Having diverse payment options available — such as interest-free recurring payments or student loans — can be an important factor for increasing access to your school. If you’re a career training program without Title IV funding, though, you may be wondering how a student loan for your school would work. Below, we take a look at Climb’s process for your prospective students, from initial application to funding, and break down what they and you can expect to find at each step of the way.
Step 1: the application
The first step of a student loan is the application. This can vary from lender to lender, but for private lenders in general (like Climb), your students will want to make sure they have their personal information and program information on hand when applying. Many private lenders will also pull their credit, as approval is often based on an applicant’s credit history — however, with Climb loans, we only perform a soft credit pull upon the initial application. We don’t perform a hard pull until a loan is funded, so your students can apply to check their rates with no impact to your credit score!*
Then, once an application is submitted, your admins will be able to use our school dashboard to stay up-to-date on applications, request any necessary updates, and reach out to our team with comments and questions.
Step 2: the loan documents
After an application has been approved, the student will be sent several documents containing important information about their loan. These include the Approval Truth in Lending Disclosure, which has a breakdown of what they’ll pay and when payments will be due; the Master Promissory Note, where they can find all the responsibilities they’ll have as a borrower and all the terms of the loan they’re agreeing to; and an Auto-Debit Authorization Form (ACH), which authorizes automatic loan payments to be made from their bank account. If they have a co-borrower, they’ll also receive a Notice to Co-Borrower, which contains all the necessary information about cosigning a loan.
In the dashboard, you’ll be able to see an applicant’s status and which documents (if any) still need to be signed. Your students will want to read all these forms carefully before signing, and once they do, their application fully submitted!
Step 3: sending the funds
After all the necessary forms are properly signed, the loan will be finalized. The next step is for the student’s enrollment to be verified by your school in the dashboard and for funds to be sent. While for some loans, money is sent to the student and it’s up to them to give the tuition to you, Climb sends funds directly to schools. So, after the loan is finalized, your school simply needs to verify students on the enrollment verification date, and your students won’t need to take any action until it’s time for to start making payments.
Interested in adding more payment options for your students?
*Climb performs a “soft” credit pull to evaluate eligibility, but this soft credit check will not affect your credit score. A hard credit pull is only performed once the loan is accepted and funded.