Entrance Counseling
Before receiving a Stafford or Perkins loan, borrowers must complete an entrance counseling session. This session provides useful tips and tools to help you develop a budget for managing your educational expenses and helps you to understand your loan responsibilities. The counseling must be conducted in person, by audiovisual presentation, or by interactive electronic means.

The counseling session reviews basic facts about your student loans:

• Loan terms and conditions.
• Rights and responsibilities of the borrower.
• Use of the Master Promissory Note (MPN).
• Repayment and consolidation plans.
• Deferment, forbearance, and cancellation options.
• Late payment and default consequences.
• Budgeting your money.
• Your responsibilities while you are in school.
• Importance of keeping your lender(s) informed.

Contact your financial aid office to learn your entrance counseling options.

Exit Counseling
Federal regulations require that institutions offer exit counseling to federal student loan borrowers who are leaving school or dropping below half-time enrollment. Exit counseling covers:

• Borrower's rights and responsibilities
• Loan repayment
• Consequences of default

During exit counseling, borrowers are also required to provide updated personal information, such as address, telephone number, and employment.

Schools must keep documentation that shows that the borrower received the required exit counseling, either in person or by mail.

If a borrower withdraws from school without the school’s knowledge, or if a borrower fails to attend a scheduled exit counseling session, the school must mail written exit counseling materials to the borrower at his or her last known address.

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