Preparing for Repayment

As you prepare for repayment, the first step is understanding who you have borrowed from and your total amount of indebtedness. 

There are two ways you can get an overview of what you have borrowed:

• Log on to your DukeHub account and click “My Loans” under the Financials tab. Review each of the academic year statements to see the different types of loans and the amounts you have taken out.
  • Note that DukeHub will only display loans you received during your enrollment at Duke, and not from prior programs or other schools.
• Pull your credit report- all outstanding loans and open lines of credit will be displayed on your credit report. 

Perhaps the most important step in preparing for student loan repayment is knowing what your monthly payment will be and how long it will take you to pay off the balance of your loan.

Unfortunately, most lenders will not provide you with the monthly dollar amount until your repayment period officially begins.

However, there are several useful resources that can provide you with a reliable estimate to help you plan for your payments:

• Federal Student Loan Borrowers- Federal Student Aid Loan Simulator
• School, State, & Private Loan Borrowers- Investopedia Loan Calculator

You will need your total loan balance and interest rates to use these calculators, as well as what repayment plan options you have available to you. If you are working with a private or alternative loan, you will most likely be expected to make 120 payments in total, for a 10-year time span. For individuals with Federal Direct Loans, your repayment terms could take anywhere from 10-25 years to fulfill.

REMEMBER: For borrowers with unsubsidized loans, interest accrues from the date of disbursement. If you have not been paying interest on your loan while in school, any amount of interest remaining at the time of repayment will be CAPITALIZED or added to the principal. All payments moving forward will assess interest based on this new, combined amount. In short, you will now be paying interest on top of previously accrued interest.

Submitting payments towards your loan is primarily done online, directly through your lender or loan servicer- a third party agency contracted to manage the repayment process on behalf of your lender. Whether you work with a lender or servicer depends on the type of loan you have, so it is important to verify with your lender their respective repayment process. 

For example, all federal loan borrowers work with an assigned servicer during the repayment process. If you have a federal loan, you can look up your servicer by logging in to your Federal Student Aid dashboard.

Though many lenders and servicers will still accept check payments through the mail, nearly all student loan payments are done electronically. If you are accustomed to using auto-pay or making e-check payments to rental properties and utility companies, or even for subscription and streaming services, the process for making a student loan payment is similar. 

Federal Loans

To see which servicer your federal student loans are assigned to, you will need to log in to your account on https://studentaid.gov/ using your FSA ID and password, the same one you would have used to complete the FAFSA when you applied for your loan. 

Once you are in your account, you should see an overview of your loans and which servicer you have been assigned to. In the event you have trouble determining who your servicer is, you can call the Federal Student Aid Information Center: 1-800-433-3243

School-Based Loans 

For loans borrowed from Duke University, including Duke Educational Assistance Loans and Perkins Loans, the servicer assigned to your account is Heartland ECSI. To access your account and make payments, visit Heartland ECSI.

If you have trouble logging in, contact the Office of Student Loans and Personal Finance 

State & Private Loans

For any private or alternative loans borrowed, be sure to review the lender’s website and read over any communications that you received to determine if you will be working with a third-party servicer or with the lender directly.

Did You Know? Some lenders offer a .25% interest rate deduction if you enroll in auto payments. If this is an offer you would like to consider, speak with your servicer.  Be sure to know your banking information before enrolling. 

While it does not happen often, servicing agencies can resign from their positions and transfer duties to a new organization. During servicer transfers, borrowers should receive multiple communications from both their current servicer and their newly assigned servicer alerting them to the upcoming change. To prepare for a servicer transfer, borrowers should ensure they can navigate the new servicer's site, have access to their loan information, and update their payment method if using an auto-pay feature. It is also important to review past account activity and create a detailed record of payment history in the event a processing error occurs during the transfer. 

If you are faced with a servicer transfer, do what you can to stay organized and proactively prepare for the transition.