New online course offers financial-aid overview for lenders
USA Funds expands online training for financial-aid and education-lending professionals
INDIANAPOLIS — USA Funds®, the nation’s leading education-loan guarantor, has enhanced its online-training program for financial-aid and education-lending professionals. USA Funds has introduced three new online courses, including the first of several planned courses for education-lending professionals. The new courses cover the following subjects:
Financial-Aid Overview for Lenders. This introductory course for education-lending professionals provides an overview of the federal financial-aid programs for students attending postsecondary-education institutions. It steps learners through the processes of calculating financial need and awarding student aid.
FFELP Loan Counseling. Financial-aid administrators are required to provide loan counseling to all federal student-loan borrowers. This course reviews loan-counseling requirements and additional counseling suggestions from the U.S. Department of Education. It also explores ideas for delivering effective loan counseling.
Helping Students Manage Their Finances. This course prepares financial-aid administrators to counsel students about the importance of managing their finances, especially by helping them create and use budgets. The course helps learners design a method for delivering budgeting information to their students and offers budgeting tools from the USA Funds Life Skills® financial-literacy program.
“The new lender course is an excellent tool for new education-lending professionals or for those who are unable to attend one of our Student-Loan Boot Camp sessions,” said Elaine Yednak, USA Funds lender-operations manager.
Later this year, USA Funds will offer four additional online courses for education-lending professionals. Upcoming courses will cover the guarantee process, the loan-disbursement process, default prevention, as well as claim filing and post-claim recovery.
In addition to these new online courses, USA Funds recently updated its entire online-learning catalog. Contents of the 28 courses now reflect information for the 2006-2007 academic year and the most-recent changes in the federal student-loan program. USA Funds will update the curriculum again to include any formal guidance from the U.S. Department of Education regarding legislative changes to reauthorize the Higher Education Act.
Staff members at more than 200 postsecondary institutions have taken one or more of USA Funds’ online courses, and more than 80 percent have demonstrated gains in knowledge after completing the training. Courses are offered without cost to eligible postsecondary institutions and education lenders.
The online training is part of a comprehensive array of professional-development tools that USA Funds provides to promote effective administration of federal student-aid programs. Other components include USA Funds’ twice-yearly Financial-Aid Workshops, webcast training, customer-service training, training customized for individual postsecondary institutions, and a speaker’s bureau of expert presenters for campus or conference events.
View additional information about USA Funds' training programs.