I am just very confused by this. My "one lender" already said that I could not get new loans for the school year 2005-2006 with them AND consolidate them before July 1. However, I called the fed. aid office and the rep. thought that it may be possible to get 05-06 loans now, have them disbursed immediately, and have them consolidated before July 1. I called onestudentloan and their rep told me what the fed. aid rep told me. They then referred me to the william d. ford fed. program phone number and that rep told me that I would not be able to.

I don't think that I am the only one confused by how student loans work! From what I can tell, the loans that are effected by the interest rate hikes are the federal stafford, perkins, and PLUS loans. After I apply for a loan, assuming I get it, that money is then disbursed to the school quarterly (or something like that) during the new school year. Therefore, there is NO way I could have a loan disbursed right now and get it consolidated before July 1.

So I guess if it's that simple, why wouldn't reps with the fed. aid office and Onestudentloan have told me that in the first place? Or am I still missing something here?

Hopefully someone here can shed some light on this.

-Adam

Some schools are 'header' schools, meaning their 05-06 year begins Summer semester. So technically, you could get your first disbursement for the 05-06 year during summer before consolidation (assuming you attend summer).

As far as getting your money early for Fall, Fed regs prohibit a school from bringing in your loans until 10 days before the start of the semester. This keeps the school from sitting on potentially millions of dollars of student money & collecting interest on the funds before disbursing them to students.

Hope this answers some questions