Financial Aid Office Warren Wilson College September 2009

Though it’s early in the school year, students leaving Warren Wilson in 2009/2010
should consider consolidating student loans
Students who receive Stafford loans at Warren Wilson College to help pay for tuition will
have to begin repaying those loans six months after leaving Warren Wilson whether
graduating, withdrawing, taking a leave of absence. Students also have to begin repaying
loans if they fall below half-time status.
At that time, students may find themselves with loans from several different lenders and
will have to make separate payments to each of those lenders. To make monthly loan
payments simpler, students may want to consider loan consolidation.
Loan consolidation is provided by the U.S. Department of Education to help make
payments more manageable by combining all of a student’s loans into one account with a
monthly payment.
Why would student loans come from several lenders?
While student loans have always been backed by the Department of Education, the
lenders themselves have changed over the years.
Until this school year, Warren Wilson College participated in the Federal Family
Educational Loan Program for student loans. Through FFELP, students received
subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans from individual lenders such as SallieMae,
Citibank, College Foundation Inc., or Suntrust.
This year Warren Wilson implemented a Direct Lending program, which means all
subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans are now provided directly through the Federal
Government’s Department of Education.
To complicate things further, due to the rocky economy of the last couple of years, many
FFELP providers sold their 2008/2009 student loans to the Federal Government.
Students that have been here for several years could potentially have several different
loans to repay when they leave Warren Wilson. These payments could include a loan
from an individual lender like Citibank or Suntrust, an individual lender’s loan that has
been sold to the U.S. Department of Education, and the 2009-2010 Direct Stafford Loan.
Where can a student get a list of their student loan lenders?
Students can visit the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) at
http://www.nslds.ed.gov/ for a refresher on how many loans they have, the lenders, and
the total amount borrowed.
Where can a student learn more about loan consolidation?
To lean more about loan consolidation students should visit
http://www.loanconsolidation.ed.gov/.
For more information, contact the Financial Aid Office at Warren Wilson at 828-771-
2082 or finaid@warren-wilson.edu.

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