Nation’s leading education-loan guarantor issues 2005 annual report

USA Funds promotes student success in higher education

2005 USA Funds Annual ReportINDIANAPOLIS — USA Funds®, the nation’s leading education-loan guarantor, has issued its 2005 annual report, which highlights the ways in which USA Funds promotes student success in higher education.

The report features the following three student-success profiles as representative of the thousands of students who benefit annually from USA Funds’ education-loan services, scholarships and outreach programs:

  • A first-generation student and immigrant from Vietnam who is using USA Funds Access to Education Scholarships® and Federal Stafford loans guaranteed by USA Funds to earn a master’s degree from the University of San Diego.
  • Two brothers who both received USA Funds Access to Education Scholarships to pursue undergraduate studies at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan.
  • A single mother who is pursuing an associate degree in nursing from Edison College in Fort Myers, Fla., while holding down part-time jobs and raising a 13-year-old son. The student is using funds from USA Funds Access to Education Scholarships as well as education loans guaranteed by USA Funds to help pay for her education.

“Student successes are the ultimate measure of the value of USA Funds’ services,” said Carl C. Dalstrom, USA Funds president and CEO. “USA Funds is honored to have assisted these students and thousands of others in their pursuit of higher-education success during the past year.”

USA Funds’ 2005 annual report highlights the following additional measures of success during the past year:

  • USA Funds’ record-setting volume of more than $20 billion in loans it guaranteed helped more than 1.4 million students and parents pay higher-education expenses.
  • USA Funds posted another record-low cohort-default rate, 4 percent. Compared with the previous two-year cohort period, nearly 1,200 fewer borrowers defaulted on their USA Funds-guaranteed loans during the most-recent period. 
  • On behalf of taxpayers, USA Funds recovered approximately $950 million from borrowers who had defaulted on their federal education loans. These collections include nearly $354 million in loan rehabilitation, in which borrowers can resolve their defaults and remove them from their credit records.
  • USA Funds awarded or supported $8.6 million in scholarships to help students pursue higher education. Included in this total are scholarships under the USA Funds Access to Education Scholarships and USA Funds Scholars programs, and grants to national scholarship organizations.
  • USA Funds’ new Web-based tool USA Funds Debt ManagerSM provided schools with a new resource for helping their students and graduates stay on the path to successful education-loan repayment.
  • New USA Funds Life Skills® materials for graduate and professional students and adult learners addressed specific financial-literacy needs of those students. Nearly 600 schools nationwide are in various stages of implementing USA Funds Life Skills.
  • USA Funds contributed $2.3 million to the Disaster Relief Fund for Postsecondary Education Students to help low-income students who have additional need for financial aid because of hurricanes in 2005.

USA Funds’ 2005 Annual Report is available online.