USA Funds^® supported an increased volume of new education loans and achieved a record level of loan default prevention success during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2008. USA Funds also continued its strong support of preparation for, access to and success in higher education.

• USA Funds guaranteed $17.2 billion in Stafford and PLUS loans to help more than 1.5 million students and parents pay higher education expenses. That volume represents an increase of more than 10 percent in college financing supported by USA Funds compared with fiscal 2007.
• The volume of USA Funds-guaranteed Federal Stafford loans for students grew to more than $15 billion, an increase of 15 percent over the previous fiscal year.
• USA Funds guaranteed more than $2 billion in Federal PLUS loans to graduate and professional students and to parents of dependent undergraduate students.
• USA Funds’ 2006 cohort default rate is 4.6 percent, representing a 57-percent decline over the last 10 years. USA Funds’ 2006 rate is well below the national cohort default rate of 5.2 percent. Cohort default rates measure the percentage of all Stafford loan borrowers entering repayment in a given federal fiscal year who default on their loans by the end of the following fiscal year.
• A team of 250 default prevention professionals, supported by USA Funds, successfully averted default on nearly 93 percent of seriously past-due education loans, helping to prevent more than $20 billion in defaults on more than 1.3 million federal student loans.
• The year saw nearly 230,600 borrower counseling sessions conducted through USA Funds Loan Counselor^®, a suite of online loan counseling products. USA Funds Stafford Loan Guide^SM, which provides entrance counseling for undergraduate students, is in place at 403 schools. USA Funds Student Loan Transition Guide^SM offers undergraduate exit counseling at 466 schools. Nationwide 157 schools offer entrance counseling for their graduate and professional students through USA Funds Grad Guide^SM, which USA Funds introduced in 2008. USA Funds also recently introduced the exit counseling version of USA Funds Grad Guide.
• Nationwide more than 500 schools have implemented the USA Funds Life Skills^® financial literacy curriculum, with 310 schools ordering materials in 2008. USA Funds slated for release in 2009 an online version of USA Funds Life Skills.
• USA Funds partnered with SimpleTuition, an independent loan comparison tool, to introduce USA Funds Loan Comparison. The online program simplifies the process of selecting an education loan for students and parents, by using information provided by the borrower to compare and analyze loan options side by side. A total of 56 campuses offer USA Funds Loan Comparison, with 29,531 visits to their sites.
• USA Funds awarded nearly $8 million in USA Funds Access to Education Scholarships^® to help more than 5,300 low- to moderate-income students pay college expenses for the 2008-2009 academic year.
• USA Funds awarded $400,000 to the following national scholarship organizations that promote access to higher education for minority students: the American Indian College Fund, Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund, Hispanic Scholarship Fund, Thurgood Marshall College Fund and United Negro College Fund.
• By providing financial and staff support to fund-raising activities of these groups and the U.S. Dream Academy, USA Funds helped the organizations raise an additional $5.1 million to support scholarships and other education access programs.
• USA Funds distributed more than 500 sets of USA Funds Unlock the Future^® and USA Funds Consejos materials to schools, community agencies and faith-based organizations. The programs promote early awareness of the benefits of higher education.With updated materials being released in 2009, USA Funds Unlock the Future reached an estimated 22,160 students and family members in 2008. Geared toward Latino audiences, USA Funds Consejos reached 19,600 students and family members.

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Download copies of USA Funds’ 2008 Annual Reports to the following eight states that USA Funds serves as designated guarantor of federal education loans, and to California and Florida:

Arizona.
Hawaii.
Indiana.
Kansas.
Maryland.
Mississippi.
Nevada.
Wyoming.