Accept, Reduce or Cancel Your Loans

How to accept, reduce, or cancel your loans

You must accept, reduce, or decline your loans each academic year by following these steps:

  1. Go to View/Manage My Financial Aid Information.
  2. Choose your aid year.
  3. Select the award you wish to accept, reduce, or decline (you’ll need to check the accept box before you can enter a reduced loan amount).
  4. Submit.

If you choose to reduce or decline your federal loans, you can and should do so before they post to your student account. However, it is possible to make adjustments after your loans have been awarded.

Reduce your debt by reducing your loan amount

Remember that you’ll be offered the maximum amount you’re eligible to borrow. Once you see your account charges or get your refund, you might decide you don’t need to borrow that much money. You can minimize your loan debt by reducing a loan or canceling it completely.

How to cancel or reduce your loans after they’re applied

After your loans are applied to your student account, you’ll get an email message about your right to cancel or reduce your loans. You have 14 days from the date on the message to complete the loan cancellation/reduction request form. If you don’t want to cancel or reduce a loan, just ignore the message.

You may use the loan cancellation/reduction request form to request a change to a federal student loan only if you’re the borrower. For example, a parent may not adjust a Federal Direct Loan on which their student is listed as the borrower. If you are not the borrower, your request will be denied.

You must submit the form no later than 14 days from the date on the notification email or letter stating that loans have been applied to your student account. Requests to cancel or reduce loans after 14 days will be denied.

Important information about canceling or reducing loans

If you get a refund before we receive your loan adjustment request, we’ll let you know how much you need to repay to IU, how to pay, and the deadline by which you need to pay. If a cancellation or reduction leaves an outstanding balance in your student account, you must use personal funds to pay the balance in full by the due date. Failing to do so will result in late payment fees and other institutional penalties.

We’ll process your request in a timely manner, and requests may not be reversed once processed. We may adjust your request if all or part of your loan has already been credited or refunded.

Unsubsidized loans will be reduced or cancelled before subsidized loans.

Cancelling the first loan disbursement will automatically cancel the second disbursement. Any refunds you’ve already received may need to be returned.