The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

I withdrew from the SMART program in 2014. Last year, in 2018, I finally heard from DFAS on the terms of debt collection. I owed a pretty penny and I paid all of it back last year, in one lump sum. Over the course of my two years in the program (2012-2014), I paid over $10K in taxes on my stipend an...

I think where things might get ugly is if SMART tries to make unreasonable terms for repayment. I left during Phase 1, and I understand that I'll have to pay back a lot of money. I made a mistake accepting SMART, and I'm willing to pay the consequences. However, it seems unreasonable that I was forc...

Thanks, Larry, for updating us based on the information that you have. Can you post anything here if you have more information in the future (such as discussions of how this will be handled or any inkling of a timeline)?

I emailed the SPO asking about timeline, payment options, interest charged, internship payments and the like for payback. This is the response I got: The total funds expended on your behalf under your SMART scholarship award can be found by logging into https://smart.asee.org/award. If you choose to...

Btw, any updates from people who have already withdrawn on the "debt collection begins in early 2014..." ?

I am most likely going to leave at the end of my internship this summer. Realistically, I have a couple more years before I finish my PhD and there's no way I'm wasting five years of my life at my SF. I am curious if they will charge for the full amount of the debt. Two issues: 1) I will have worked...

Not yet, but I figure they left out the $1200 for health insurance, so we can just add that to the total amount. Otherwise the rest of the form is the same.

I have a personal contact there, and today I will talk on the phone with a SMART scholar who is placed there. Sounds pretty cool so far. Hopefully things will work out, fingers crossed.

I may have an opportunity to switch facilities to SPAWAR - Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (Navy). Can anybody tell me anything about it?

They definitely can't make us do an increased ratio of post-graduation service. It says very clearly in the award letter (the document we actually signed), that it's 1:1 (in 2012). However, I'm concerned about the new handbook as well. First of all, in Section 1: Applicability, it states that the ha...

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