Before You Begin

Before you attempt to process Direct Loans, ensure that the following general Financial Aid items are set up.

• Start and end dates for your academic year on the Aid Year Table page, which are reported to COD (common origination and disbursement) on the origination file.

• Valid terms for your careers on the Valid Terms for Career page.

  The Loan Period Start and End dates must be accurately entered on this page. When the loan origination record is built, the loan period is calculated using the earliest loan period start and latest loan period end dates from the terms contained within the disbursement plan assigned to the loan award.

• Aggregate areas for each type (subsidized and unsubsidized) of direct loan on the Aggregate Aid Limit Table page.

• Disbursement split codes and disbursement split code formulas.

  A specific disbursement split code formula is required to support the disbursement feature that allows up to 20 disbursements for both Stafford and PLUS loans and provides the ability to reserve disbursements for post-disbursement adjustments.