TUHSC Office of Financial Aid

School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
Federal Stafford Loan and Lender Information
(revised 05/20/09)

How to Apply for a Federal Stafford Loan

STEP 1. Choose a lender for your Federal Stafford Loan (Tulane streamlined lender information is provided below) and notify the TUHSC Office of Financial Aid as to your lender selection. The opportunity to identify your choice of lender is available by providing an appropriate response on the School Public Health and Tropical Medicine Financial Aid Addendum.

STEP 2. Upon your receipt of a Financial Aid Notification Letter, check the details of the letter to confirm that you have been offered a Federal Stafford loan. If so, and you wish to borrow all or a portion of the Stafford Loan offered, then you must complete a Federal Stafford Loan Master Promissory Note (MPN).

If you had previously notified the TUHSC Office of Financial Aid of your lender choice, then you simply need to complete your the MPN on–line.

Note: If you do not complete a Stafford MPN, the lender cannot disburse your loan funds. Please be sure to complete this necessary step.

If you had NOT chosen a Federal Stafford lender, then enclosed with your Financial Aid Notification Letter will be a “Choose Your Lender” form. You must complete and return this form to the TUHSC Office of Financial Aid as soon as possible. Upon our receipt of your lender choice, we will transmit loan information to your lender. You must proceed with the on-line completeion of your Federal Stafford MPN if you have not done so already.

Federal Stafford Loan Lender Information
Tulane, in conjunction with selected lenders, offers a streamlined loan application process. By selecting one of these lenders, we electronically transmit your application data to the lender for processing. After the loans have been guaranteed by a guarantee agency, streamlined lenders are ready to directly disburse your loan funds (at the beginning of each semester) to Tulane by electronic funds transfer (EFT). The EFT loan process enables your loan proceeds to be credited directly to your Accounts Receivable student account and eliminates time consuming paper processing.

We highly recommend that you choose one of our streamlined lenders as your Federal Stafford loan lender. The Federal Stafford loans offered by our streamlined lenders adhere to the same federal regulations as any Federal Stafford Loan offered by other institutions.

If you will be borrowing Federal Stafford Loan funds for the first time at Tulane’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, then you must complete a loan entrance counseling session before we can credit or distribute your first Stafford Loan disbursement. Entrance counseling sessions are offered at the start of each semester. You can check with our office for details or call to schedule a personal entrance interview session, or your can complete this requirement on line at http://www.mapping-your future.org/.

When applying for loans, you will be given the opportunity to select which school you are attending. There are three (3) Tulane options to choose from; be sure to select Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.


Tulane’s Streamlined Federal Stafford Loan Lenders:
Wells Fargo	Discover Student Loans	Nellie Mae

Access Group	Total Higher Education has suspended processing of federal loans effective 05/20/09. YOU MUST CHOOSE A NEW LENDER!	Citibank

Edamerica	Chase	SALLIE MAE Sallie Mae Education Trust (First time Sallie Mae Borrowers) Prior Borrowers of the Dollar Bank/Sallie Mae Medical Student Loan Program may continue with this program

For details of the Federal Stafford loan terms, including current interest rates, refer to the "What are the terms and conditions of the Federal Stafford Loan" page.

How we choose our lenders
As a service to our student educational loan borrowers, Tulane's University Financial Aid Offices have attempted to identify a list of lending institutions who we believe offer quality customer service and benefits with their respective federal and/or non-federal loan products.

The composition of our list of suggested lenders is the result of our annual “request for proposals” (a/k/a “RFP”) process, whereby interested lenders submit proposals for our consideration. The main criteria we expect from lenders include all of the following:

• reliable customer service (including service during processing and repayment);

• competitive loan products (including competitive fees and interest rates);

• electronic disbursement of funds;

• allowance for borrower electronic repayment of loan funds; and

• cost saving benefits to borrowers throughout the life a loan.

The Tulane “Loan Committee” thoroughly reviews and researches each proposal received each year before finalizing a list of lenders meeting the aforementioned criteria. We want to assure all educational loan borrowers that Tulane's University Financial Aid Offices do not receive any form of payment or remuneration from lenders in exchange for inclusion on our lender listing. As long time members of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), the employees of Tulane's University Financial Aid Offices fully adhere to NASFAA's Statement of Ethical Principles and Code of Conduct for Institutional Financial Aid Professionals.

Please know there is absolutely no obligation for borrowers to select a lender from our lender listing. Student borrowers have the right to select a lender of their choice. Per federal and institutional guidelines, the University Financial Aid Offices will process any loan from any lender.

Finally, we wish to point out that our list of lenders is not in any order of preference.

We highly recommend that a borrower's lender choice be carefully considered as to what is best for the borrower and with the intent that one will remain with the same lender throughout one's studies at Tulane.

The Tulane University Financial Aid Offices remain committed to the students we serve. As such, we will continue to annually review our suggested lenders to ensure that our students and their families receive excellent rates and the best customer service available.

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