Repay a loan

Every MIT student borrower is assigned a loan counselor based on the first letter of the student's last name. Counselors work with you on issues related to borrowing, repayment and debt management.

When repayment starts

A student loan, unlike a scholarship or grant, is borrowed money and must be repaid. You must begin repaying your student loans when you do any of these things:

• graduate from school
• take a leave of absence
• transfer to another school
• withdraw from MIT
• drop below half-time enrollment

Repaying your loans on time will help you establish and maintain a good credit rating, and it also helps ensure there will be loan funds available for future MIT students to borrow.

Gather your information

To repay your student loans, you’ll need some information. You can review some of it in a mandatory loan exit counseling session, which you’re required to attend when you leave MIT under any of the circumstances listed above. Here’s what you need to know to repay your loans:

• How much you borrowed
• When you have to start repaying your loans
• How much you must repay each month
• Contact information for your loan servicer(s) for making payments and asking questions

To make sure your loan repayments go smoothly, remember to:

• Notify your loan servicer every time you change your address, telephone number or e-mail address.
• Consider authorizing automatic electronic monthly payments.
• Ask for help sooner rather than later. Whenever there’s something you don’t understand or if you’re having trouble making payments, talk to your loan counselor in Student Financial Services (even if you’ve left MIT) or your loan servicer.

Problems with repaying

If you’re having trouble making your student loan payments on time because of financial hardship or other reasons, there are ways to postpone or reduce your payments.