Students from the Columbia School of Professional Studies celebrate after walking the stage during the schools graduation ceremony at the Baker Athletics Complex on May 10, 2024 in New York City. College graduation season is underway, and nearly 3.2 million students are slated to pick up their associate or bachelor’s degree diplomas this spring, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
If you’re leaving campus this year and starting your first full-time job, here’s how to prepare for impending student loan bills and a new financial reality.If you have federal loans, you must complete mandatory student loan exit counseling when you leave school. The process takes about 30 minutes and can be done online at. Exit counseling will ask you to update your contact information, walk you through how much you owe and explain the basics of student loan repayment.
Your federal student loan servicer is listed on the right side of your StudentAid.gov dashboard. You’ll have to set up a separate account on your servicer’s website to manage your bills. If you’re unemployed or earn less than $32,800 as a single household, you’ll qualify for $0 monthly payments and interest won’t build under SAVE — while also making progress toward loan forgiveness. However, this plan could extend your repayment period from 10 years to up to 25 years, depending on how much you owe.