Use the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) form on the FAFSA® website to apply for financial aid for college or graduate school. Many states and colleges have set priority deadlines when you’ll need to submit the FAFSA® form to be considered for the aid programs they administer. There is also a federal deadline each academic year.

Private student loans are credit-based, which means through our partnership with Sallie Mae®, they will check your credit when you submit your application. Applying for a Smart Option  Student Loan® with a cosigner may help your chances for approval. A cosigner is someone who shares responsibility with you for paying back the loan and is often a parent, but can be any creditworthy adult who is a U.S. citizen or U.S. permanent resident.

Yes. Students with a Sallie Mae® Smart Option Student Loan® that are attending at least half time can use their loan funds to pay for all of their school-certified expenses like tuition, fees, books, housing, meals, travel, and even a laptop.{{d656*}}

Parents can help their students pay for college in two ways: they can cosign a Smart Option Student Loan® or take out an M&T Bank CHOICEquity Line of Credit. These are separate loans with different features and interest rates, so parents should compare their loan options.

Students with a Sallie Mae® Smart Option Student Loan® can apply just once a year with a single credit check and funds are sent (also known as disbursed) for each term directly to your school. You can cancel future disbursements as needed with no penalty. No additional interest is charged until money is sent to your school, so you can relax, knowing you've got the funds when you need them.

A student loan with a variable interest rate can rise or fall as the market index changes, so your student loan payments may vary over time. A student loan with a fixed interest rate will have predictable monthly payments with a rate that doesn’t change over the life of the loan. 

Yes, completing and submitting a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) each year is the single most important thing you can do to get financial aid for college or graduate school, but completing the FAFSA® is not a requirement to get a private student loan. 

You can borrow to cover the costs at a participating institution, even if you're not a full- or half-time student. The loan's flexibility makes it a good choice for many situations:

• Attending school full-time, half-time, or less than half-time
• Winter or Summer classes
• Study abroad
• Professional certification courses
• A U.S. citizen or permanent resident enrolled in a school in a foreign country
• Undergraduate, career training and graduate loans: a non-U.S. citizen student, including DACA students, residing in and attending school in the U.S. (with a cosigner who is a U.S. citizen or U.S. permanent resident)

Our loan applications are subject to a minimum loan amount of $1,000. The maximum amount depends on the type of student loan requested. For the Smart Option Student Loan® and graduate student loans, you can borrow up to 100% of the school-certified expenses– however, the loan amount cannot exceed the cost of attendance less financial aid received as certified by the school.{{d656*}} For Post-Graduate loans, the maximum amounts range from $15,000-$30,000 depending on the type of loan.

It takes about 15 minutes to apply and get a credit decision. If you’re approved, you choose your student loan options, accept your loan disclosure, and the loan is certified by your school. The funds are sent (disbursed) directly to the school. The process can take as few as 5 business days from an approved application to disbursement.

A certification request is sent to your school after your loan is approved. All schools have different processes for certification - some certify daily, weekly, biweekly, etc. Most schools only certify 30 days before the enrollment period begins, even though you may have applied months in advance. Usually no actions are required from you or your cosigner during this time. We’ll keep you posted so you always know where we are in the process.

When certification is received, and after the right to cancel period has expired, your student loan is ready to be disbursed. A disbursement is funds that are sent to your school. Loan funds may be divided into multiple disbursements (usually one per semester). If you chose a repayment option that requires in-school payments, your monthly payments will begin as soon as your funds are disbursed. 

When you are applying for a student loan from M&T in partnership with Sallie Mae®, you will be transferred to our servicing provider, Sallie Mae®.

With the Sallie Mae® Smart Option Student Loan® & Graduate Student Loans, you can select from three repayment options{{d997*}} - you can choose to make payments while in school with monthly interest payments or with fixed  payments, or you can choose to defer payments until after school. No matter which option you choose, you have at least six months after you leave school (your grace period) before you begin to make principal and interest payments.