When You Graduate

Financial aid is offered based on full time enrollment (12 hours) for fall and spring. If you are enrolled less than full time and are graduating in the fall, federal regulations require that your student loans be prorated to reflect your less than full time enrollment. Loan proration impacts undergraduate students applying for graduation who are receiving Federal Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans.

Federal regulations require schools to prorate the Federal Direct Loan amounts for graduating undergraduate students when their final period of enrollment is less than a full academic year. The loan limit proration determines the maximum loan amount that a student may borrow for the final term of study based on the degree they are earning. Graduating undergraduate students, who are only attending one semester of the academic year, will have their Federal Direct Loans prorated based on the number of credit hours they are enrolled.

Note: Graduate and professional students are excluded from the loan proration requirement.

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Active Student Level or Academic Information must be updated upon graduating. In this case, a student is updating their academic information from undergraduate to graduate student and acknowledging "I authorize the OSFA to update my FASFA® to reflect that I am now enrolled in a graduate program" in the Type of Revision Requested section of the Change Request (Repack) Form form. Please complete the form and submit to our office.

You may complete an Exit Loan Counseling session online via studentaid.gov. Failure to complete an Exit Loan Counseling session will result in a hold being placed on your student record. This hold will prevent you from registering for classes, obtaining transcripts, and other official academic matters.

NOTICE: All exit loan counseling is completed 100% online. You can complete this task by logging into StudentAid.gov

How/if you can defer paying back your loans will vary depending on what kind of loans you have. For Stafford and Perkins loans, the principal and interest payments may be deferred while you are:

• Attending school at least half-time.
• Unemployed (up to three years).
• Studying in an approved graduate fellowship or rehabilitation program for the disabled.
• Experiencing economic hardship (up to three years).

If you do not qualify for a deferment for your Federal student loans, you can forbear your loans for up to three years instead. Forbearance is another way to temporarily postpone or reduce payments for a set period of time. You should contact your loan servicer for more information about forbearing your Stafford and/or Perkins loans.