Financial Awareness Counseling Tool
When you first borrowed federal student loans, you were required to complete online entrance counseling before your loans could be disbursed. Financial awareness counseling is part of an ongoing effort to help you "put all the pieces together" by providing tools and information (while you are attending school) to assist you in managing your finances.
Topics covered in this step by step guide include:
- Your current loan balance
- How to plan ahead, spend wisely and borrow less
- Tax benefits for education
- Protecting your credit and identity
- Estimated monthly repayment amounts under various repayment plans
- Pros and cons of loan consolidation
- Loan forgiveness, deferments and forbearance
Online financial awareness counseling
To begin your online financial awareness counseling session, visit the Federal Student Aid website, sign in with your FSA ID and select "Complete Loan Counseling." Then select " Financial Awareness Counseling." The process will take approximately 20 to 30 minutes.
- Please note that you must complete the entire session once you begin. If you close your browser before receiving confirmation of successful completion of the session and then return later, you will need to start over from the beginning.
Once you have successfully completed the session, your To Do List in CAESAR will be updated to “Completed!” within 5 business days.
Your tuition and fees can be viewed on the Student Finance website. The following resources in CAESAR may also be helpful in completing the session:
- Northwestern University Customer Account at My Account > View My Real-Time Account.
- Estimate of Costs link at Financial Aid > Accept/Decline Financial Aid.
- Student loan totals at Financial Aid > View NU Financial Aid History.
Click on the third tab "Debt Summ - Loan Type" at the top of the page.
Note: When you sign in to the financial counseling tool, your total federal student loan debt from all institutions will be retrieved from the National Student Loan Data System(NSLDS). You may add any loans that you expect to borrow in the future. This will provide a more realistic estimate of your total loan debt and monthly payment amounts.