Loan Funding Adjustments
Students may sometimes find that the amount of loan funding they originally accepted needs to be adjusted for a variety of reasons. Federal student loans are flexible and in most cases, can be adjusted up or down during the academic year. Alternative/private student loans may be more restrictive and students should contact their lender for additional guidance.
Most adjustments are processed upon request by the Financial Aid Office within one week. Anytime a change is made to your aid package, you will receive an automated email from our office alerting you that a change has been made. Most changes will not require student follow up but if you need to take specific action on your aid package, you will receive a separate email from our office with more information about next steps.
Increasing Loan Funding
If you originally declined federal student loan funding that was offered on your aid package but find during the academic year that you need to request some/all of that declined funding, contact our office for assistance. This may require that you submit a new Graduate PLUS Loan Application at studentaid.gov but the Financial Aid Office will let you know if that is required.
Changes to federal loans cannot be processed once an academic year has ended due to federal regulations prohibiting loan originations outside of a student's enrollment dates. We encourage students to submit loan increase requests and required Graduate PLUS Loan Applications by May 15th to ensure that any loan processing can be finalized before the end of the academic year.
If you have borrowed private/alternative student loans and wish to increase the loan, contact your lender to confirm that you are able to increase the existing loan or whether you need to apply for a new loan. Then contact our office for more information on next steps.
Returning Loan Funding
If you find that do not need all of the loan funding you originally accepted, you can return the funding to your loan servicer via the Financial Aid Office. Students who return federal student loan funding will have any accrued interest and origination fees on the returned amount canceled by your federally-assigned loan servicer as long as the funding is returned within 120 days of when it originally disbursed (i.e. was paid out to your student account). Students who want to return alternative/private student loan funding should first contact your lender to determine whether accrued interest and/or fees can be canceled and what, if any, applicable return timeframes apply.
Once you are ready to return excess loan funding, notify the Financial Aid Office by sending an email to financialaid@law.uchicago.edu from your UChicago email account and include the following:
- Your name and UChicago student ID number
- How much you would like to return and the quarter(s) from which to return the funding
The Financial Aid Office will return the relevant funds and/or notify the lenders to reduce or cancel subsequent disbursements and then follow up with you via email to confirm.
If the loan funding that will be returned has already disbursed to your student account but is not currently reflected as a credit on your student account, the return will result in a balance due to the University. You will subsequently need to make a payment to pay the balance due to prevent a hold on your ability to register for courses in future quarters.