Overview |
About
This Webpage |
Useful Contacts
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Tools
Access Group
Access Group Helps Students Become
Wise Borrowers
Access Group offers a comprehensive program of borrower education
services that serve to educate students about personal finance,
debt management, and loan repayment. These services are available
online, in print, and in face-to-face presentations. Topics
include entrance counseling, exit counseling, federal loan
consolidation, budget planning, developing and maintaining
good credit, credit reporting, credit scoring, identity theft,
and life after graduation.
Go to AccessGroup.Org
for details about Access Group’s borrower education
program and WiseBorrower® Services.
EdFund
Building Futures™ is EDFUND’s comprehensive
approach to default prevention. The program includes a variety
of innovative tools, products and resources categorized into
six modules. Two of the modules, Default Prevention Essentials
and Money Management, will be especially useful as
you undertake The Department’s initiative – the
New York Statewide Default Prevention Project. To view EDFUND’s
products and services that will aid you with this project
click on:
www.edfund.org/schools/default_prevention/Building_Futures/building_futures.html
From the Building Futures™ main page you can
click on any of the modules to see a list of available products.
For example, if you click on Default Prevention Essentials
and then click on “View Product Catalog” you will
be shown a list of products. One product you may wish to learn
more about is EDFUND’s Cohort Management System (CMS).
The CMS will assist you with Late Stage Delinquency Assistance
by managing your telephone and letter contacts.
Your EDFUND Client Relations Manager can help you assess
your school's current circumstances and identify areas that
could be enhanced or expanded. From there, you can create
workable solutions from the many resources found within the
Building Futures™ modules. To begin working
on The Department’s New York Statewide Default Prevention
Project call Tom Kokis, EDFUND Client Relations Manager at
718.849.4075 or e-mail him at TKokis@edfund.org.
Goal
Financial
URL: www.GoalFinancial.net
Debt Management Services
Default Prevention Seminars – teach
borrowers about their education financing options and responsibilities
including repayment, deferment and forbearance, consolidation,
credit scores, the importance of maintaining good credit,
consequences of default, guidance on federal and private loans.
One-on-One Counseling – face-to-face
counseling for individual students: addressing their specific
needs; free credit report access; in-depth analysis of student
loans.
Lunch-and-Learns – creative way of
encouraging students to attend financial literacy programs
in an informal setting over lunch; topics catered to school’s
specific needs.
Exit Counseling – small interactive
group setting will guide students in developing successful
strategies to achieve financial goals including student loan
repayment options.
Assistance Completing Federal Forms
Additional Services Available to Financial Aid Offices
On behalf of the school, Goal Financial will:
- Contact pre-delinquent borrowers
- Contact borrowers in default
- Provide counseling to at-risk students to prevent delinquency
- Help students cure defaulted loans
- Train financial aid office staff on successful debt management
strategies
HESC
Financial Awareness and Consumer Training
for Students (FACTS)
Did you know that:
- 75% of college students have credit cards?
- Most students have at least 3 cards?
- Many students are accumulating debt at a record pace—averaging
around $3,000 in credit card debt alone?
With credit more available than ever, students need a financial
education in order to make informed personal finance decisions
and to use credit wisely. That's why HESC has created the
Financial Awareness and Consumer Training for Students (FACTS)
program. FACTS will help you with your efforts to increase
student awareness of the dangers of accumulating too much
debt and of the benefits of saving more of the money they
do have. FACTS may even help lower your school's default rate.
The FACTS Program
FACTS is a financial literacy curriculum for students. It
is presented as modules, each targeted toward a different
age level or concentration. The presentations are rich in
content yet easy to understand. Created using straightforward
language, they cover practical topics such as:
- How to Manage Credit Cards
- The Use of Credit vs. Debit Cards
- Spending Plans
- Personal Financial Management Skills
- Avoiding Identity Theft
Customized To Your Needs
The downloadable FACTS modules are available to you at any
time.
Once downloaded, they can be delivered when you want, where
you want. You decide on the best venue for your students,
i.e., at orientations, at entrance or exit counseling sessions,
and/or as part of a residential life program. You decide if
you'd like to deliver the presentations yourself or ask your
HESC representative to work with you. If you decide to conduct
your own presentations, each module incorporates features
to aid you and your staff in personalizing them, such as:
- Space for inserting your school’s logo
- Detailed speaker's notes
- Two formats, Microsoft PowerPoint and PDF
HESC Advocate Unit
The HESC Advocate Unit helps your student borrowers who have
withdrawn or dropped below half-time study, with the goal
of keeping them from defaulting. Staff members contact borrowers
while they are still in their grace period and up to 30 days
of delinquency, counseling them about the importance of completing
their education, repayment options, forbearance, and types
of deferments.
Reach the unit by phone, toll free, at 1-888-215-0196.
Email the unit at loanadvocate@hesc.org.
Mapping
Your Future™
Mapping Your Future is a national collaborative, public-service
organization of the financial aid industry – bringing
together the expertise of the industry to provide free career,
college, financial aid, and financial literacy information
and services for students, families, and schools via the web.
Mapping Your Future offers various default prevention and
financial literacy tools, as described below.
Online Student Loan Counseling
You can meet federal loan counseling requirements and help
borrowers understand education loan obligations with the convenience
of Mapping Your Future's Online Student Loan Counseling. OSLC
also enhances the loan management education of the borrower
by actively involving them in the counseling - making OSLC
an important default prevention tool. Furthermore, it gives
you the opportunity to spend more time with those students
who need individual assistance.
General money management features/tools:
- 10 Steps to Financial Fitness
- Budget Calculator
- Show Me the Future
- http://showmethefuture.org
- Help your students prepare for their future by introducing
them to this financial literacy and life skills game.
- Student loan features/tools:
For financial aid professionals:
- Default Prevention and Debt Management on Campus
National
Student Loan Program (NSLP)
The National Student Loan Program helps reduce student loan
defaults through a comprehensive approach of borrower education,
default prevention, and our successful default rescue program.
Visit NSLP online to view our wide variety of products and
services to help you and your students.
www.nslp.org/vnews/display.v/ART/41b4a18984230
The Default Aversion Assistance Report (DAAR)
is available online to help schools identify and assist delinquent
borrowers. Schools can also generate letters and run reports.
Extended Exit Counseling is offered to Stafford
student loan borrowers during their 6-month grace period to
remind them when repayment begins and what to expect from
their lender.
The Default Rescue Program helps student
loan borrowers avoid default. NSLP personally contacts seriously
delinquent borrowers before paying the lender a defaulted
loan claim and helps the borrower work with the lender to
avoid the default. Over 60% of the borrowers NSLP contacts
avoid default. NSLP has Spanish-speaking representatives available
to help borrowers.
For more information about how to implement these products
and other helpful services, contact Customer Service at 800-735-8778,
ext. 6300, email nslpcs@nslp.org,
or visit www.nslp.org.
USA
Funds®
USA Funds® provides comprehensive default-prevention
and debt-management services to equip students to take control
of their education-loan debt, to assist them with successful
repayment, and to counsel borrowers facing payment problems
to resolve past-due loans and defaults.
USA Funds® supports campus debt-management initiatives
with a flexible financial-literacy program for college students,
debt-management consultations, a Web-based tool that helps
schools communicate with their borrowers to ensure successful
repayment, new online loan-counseling tools, and online best-practices
manuals to enhance default-prevention and student retention.
These initiatives are guided by USA Funds Default-Prevention
Council, which consists of financial-aid professionals and
default-prevention experts.
USA Funds® provides student-loan borrowers with sound
advice for minimizing and managing their education debt throughout
the loan life cycle. USA Funds® also offers a powerful
online resource that permits borrowers with payment problems
to access their account information and take action to resolve
their payment issues.
To assist borrowers whose loan payments are 60 days or more
past due, USA Funds® invests in a team of more than 200
full-time professionals, backed by the latest information
and telecommunications technology and a sophisticated predictive
model. This team works intensively to counsel borrowers about
their options for resolving their payment issues. USA Funds®
default-prevention efforts have a success rate of better than
94 percent. During the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2006,
these efforts averted 1.2-million student-loan defaults totaling
$15.8 billion.
Internet links to the above noted resources are listed below:
Comprehensive Services –
www.usafunds.org/financial_aid/debt_management/index.html
USA Funds® Life Skills – www.usafunds.org/financial_aid/debt_management/usa_funds_life_skills/index.htm
Debt Management Consultants – www.usafunds.org/financial_aid/debt_management/debt_management_consultant/eileen
muhlig.html
USA Funds® Debt Manager – www.usafunds.org/financial_aid/debt_management/debt_manager/index.htm
USA Funds® Stafford Loan Guide –
www.usafunds.org/financial_aid/debt_management/stafford_loan_guide.htm
Best Practices in Default Prevention and Retention
–
www.usafunds.org/financial_aid/debt_management/best_practices/index.html
www.usafunds.org/financial_aid/debt_management/solving_retention_puzzle/index.htm
Default Prevention Council – www.usafunds.org/financial_aid/debt_management/default_prevention_council/index.htm
Borrower assistance resources –
www.usafunds.org/borrowers/index.htm
www.loanpaymentsolutions.org/
