Nation’s leading student-loan guarantor issues 2004 annual report
USA Funds plays key roles in promoting higher-education access
INDIANAPOLIS — USA Funds®, the nation’s leading education-loan guarantor, has issued its 2004 annual report, which highlights the key roles that USA Funds plays in promoting preparation for, access to and success in postsecondary education. In addition to providing record-setting levels of education-loan service during 2004, USA Funds made important contributions in the following roles:
USA Funds is a major scholarship provider. During 2004, USA Funds either directly awarded or provided through grants to third-party organizations nearly $8 million in scholarships to promote postsecondary-education access. Through USA Funds Access to Education Scholarships®, USA Funds assisted nearly 5,100 students from lower-income households. The USA Funds Scholars program awarded 100 additional scholarships to graduating high-school seniors in communities where USA Funds employees live and work. USA Funds also awarded $300,000 in grants to three national scholarship organizations and sponsored efforts, such as National Scholarship Month, to promote additional private-sector scholarship support for needy students.
USA Funds is a technology innovator. During the past year, USA Funds invested $28 million in the research and development of enhanced loan services. This investment funded innovations, such as a special Web site to help student-loan borrowers resolve payment problems or loan defaults, a specialized Web portal for financial-aid professionals, and enhanced loan-delivery tools for campus administrators and education lenders.
USA Funds is a supportive partner to the states. As the designated guarantor of federal education loans in eight states — Arizona, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Nevada and Wyoming — USA Funds works with state-government agencies, postsecondary institutions and other nonprofit organizations to promote higher education. For example, during the past year USA Funds subsidized the production of a Spanish-language version of a popular college guide in Maryland; provided funding for programs that helped 11,500 students and parents apply for financial aid in nine states; supported 16 college-planning and career centers in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Mississippi and Wyoming; and added a college-planning Web site serving Florida to the eight existing Web sites that USA Funds supports for its designated states.
USA Funds is a trusted adviser to higher-education institutions. During the year, USA Funds’ debt-management consultants assisted 524 postsecondary institutions to strengthen their debt-management and default-prevention efforts. USA Funds enhanced its award-winning financial-literacy program, USA Funds Life Skills®, with new materials to address the unique financial- and academic-planning needs of graduate and professional students and adult learners. USA Funds hosted training for more than 3,000 financial-aid professionals and added an array of convenient online courses to help train new employees in campus financial-aid offices.
"In all of these roles, USA Funds continues to build on its 44-year-long tradition of working to help Americans reap the rewards of higher learning,” said Carl Dalstrom, USA Funds president and CEO. “During 2005, we’ll further enhance the value that we deliver to our customers and constituents by investing in powerful default-prevention programs, offering nationally respected training programs for the financial-aid and education-lending professions, and supporting programs that improve preparedness for, access to and success in higher education.”