Boston University Medical Campus
Student Financial Services

Counseling and Budgeting

ENTRANCE COUNSELING: If you receive institutional assistance, you must schedule an Entrance Counseling Session with a financial aid professional once you receive your award letter. If you receive only federal assistance, you may schedule your Entrance Counseling Session for any time after your classes officially begin or you may complete the Entrance requirement on the web using the Student Link at www.bu.edu/resources/ You must have a BU Login and a Kerberos password to use the Student Link.

Counseling Sessions are held at Student Financial Services (SFS). Appointments may be made at our reception desk at A303 or by calling SFS at 617-638-5130 or 1-877-776-6243.

Please be aware that Entrance Counseling is both a Federal and an institutional requirement. If you do not complete Entrance Counseling, your loan funds will be canceled.

BUDGETING: A student must manage their financial resources prudently. Students are allotted about $15,000 a year for living and personal expenses while officially in school. There is also a travel allowance, but it likely will not cover all the costs associated with purchasing, maintaining, and insuring a car.

Please be aware that each class within each BUMC school has a specific budget beyond which a student cannot receive financial assistance. These budgets can be obtained on our website (SPH, MED SDM) and students should use these budgets to plan expenses accordingly.

IMPORTANCE OF RECORD KEEPING: It is of utmost importance that the student, as a conscientious consumer, be proactive in managing their debt obligations. Part of this obligation means keeping accurate records for all loans borrowed. You should know:

• The name of each loan
• The name of the lender
• The name of the servicer
• The date the obligation was incurred
• The amount you borrowed
• The interest rate
• The grace and deferment periods
• The date repayment starts
• The repayment options
• The approximate minimum monthly payment

Your promissory notes are a good source for this information. Start a set of files that holds all records – papers, promissory notes, correspondence, disclosure statements – pertaining to your loans. It is imperative that you keep track of this information to avoid problems that may lead to default and poor credit. You may want to organize your promissory notes by loan type instead of by academic year.

You should not assume that our files serve as a substitute for your efforts in record keeping. SFS files are there for our use in certifying your loans and working with your lenders, but it is your responsibility to track your loans and to know exactly how much you borrowed and from whom. This is not to say that we will not assist you with your record keeping, but we operate with the assumption that you are constantly updating and managing your own files. Begin keeping your records straight now to prevent any mistakes or problems in the future.

THE FINAL THREE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER

1. Learn to live within the estimated student expense budget.
2. Read and respond to all correspondence from lenders.
3. Attend an Exit Counseling session any time you take a leave-of-absence, register less than halftime, or graduate from your BUMC program.

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