount of interest.
If you want to make a prepayment on a loan, you should first contact your lender. When you call, you will want to ask them what is the best way for you to make a prepayment. Additionally, you will want to be certain of the address or web site to which you should send the payment. Keep in mind that you first have to pay the interest that has accrued to date, then the remaining amount will be applied to your principal balance due. Therefore, if 15 days of interest has accrued on the loan for a total amount of $100, your prepayment will first go to pay off the accrued interest of $100, and any remaining amount will be applied towards your principal balance. You will want to confirm that your prepayment has been applied to your account appropriately. If you pay the interest before the loan goes into repayment, your principal amount will not have any capitalized interest attached to it, and you thereby avoid paying interest on the accrued interest. Most students are unable to pay the interest on their loans prior to going into repayment and are happy to know that they can prepay their loans at any point in time to reduce the amount of interest they accrue over the life of the loan.
It is important to know that if your prepayment does not pay off the loan, you will still have your regular scheduled payment due the following month. In other words, while the prepayment does not reduce your monthly payment amount, it will reduce the number of times you are required to make that monthly payment.
Repayment and LIPP
We urge all students to become familiar with the LIPP program. Each year we have newly graduated students as well as alumni who contact us to apply for LIPP. Many student know at graduation that they want to apply for LIPP, however, there are alumni who switch careers three or fours year out of law school and find that the LIPP program will allow them to make this employment change without worrying about repaying their educational loans. Keep in mind that:
- Students may enter the program at any time during repayment if their salary and debt qualify.
- There is no salary cap.
- Clerkships can qualify for LIPP assistance if you are going into a LIPP qualifying position immediately after the clerkship.
- Refer to our LIPP pages for more details on all of our guidelines and policies.
Graduating students who are going into LIPP may want to stop by our office to set up an appointment before leaving campus.
Graduation Requirements
There are three Student Financial Services graduation requirements:
- Attend an Exit Interview Session
- Complete all Exit Interview forms (by May 11, 2012)
- Pay off all E-bill charges (by May 11, 2012)-- To view your e-bill click here.
Once you have met all three of these requirements, we will clear you for graduation.
