The links above provide a brief overview of loan options you can pursue as a student or parent of a student to assist you in paying for approved cost of attendance expenses.

Selecting a Lender

You have the right to select any lender that participates in the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) including the Stafford, PLUS, and Graduate PLUS programs, and the university will process a loan with any lender that you select. Our federal school code for loans is 020662. This may be requested by the lender that you select to process your Federal Stafford, Federal PLUS or Private Student Loan.

The attached brochure prepared by the U.S. Department of Education explains the differences between federal and private education loans, the various kinds of federal loans offered and the dollar amounts available.

To assist you in this process The New School has identified the following lenders as ones that provide superior customer service, affordable pricing, and a variety of education loan products:

Access Group
(800) 282-1550
www.AccessGroup.Org

Chase
(800) 487-4404
www.ChaseStudentLoans.com

Citibank
(800) 967-2400
www.studentloan.com

Please refer to the links associated with each loan program for a chart of terms and conditions for the above lenders.

The New School’s decision of lenders to include in our list considered several factors and the selection committee included six Student Financial Services staff as well as three students. We welcome student feedback on your experiences with lenders. Please contact us at sfs@newschool.edu with any comments you may have.

The ultimate decision to include a lender on our list was based on:

• Terms and conditions of the Loan Products
• The lender’s long-term presence in the student loan industry as a measure of experience and commitment to customer service
• Feedback from student borrowers with regard to the terms and conditions of the loan products and customer services experience
• Our past experience with the lender’s customer service operations and client representatives, regardless of whether the lender had been on our list in the past
• Maintaining stability for our continuing student borrowers who currently have loans to attend The New School
• Compatibility with The New School systems and processes

Major Considerations When Selecting a Lender
Although many of the basic terms and conditions for federal loans are the same across all participating lenders, there are a number of factors you should assess and compare when selecting a lender. You should do your own research by contacting the lender(s) that you are thinking of applying with. We recommend that U.S. citizens and eligible non-citizens apply for federal loans before private/alternative loans because federal loans generally have better terms and conditions. Terms and conditions may differ for private/alternative loans, so please contact the lenders that you are considering taking a loan with and comparison shop. Paying particular attention to the following items will help you make an informed decision:

Reliability and Customer Service
You are about to enter into a long-term relationship with your lender—one which generally spans your years in school and anywhere from ten to twenty-five years of repayment after graduation. As such, it is very important that you select a reputable lender with a demonstrated track record of excellent customer service.

Borrower Benefits
The term “borrower benefits” is commonly applied to financial incentives provided by individual lenders to reduce the net price of your loans over time. These benefits generally fall into two categories, front-end fee reductions and back-end repayment incentives. These benefits can vary widely from lender to lender; we hope that this explanation and the information provided below helps you make an informed decision.

Front-End Fee Reduction:

• Mandatory front-end fees for the Federal Stafford include a 1% federal default fee and a 1.5% origination fee. This means that without any borrower benefits provided by the lender and the guarantee agency you would only receive 97.5% of your loan proceeds to pay expenses.
• Mandatory front-end fees for the Federal PLUS include a 1% federal default fee and a 3% origination fee. To our knowledge, however, there is no lender in the marketplace that pays the 3% origination fee for you. This means that PLUS borrowers will receive 97% of the loan amounts if you borrow a PLUS loan.

Back-End Repayment Incentives
These incentives include interest rate reductions and rebates which are applied to the outstanding loan balance. It is important when comparing back-end borrower benefits that you determine the answers to the following three questions:

• What is the actual (calculated) financial benefit? How much money will you save?
• How easy is it to qualify for the savings? Does the benefit begin immediately with no restrictions? Immediately upon repayment but requires ACH (automatic withdrawal from your checking or savings account) payment method? Or does it go into effect only after 24 or 36 consecutive on time payments (i.e. 2 to 3 years after graduation)?
• How easy is it to lose the benefit (and, therefore, the savings)? Do you lose it permanently if one monthly payment is late? After you are more than 30 days late more than 3 times? Or is it temporarily rescinded when a payment is missed but restored after your next on time payment is made?

Other Considerations:

• Combined Billing—Students who know they will be borrowing private student loans in addition to federal student loans may opt to simplify the repayment process by selecting one lender for all loans, even if doing so does not maximize the savings available through borrower benefit programs. Other students will prefer to choose the least expensive federal loan provider and the least expensive private loan provider and manage two separate loan payments. In the emerging climate of easy automatic payment options, making payments to multiple lenders is far less of an inconvenience than it once was.
• Electronic Processing—Does your selected lender offer electronic processing options such as on-line application and e-signature capability, electronic school certification requests, and electronic funds transfer? In general, electronic processing results in fewer application errors, more efficient processing time, and quicker delivery of funds, both to the student’s tuition account as well as to the student if he or she is entitled to a refund for living expenses. The New School uses the Education Loan Management (ELM) system and the National Disbursement Network (NDN) for its electronic loan processing, so you may wish to consider if your selected lender is an ELM/NDN participant or is willing to become one. If your lender is not an ELM/NDN participant, we will process your loan with them directly.

For continuing New School students, if you had a loan in the last semester, your loan will automatically processed with the lender that you selected. If you wish to have your loan processed with another lender, please contact Student Financial Services at sfs@newschool.edu or 212.229.8930.