We just finished up our Exit Counseling sessions for our May 2012 graduates!  This is one of our most informative and beneficial financial aid sessions that we offer on-site which every student will attend before they graduate.  It gives you all the information you will need to realize your overall loan debt, pick a repayment plan, consolidate your loans or defer payment.  Currently, the Executive Director of Admissions and Student Financial Planning, Laura Zuppo holds these sessions and gives her first-hand knowledge on many of the subjects talked about.   

Here are the Top 10 Tips for upcoming graduates: 

1. Direct Stafford loans have an automatic 6 month grace period.
2. Direct Graduate Plus loans have an automatic 6 month deferment.
3. To postpone payments: you can choose a Deferment or Forbearance. 
4. You are eligible to change your repayment plan once a year. 
5. A standard repayment plan is a 10 year fixed or graduated (amount gets larger with time) monthly payment.  NO pre-pay penalties!  This plan results in the lowest interest paid. 
6. Extended repayment plan is up to 25 years and can be either fixed or graduated payments per month.  You pay a high amount of interest with this plan. 
7. An income contingent plan is based on income, family size, and loan amounts.  It is a 25 year repayment plan and changes in income impacts the monthly payment amount!
8. Income sensitive plans are for FFELP loans only.  This plan is based on income and total loan amount. 
9. Income-based repayment plan (IBR) payments are determined by income and dependents and NOT only the debt amount.  Payments can be as low as $0 per month in some cases.  For an online calculator visit:  http://www.ibrinfo.org/calculator.php
10. If you choose to consolidate your loans, you will only have one payment to one lender and takes about 2 months to complete. If you plan to consolidate, do the application now but don’t file too early to lose the benefit of the grace period. 

Money… more specifically, free money.  Are you struggling with the cost of Law School and looking for some extra ways to pay for school this fall or to reduce the amount of Financial aid that you currently borrow, you can look into some of the newly available outside scholarships that we have posted:

 Richard D. Hailey AAJ Law Student Scholarship
Award: Up to six $1,000 scholarships
Deadline: May 1, 2012
Eligibility: Current African American, Hispanic, Asian American, Native American and Bi-Racial AAJ Law student members

 Warren E. Burger Prize Writing Competition
Award: $5,000
Deadline: June 1, 2012
Eligibility: Current students

In addition to these, we have 100′s of outside scholarships listed on our website for you to search through check it out at: http://www.law.stetson.edu/admissions/financial/scholarships-outside-opportunities.php

My suggestion would be to copy and paste this whole page into a WORD document to easier search for ones that are applicable to you and delete out the ones that aren’t. 

*Reminder: if you haven’t already filled out your 2012-2013 FAFSA, do so as soon as you have completed your 2011 taxes to receive Financial aid for the fall 2012 semester!