Dear students,
We are delighted finally to be writing to you with good news on loans for international students. After Citibank cancelled its program last October, we’ve been in discussions with many financial services firms to create a loan program for international students who do not have US co-signers. We are pleased to announce the launch of a custom loan program with Digital Federal Credit Union that will cover tuition and living expenses for our international students. The loan terms are attractive in the current market environment: an interest rate of Prime plus 3% (with the opportunity to reduce the interest rate by 25bp if borrowers arrange for automatic repayments) and no origination fee. In order to provide these rates, Wharton will share some of the potential default risk.
This program will also be available to current first-year international students for their second year of study.
With respect to loan programs for domestic students (and those with US co-signers), the University’s Student Financial Services (SFS) Office is in the process of reviewing several proposals and will have a list of approved lenders for both federal and private loan programs within the next few weeks.
This matter has engaged Wharton and Penn administrators at the highest levels, including Penn’s Board of Trustees; we are grateful for their support of this program.
Our Financial Aid office will soon announce more details of this program.
Sincerely,
Thomas S. Robertson, Dean Anjani Jain, Vice Dean and Director of Graduate Division |