Newsroom

Many borrowers have grace periods ending soon

By Beth Ziehmer

November 01, 2018

Spring 2018 graduates and students that dropped below half-time status are going to enter repayment soon.

It is essential that borrowers understand their grace period is coming to an end and they need to begin preparing, if they haven't already, for their loans to enter repayment. This includes working with their loan servicer to select a repayment program and preparing their personal budgets accordingly.

Remember to reach out to these borrowers and help them prepare or offer them guidance, such as with the Grace Period and Repayment counseling, if they have questions about their options. This will help not only your borrowers, but also help your school's cohort default rate. The counseling also serves as another opportunity for you to collect contact information from the borrower.

The benefits of offering the Grace Period and Repayment counseling session include the following:

• Provides former students with information about how to manage student loans after college, whether loans are in the grace period or already in repayment
• Presents real-life student loan problems with solutions
• Enforces lessons learned via mandatory counseling
• Enhances your default prevention strategies
• Provides you with an opportunity to collect updated contact information and references, beneficial for skip tracing
• Strengthens your relationship with your alumni
• Includes customization at no additional charge:
  • Choose the questions borrowers must successfully answer when completing a counseling session
  • Expand counseling content to include an additional topic covering financial literacy and money management tips
  • Determine whether borrowers must complete a budget during the counseling session
  • Add a customized page of information for borrowers to view when beginning their online counseling
  • Direct students to a specific web page after completing counseling
  • Require borrowers to complete all fields on the student form

To experience Grace Period and Repayment counseling from the student perspective, follow these steps:

• Go to the Mapping Your Future home page at MappingYourFuture.org
• Click the "Online Counseling" link at the top of the page
• Select "Grace Period and Repayment" (under "Other counseling")
• Choose Missouri as the state of your school
• Select MYF Demo School as your school

Postsecondary schools that have an existing Online Counseling account and would like to add Grace Period and Repayment counseling to their participation categories should contact the Mapping Your Future customer care staff at feedback@mappingyourfuture.org.

Schools that don't have an Online Counseling account should complete the school submission form at mappingyourfuture.org/oslc/schoolsignup.cfm to request participation.