USA Funds, wiredscholar.com team up to assist students and parents

USA Funds Wiredscholar Offers College-Planning Help

INDIANAPOLIS—USA Funds®, the nation's leading student-loan guarantor, and wiredscholar.com, the foremost online resource for "going-to-college" information, have joined forces to help students and families prepare and pay for higher education.

Through a contract with wiredscholar.com, USA Funds offers the outstanding content and tools of wiredscholar.com, coupled with helpful information geared to each of the states that USA Funds serves as the designated guarantor of federal education loans.

USA Funds wiredscholar contains step-by-step tutorials on the entire college-planning process, including applying for college, preparing for college and repaying student loans. Visitors to USA Funds' Web site can link to USA Funds wiredscholar through the Students & Parents section.

"USA Funds wiredscholar gives students and parents online access to a wealth of information about planning and paying for college," said Carl C. Dalstrom, USA Funds president and CEO. "As a value-added service to students and parents in our designated states, we plan to provide customized information that will be of special interest to residents of those states."

USA Funds is the designated guarantor in Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Nevada and Wyoming.

USA Funds wiredscholar features information and tools in the following categories:

  • Choosing a college.
  • Funding college.
  • Borrowing for college.
  • Tips for parents.

Each section of USA Funds wiredscholar contains original college-planning content from USA Funds, with links to selected interactive tools from wiredscholar.com—including a school-comparison tool, school-affordability analyzer, free online scholarship search, and a variety of interactive calculators and checklists.

The site will offer an opportunity for student- and parent-borrowers to apply online for Stafford and PLUS loans using Web-based loan-delivery systems, including NetWizard, which offers a broad choice of lenders. Borrowers also can access NetWizard to check the status of their education-loan accounts.

Pages designed for students and parents in USA Funds' designated states will be available in the coming months.