Direct loans gov is the new federal student loan servicing center. This is where borrowers will:
go through entrance counseling
complete an electronic master promissory note (MPN)
see disclosure statements and term modifications
begin the PLUS loan process, including credit check and endorser addendum
A borrower must confirm their MPN acceptance of the loan. For Direct subsidized or unsubsidized loans, this acceptance may be active (responding to notification by the school or via the direct loans gov site) or passive (simply not declining by the notified deadline).
PLUS loan borrowers must confirm with an active acceptance of the loan.
Direct Loan Servicing Center Entrance Counseling
Only first-time federal school loans borrowers need to do the counseling. If you have been a Direct or FFELP borrower before, you will be able to skip the counseling. But even if you borrowed as an undergraduate, you will still need to go through it for your first Grad PLUS loan. (No counseling for parent college loans is required.)
To complete the counseling in Spanish, borrowers will have to download a document, sign the verification and return it to their school.
The counseling session must be completed in one sitting; you cannot save your place. It will take about 30 minutes.
There are 16 topics- each with a short quiz afterwords.
After the counseling, you can submit your master promissory note (MPN) or you can quit and do it another time. Or you can view, download and print your counseling session. The MPN process has been streamlined so that it is only 4 steps instead of 9.
If you are a first-time Grad PLUS borrower, you can now submit your loan request.
Federal Direct PLUS Loans Requests
The new website can process Direct PLUS loans requests from borrowers.
After you make your request, you will be able to authorize a credit check. This will be done immediately and you will get the results right away. Depending on the results, you will be asked to either:
complete a Direct PLUS loan master promissory note (if this is your first loan) if credit was approved; or
choose from these alternatives, if credit was not approved: disregard the PLUS loan request, get an endorser, or appeal the credit turndown.
If you choose to use an endorser, that person can fill out his information on the direct loans gov website, also. (The endorser will need a FAFSA PIN, also.)
These features allow colleges to make the transition to federal Direct student loans easier on themselves and their students.
The student loans gov website will eventually be the only Direct loans servicing center online, but the old url will still be active until all schools complete the transition.
