This article comes from the Campus Contributor Network. Over the course of the semester, students from across our campus outreach program will analyze their school’s finances and assess the overall return students see on their educational investments.
With the looming threat of debt hanging over their heads as graduation approaches, many college seniors are wary about taking their first few steps out of college and into a world where they already owe thousands of dollars.
A closer look at UNC Wilmington student debt demonstrates the university’s effort to educate its students before letting them loose in the real world.
Debt at UNCW
According to Frederick Hollander, the Interim Director for the Office of Scholarships & Financial Aid at UNCW, roughly 70 percent of the student body receives some form of financial aid.
The average UNCW student has just under $23,000 in loans.
In an interview with Dan Sanchez, one of UNCW’s Financial Aid Counselors, GenFKD learned that UNCW graduates take, on average, 120 monthly payments over the course of ten years where each payment is based off the graduate’s income – on par with the national average.
An entire list of federal repayment plans are outlined on studentaid.gov. Students must be ready to take these steps themselves as Hollander expressed, “[UNCW] does not follow up with students after they have graduated, but the communications are still available on their SeaNet student accounts until the exit counseling is done.”
Seahawk salute and other programs
But every year UNCW provides seniors with extensive loan financing and exit counseling information during their Seahawk Salute Grad Fair Program. This fall’s Seahawk Salute is on November 10 at the UNCW Bookstore.
The Seahawk Salute Program is one of the resources Hollander said the university uses to reach out to their students about post-college debt. There are also multiple emails sent around graduation time and a Facebook page designed for students to reach out to Financial Aid counselors, but otherwise UNCW offers minimal follow-up after graduation.
The university does its best at educating students about loan debt, budgeting and other related topics during UNCW’s first-year seminar UNI 101 course that all incoming students must take. Both Hollander and Sanchez stated these issues are also discussed during Financial Aid’s Fiscal Fit Wednesday events held once a month.
However, students should be on the lookout for alternative educational resources on student loans in the upcoming year, because, according to Holding, “the Fiscal Fit Wednesday events have not been well supported and we are considering another way to disseminate this information.”
For the fiscal year of 2013, UNCW had its lowest default rate of 3.7 percent which is much lower than the national average three-year default rate of 7.3 percent.
Know your stuff
According to Sanchez, education on loan financing is provided in one-on-one Financial Aid counseling meetings. Sanchez explained how important it is for students to know about the various programs offered by the Education Department which allow graduates to be flexible with their loans.
For example, the Pay As You Earn program – which was first announced by President Obama in 2011 – caps payments at 10 percent of discretionary income. For some low-income borrowers, that can translate into monthly payments of zero dollars.
UNCW does not practice any loan forgiveness programs, according to both Sanchez and Hollander. That does not necessarily mean students are unable to take advantage of any such programs through the Federal Government, more of such examples are listed in Federal Student Aid’s Forgiveness and Cancellation page.
Takeaway
In the end, UNCW strives to provide its graduating students with a long list of debt repayment resources, but it is ultimately up to the individual student to take charge of their financial aid repayment upon graduation.
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