Federal Student Loans

Hello! Today I’m going to help you determine how much you can request to borrow in federal student loans.

These instructions are for students who are attending part-time or fewer than 12 credits each semester.

Beginning July 1st, 2026, federal student loans are subject to proration.
If you’re a returning borrower, this might mean that you’re not able to request the same amount you’re accustomed to borrowing.
The prorations are called schedule of reductions, or SOR, or just loan proration, depending on who’s referencing them.

Here’s the formula.

The short version of this is that the calculation determines what percentage of full-time you’re attending, then prorates your eligibility to that percentage of the maximum loan amount for a full-time student.

This image came from the JMU Financial Aid website, which also includes lots of detailed information about how the related legislation and how proration works.

We don’t expect you to calculate this on your own.
We created a calculator you can use to determine how much you can request.
There’s a link to it on the Blue Ridge Financial Aid website under student loans, as well as from the student loan request form.

The calculator asks you to let us know how many credits you plan to take each semester, as well as whether you’re a dependent or independent, and whether you’re a freshman or sophomore student.

Remember, because we are a two-year college, you can’t be a junior or higher.
So even if you have a bachelor’s or higher degree, or have taken enough credits to be a junior at another institution, with us you’ll always be a freshman or sophomore.

If you won’t be attending one of the semesters, you can just choose zero for the number of credits you plan to take that semester.

Let’s quickly look at a few examples. 

In this example, we have a student who’s a dependent freshman taking six credits in fall and 10 credits in spring.
The maximum amount this student can borrow is $1,381.
If this student has enough financial need to substantiate it, up to $879 of the fall loan can be subsidized, and the remainder will be unsubsidized.
In the spring, notice the amounts the student can borrow are higher
because the student is taking more credits.

In this example, the student either isn’t attending or isn’t borrowing in the fall semester and therefore has zero credits listed for fall.
The calculation for a single-semester student is slightly different than for a full-year student, but our calculator automatically triggers the correct calculation depending on whether there are credits listed for each term.
You can see here that the calculator lists only what the student will receive for spring semester.

In this example, you can see that the student is independent, so the amount available for six fall credits is higher than in the first example we looked at.
Similarly, the amount would be even higher if the student was a sophomore.

If you’re borrowing a student loan, we’ll automatically determine if you demonstrate enough financial need for any portion of your loan to be subsidized, and we will automatically make as much of your loans subsidized as we’re allowed to based on federal requirements.

All you need to do is let us know the total amount you’d like to borrow in federal student loans, and we’ll make sure that your package subsidized loans to the extent allowable by federal student law.

If you have questions about how student loans are calculated, please feel free to call, e-mail, or stop by our office anytime we’re open.

We look forward to working with you.

Hello.

Today I’m going to show you how to request federal student loans at Blue Ridge Community College.

Before we get started, let’s ask a few questions.

First, have you completed a FAFSA?
You have to have a completed FAFSA on file in order to request federal student loans.

Is there anything on your to-do list?
If you haven’t checked your to-do list,
Log in to your MyBRCC account, go to SIS, and look for the to-do list there.

If there are any outstanding items, you’ll need to take care of those before you submit a loan request. 

Finally, have you received either your financial aid notification or no grants message?

Once we finish processing your FAFSA and any items on your to-do list, we’re going to send you one of two communications. 

One, if you’re eligible for grants, you’ll receive a notification that tells you where to review your grant eligibility. 

And if not, you’ll receive a notification that says you’re not eligible for grants, but gives you instructions for how to request student loans.

Please note that the maximum allowable loan amounts have changed for students who are enrolling in fewer than 12 credits.
If you’re a returning borrower, this may mean that the amount that you’re accustomed to borrowing is different this year, beginning on July 1st, 2026.
We’re going to cover in a different video how to calculate what you’re eligible for, but for this video, we’re just going to take a quick look at how to apply.

You’ll need to complete the BRCC loan request form.

You can find it on our website at the bottom of the page for forms.

And you have to be logged in to your my BRCC account to be able to access it.

If you’re having trouble opening the form, this is very common for students who also have a personal Gmail e-mail address.

If you’re struggling to get it to open, try one of the following.
First, try using a different browser.
So if you usually use Chrome, try using Firefox or Safari or Edge.
And if that doesn’t work, you can try using a different device that’s not signed in to your personal Google account.
You could try using incognito mode in any of your browsers.
Or if all else fails, you can try logging out of all of your Google accounts, restarting your browser and/or your device, and then logging in to MyBRCC.
Once you are logged in and access the form, sorry about that, you’ll start with the information on the first page.

If you’re a first-time borrower or it’s been a few years since you’ve completed an Entrance Counseling and Master Promissory note, you will need to complete those and the links to complete those are right there on the first page of the form.

The form is going to record your VCCS e-mail address, and you’ll see that several places throughout the application.

When you go to the second page, you’re going to see a page, and it’s not all shown here, but it has a lot of information that you’ll need to read about how student loans work.

Once you’ve read that, you’ll click next to go to the next page.

You’ll see some additional information here, including a link to the JMU website that explains the legislative changes around the new formulas for calculating loan eligibility, as well as a link to the student loan calculator.

The next page of the loan request form will give you some pretty important information. 

It’s really important to note if you’re a returning borrower, because this is different than how things have worked in the past, that if you drop or withdraw from courses, you may not lose eligibility just in the current semester, but it can affect future semesters.

So it’s really, really important if you’re thinking about changing your enrollment after your loan is dispersed, that you get in touch with the financial aid office so we can see how that’s going to affect you.

From there, you’re going to answer just your basic information, name, ID number, date of birth, and so on.

And then on the following page, there’s another link to the loan eligibility calculator if you didn’t open it up before.
And you’re going to tell us how many credits you plan to take for fall and how many credits you plan to take for spring.
And if the answer is zero, that’s fine.
And then you’re going to let us know how much you’d like to borrow for the fall semester and then again for the spring semester.

Here you’re going to check that you understand each of the items that are listed here, and then you’re going to type your name to be your official signature.

If you have questions, we’re here to help.
Give us a call, send us an e-mail, or drop by our office whenever we’re open.
We look forward to working with you.