What’s New
The Financial Aid Office would like to present “What’s New”, a helpful resource to bring you the tools to educate you with financial literacy and the fundamentals of smart financial goals and to further help you in all aspects of your life to build a healthier financial future.
Congratulations to all of our incoming new students! The Financial Aid Office looks forward to serving you while you are here over the next few years and beyond. We feel that this site will be particularly helpful to you as you navigate through the financial aid process, budgeting and repayment strategies!
Overview of the Financial Aid Process
FastWeb provides graduate student information, scholarships for graduate students, timely articles for graduate students as well as deals and promos!
To All of our WesternU Students,
There are many companies that try to scam students into signing-up for their services to help with repayment, consolidation and overall student debt relief. Please be very careful to NOT sign-up with these companies as they will charge you a fee for their services and/or mislead you into thinking that they will save you thousands of dollars if you sign up for their service. These services are always FREE from your lender/servicer; students should never have to pay a fee for these types of services!
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has published a description of actions they’ve taken to stop student loan debt relief scams that attempt to trick borrowers into paying upfront fees for federal loan benefits. The CFPB advisory includes a list of warning signs borrowers should watch for, how to understand options and get help, and how to submit a formal complaint.
Consumer Advisory: Student loan debt relief companies may cost you thousands of dollars and drive you further into debt
1) If funds are being (or will be) automatically withdrawn from your checking/savings account, you need to immediately notify your banking institution of the unauthorized/fraudulent activity from “said” company. This will put a ‘fraud alert’ on your account, thus preventing this activity to continue.
2) If you are in the process of signing final documents, withdraw the request. If final documents have been signed, withdraw the request.
3) Immediately change your FSA ID and/or Password to prevent “said” company from accessing the National Student Loan Data Base data.
4) Notify your federal loan servicer of the situation, so they may place the necessary ‘flags’/’comments’ to your student account.
5) Stay connected with WesternU through the Alumni Office. The Financial Aid Office will post or send out updates to all students concerning matters such as these and other important information as it becomes available. Welcome to the WesternU Alumni Association
Please feel free to reach out to the Financial Aid Office with any questions or concerns you may have regarding any type of questionable correspondence you may receive. finaid@westernu.edu
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) will be available as early as October 1, of each year. WesternU will begin processing in January and have awards available by April/May. Income used on the FAFSA will be from two years prior to the application year, referred to as “Prior-Prior Year” (PPY), rather than only one year prior to the application year.
Sequestration, sometimes called the sequester, is a process that automatically cuts the federal budget across most departments and agencies.
The Direct Loan Program is affected by sequestration in that loan fees are charged to Direct Loan borrowers. The fees can change annually.
This is a comprehensive document that will help guide you through your repayment options and what you should do before you graduate. The site also contains repayment calculators for you to explore your options with the different repayment plans available.
“Get a FREE Hospital Profile!” Enter the Hospital name and click download and then open. Students can see if the hospital would qualify for PSLF!
Public Service Loan Forgiveness Guide/tool – Income-Driven Repayment Plans & Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
Federal Student Aid – website is a fantastic resource for students!
Federal Student Aid, Department of Education. This is a very informative site for prospective, new, and continuing students.