Graduate Financial Aid

First and foremost, CONGRATULATIONS! Enjoy your celebrations, parties and congratulatory dinners! Bask in the glow of your accomplishment! You have six months before you have to repay those student loans anyway…right? Not necessarily.

THE STAFFORD LOAN SIX MONTH GRACE PERIOD

Let’s say you took out some loans as an undergraduate student. When you graduated you enjoyed a grace period of six months before you had to start making payments. Then let’s say you started to repay those loans for a while and decided to go back to school to obtain a higher degree (to delay joining the real world for a while ;-). Those undergraduate Stafford Loans you were previously making payments on went into an in-school deferment right? Right?

Okay, let’s also say you took out new Stafford Loans to fund your graduate education. Now you have two different portfolios of loans. The ones you took out for undergrad (even if consolidated) and your new graduate school loans. Only those new Stafford Loans will have a six month grace period! The loans that you had been previously making payments on are in deferment and will begin repayment immediately after you are no longer enrolled at least half time in school (either due to graduate or other separation).

Grace periods are a one time deal and basically once you’ve broken your grace (experienced sixth months post graduation or have ceased to be enrolled at least half time) you don’t get a grace period back. So what to do now that you have some loans entering repayment one month after you graduate and others entering repayment six months after you’ve graduated?

One good option is to start the Student Loan Consolidation process now.

Did you know that even if you have already consolidated your undergraduate loans that you may be eligible to consolidate them again? If you consolidated your student loans after graduating from an undergraduate program and then entered a graduate program that required a new Stafford or Graduate PLUS Loan, you can consolidate all of these loans into one low monthly payment.

At the Student Loan Network, we help students take the worry out of paying back both your undergraduate and graduate student loans. Our student loan consolidation services can help you manage both undergraduate and graduate student loan debt. We also consolidate private student loans too!

Remember, graduating was the hard part! Let the Student Loan Network help you make the rest easy!