NSLSC and Students
The Canada National Student Loan Service Centre (NSLSC) facilitates many student loans for Canadian students allowing them to attend college and pay back their student loans at a later date; normally after graduation.
If your a Canadian student, here are some tips to help you with a smoother NSLSC process.
Student loans and grants have helped a lot of Canadian students to go through their education seamlessly without ever having to worry about dropping out for financial reasons.
Once school is done, students go away into the world and start their careers and jobs and for those who made it through school with student loans, the time to start making repayments comes soon enough.
Repayment can be a very challenging moment for you in the event that you are not aware of how to go about it.
The repayment procedure normally starts as soon as you graduate from school, or from the moment you cease to become a full-time student. If you get a part time job while you are still studying and change your status to part-time classes, your repayment starts immediately.
However, take note that interest on student loans is never charged while you are still studying.
As is the case with any other loan that you will get anywhere, the NSLSC student loans normally have a grace period. This is a 6 month period within which you are free of repayments right after you graduate from school.
According to the NSLSC, this is the time when students should be very active trying to secure jobs so that they can kick-start their lives and also get to organize their lives.
However, take note that even when you are making use of the grace period, interest accrues on the loan. If for example you graduate in April, your grace period will run through to October from which you will be expected to start paying back the loan.
Once you have graduated from school and you are still in the grace period, the NSLSC will send you a consolidation agreement. In the consolidation agreement is contained all the information about you and your financial assistance.
The agreement contains information on the loan amount that you owe, the interest rate charged on it, your repayment term, all the loan repayments that you have made so far, the first date when you should start making the payments and the amount of interest that you are liable to get during the grace period.
Just so you are in the know, it normally takes 9 ½ years for a student to complete their loan repayment.
As a student who benefited from the loans, it is your duty to inform the NSLSC of any changes in any of the information that you provided when applying for the student loan.
In the event that you have changed your residency, you have to inform the NSLSC of the changes especially of your address. It is also your duty to make sure that you repay all the loans that you have accrued and the interest on them.
With respect to the interest rates applicable to the loans, students can either choose between a fixed rate and a floating rate. Generally, it is a sensible decision to go with the floating rate since there is not much of a fluctuation in these rates over time.
In recognition of the challenges that students normally go through when repaying their loans, students are encouraged to make use of the NSLSC Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP). Through the RAP students are in a good position to manage their repayments and paying back only the much that they can afford reasonably.
The concept behind RAP is to ensure that you make repayments that do not necessarily exceed your 20% gross family income. Therefore through RAP you can either get your monthly repayment reduced or increased as appropriate.
RAP is a good scheme for those who have not been able to secure employment opportunities, or those who are suffering some form of financial difficulty.
It is a wise decision to make your payments regularly if you can because this makes it easier for you to clear your loan debt faster as compared to making huge payments periodically.
You can simply break down the payments such that by the end of the day you will be paying back the amounts that you owe, but in smaller amounts.