New features help borrowers qualify to defer or reduce loan payments

Web site helps student-loan borrowers avoid late payments

INDIANAPOLIS — USA Funds®, the nation's leading education-loan guarantor, announces new features on its Web site to help student-loan borrowers avoid the additional expenses they may incur when they are late with their payments. The latest enhancements to the “Loan-Payment Problems” section of the USA Funds Web site, http://www.usafunds.org/, help borrowers temporarily postpone their loan payments or reduce their monthly payment amounts.

“As a student-loan guarantor, USA Funds has a special responsibility to prevent loan defaults,” said Carl C. Dalstrom, USA Funds president and CEO. “One of the best ways to prevent defaults is to help borrowers avoid late payments in the first place. This online service helps borrowers who need to temporarily delay or to reduce their monthly payments to determine if they qualify and then apply for that payment relief.”

The new Web features help borrowers cut through the confusing array of deferment options and requirements. Borrowers can view the deferment options for which they are eligible based on the dates their loans were issued. An online “decision tree” guides borrowers to the deferment option for which they are likely to qualify. They can view summaries of the eligibility requirements for those deferment types and either download deferment-request forms or ask that the forms be mailed or faxed to them. To help borrowers file their deferment requests, the site permits them to view and print addresses, phone numbers and fax numbers for their lenders and loan servicers.

For unemployment and economic-hardship deferments — frequently requested deferment options that require submission of a form — online form “wizards” step borrowers through the completion of deferment requests and permit them to print completed forms that are ready to sign and submit to their lenders or servicers. The economic-hardship deferment-form wizard offers the added benefit of automatically calculating a borrower's eligibility for the deferment based on the borrower's income and payment amount.

For borrowers who do not qualify for deferment, the Web site offers instructions for requesting forbearance from their lenders.

Borrowers who might benefit from reduced monthly payments can view a summary of loan consolidation, use an online calculator to estimate their payments on a consolidation loan and download a consolidation-loan application.

The Web features are available to borrowers repaying loans guaranteed by USA Funds.

An additional enhancement permits borrowers who previously defaulted on loans guaranteed by USA Funds to view and print copies of key documents, including account-overview and paid-in-full letters, as well as statements of annual interest paid.