Signing Your Life Away is Ridiculously Easy These Days

I'm a blessed girl. I know that I am for a variety of reasons, but this time I'm saying it specifically for one: I have no student loans from my undergrad days. Zero. I'm lucky, because my family was able to pay for all of my expenses after my rather large scholarship was deducted from my tuition, so I have no debt after four years. That's a nice feeling, especially seeing as how a lot of my friends weren't so fortunate.

So, after two years of working, I also have a little bit of cash saved up -- not a lot, mind you, as I did take a fabulous month-long trip to Europe, two trips to Cabo, and a major repair on my car. But enough that I can comfortably move into my apartment and set it up and probably put down a decent down payment on a car.

But definitely not enough to pay for three years, or even a single year (or really, even a semester) of tuition, fees, and expenses (personal or otherwise) at SMU. So I'm definitely going to have to take out loans. And for a first-timer like me, this can be a confusing and scary process. FEAR NOT!

Even though SMU moves at a snail's pace with financial aid (I'm basing this off of the boards on TLS as well as the fact that I filed my FAFSA back at the beginning of April and have heard NOTHING from SMU since then), there are still steps that you can take to get everything on track so that when the school finally releases your decision you've got a head start.

First, head over to studentloans.gov. This is the Federal Government website all about student loans. From here you can complete your loan education, apply for loans, and fill out all of the necessary paperwork to get your loans. You will need to sign in with your pin from your FAFSA filings, so have that pin handy, or request a duplicate on the website.

First, take your loan entrance counseling. Anyone who takes out federal student loans will need to complete this and it takes 15 minutes or so if you read through everything quickly. You read a section and answer the easiest questions ever down at the bottom. Hint: almost all of the answers are either "true" or "all of the above." I'm serious.

Then, apply for your GradPLUS loan. It's a simple, four-step process, and you'll get an immediate decision as soon as you submit. If you're not approved they'll let you know what steps you need to take to get approved, and give you the forms for a cosigner and all of that good stuff. If you are approved, they'll send your approval directly to the school within 24 hours, so that way when your FinAid decision comes through there's not a waiting period before you can accept it!

After filing an application for a GradPLUS loan, you should complete Master Promissory Notes (MPNs) for the loans you'll be taking out. Most people will need two -- one for the GradPLUS loans and one for the Stafford loans. Most of the forms autofill if you've already filled a loan application, and it really doesn't take the 30 minutes that the website estimates. Mine took, like, five? Eight for both...

Make sure you print and save these MPNs in a very safe location, as a lot of your high risk data is on this form.

In total, the whole process, from logging on to getting approved to printing and filing my MPNs took less than half an hour. They make it far too easy to sign away your life to the government these days.