I scoured the internet to determine the specific moment in time when I will actually lose my interest-free status on my student loans, and the answer I've come across is that interest begins to accrue the first day of the first month following your last day of classes. So if your last day of classes was April 5th or April 21st, the National Student Loans Service Centre starts calculating interest on your loans on May 1st.
Most people who graduate think that interest doesn't start accruing until the first day of the seventh month after their last day of classes (i.e. November) but this is not the case. Your first payment is due six months after graduating, but interest is being calculated during the entire time.
Student loans are composed of a federal portion and a provincial portion. Loans are generally split as 70% federal and 30% provincial, but this can vary for each person.
The interest rate on federal student loans is prime + 2.5%. Since prime right now is 4.75%, that means the federal portion of my student loans will be accruing interest at 7.25% in two short days. Yikes.
The provincial portion of the student loans will have different interest rates depending on the province.
British Columbia - prime + 2.5%
Alberta - prime + 2.5%
Saskatchewan - prime + 2.5%
Manitoba - prime + 2.5%
Ontario - prime + 1%
Quebec - prime + 0.5%
New Brunswick - prime + 2.5%
Nova Scotia - prime - 1% (yes, that's a minus, not a plus)
Newfoundland and Labrador - prime
Prince Edward Island - prime + 2%
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Oh oh looks like you have a spammer commenter hey? I didn't realize the interest kicked in before the payments - good on you for finding this out. I just started paying back last month, but these loans are my lowest interest loans :) Not a good perspective when I am thankful it is only 7.25% as opposed to 10%!
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