Enhancements help colleges communicate with student-loan borrowers

New USA Funds Debt Manager features help curb loan defaults

INDIANAPOLIS — USA Funds®, the nation’s leading education-loan guarantor, announces enhancements to its comprehensive Web-based communication tool that makes it easy for postsecondary institutions to stay in contact with student-loan borrowers to promote successful loan repayment and prevent past-due loans and defaults. Based on comments from users, USA Funds Debt Manager® now offers features that include the following items:

  • Schools can download from USA Funds Debt Manager to the school’s financial-aid-management system borrower data, such as name, birth date and recent demographic changes, as well as communication-history codes and comments. This new feature permits schools to include in their FAMS documentation of activities on borrower accounts.
  • Updates that schools make in USA Funds Debt Manager to a borrower’s primary contact information will update the data systems that support the USA Funds guarantee, including those used by default-prevention staff. These automated, real-time updates can enhance contact with borrowers to prevent loan default.
  • The tool now also includes a link to the National Student Loan Data System from its Person Summary Screen. This feature will provide schools access to additional loan information.

Additional enhancements to USA Funds Debt Manager, effective in late January 2007, will include the following items:

  • USA Funds Debt Manager will be able to accept data from other lenders and loan servicers using proprietary file specifications. This feature will permit schools to communicate with a broader population of their students and former students.
  • New communications strategies based on the tool’s delinquency-aging report will help schools easily keep in touch with borrowers in repayment cohorts with minimal effort and staff.
  • More robust user help will include “Show Me” tutorials that will guide users through key activities.

“The rapid adoption of USA Funds Debt Manager by 500 postsecondary institutions demonstrates that this tool is seen as a powerful resource for preventing loan defaults,” said Denise B. Feser, USA Funds vice president, customer relations. “We’re continuing to fine-tune the product to make it a simpler and more-effective tool for campus financial-aid staff.”