Student Loan Entrance and Exit Counseling

Most often before you will receive any type of financial aid, you will be required to checkout some entrance and exit counseling. This type of counseling is required so you can understand your rights when you borrow money and the responsibilities that will be expected of you when you take on a College Loan. This type of counseling is important since it will provide you information and the meaning of loan terms. This system is set up to help you make the right choice when it comes to student loans. Plus, you are required to complete the counseling before you are given any loans.

The difference in the two loans is that with entrance counseling you are basically learning how to manage the funding given to you. Before you receive your student loan an entrance counseling session must be completed. These sessions are found online and all you really have to do is follow the interactive session and take the test. This will help you start and follow a budget for repayment of your loans.

As for exit counseling, you will learn and understand your responsibilities and rights when obtaining a student loan. Before you graduate school, the students who have a Direct Loan and TEACH Grants will have to complete the exit counseling. The counselor will explain the rights and responsibilities that you will now have. They will explain the terms and conditions in the event that the loan become a Direct Unsubsidized Loan and this could happen if you default on the terms of agreement.

Each testing and counseling session will take about 30 to 40 minutes to complete. You can find in the entrance counseling sessions on websites like the Federal Student Aid site. Each counseling session will be based on what type of Federal Loan that you have, the three are the Stafford Loan, the PLUS Loan and the Combination Stafford and PLUS Loans. To give an insight as to how these sessions work, you will need to log onto a Direct Loan Servicing Website, you will need to use the PIN given to from the United Stated Department of Education or your Social Security Number if you don’t have the pin.

You will have to answer all of these questions on order; you must answer 12 out of 15 questions correctly. If you fail to do so then you have the opportunity to take the test again. Once you have passed that test then you will see your Direct Stafford Loan Subsidized Rights and Responsibilities. When use the Exit Counseling Session you must have a PIN or Your Social Security Number. Then you will get a test similar like the one in the entrance but these questions should be geared more to repayment of your loan.

These counseling sessions may seem unnecessary to you but they are really helping you to manage your loans and as you complete school they can help you get a handle on repayment and how to make a budget on how too stay current with your loans. It is very easy to become overwhelmed with student loans since they are not due until you leave school. You can lose sight of them and they can easily fall behind.