New online and print materials help families plan for higher education
USA Funds enhances college-planning resources
INDIANAPOLIS — USA Funds®, the nation’s leading education-loan guarantor, announces new resources to help families who need guidance about planning and paying for college.
USA Funds has developed new college-planning Web sites that feature information about higher-education agencies, programs and institutions in each of the eight states — Arizona, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Nevada and Wyoming — that USA Funds serves as designated student-loan guarantor. By visiting www.going2college.org and selecting their own states, students and parents can find information about careers and about planning for, selecting and paying for college.
The sites were developed in partnership with the National Council of Higher Education Loan Programs, a nationwide network of student-loan guarantors and other organizations involved in the administration of the Federal Family Education Loan Program, and Mapping Your Future, a public-service, nonprofit organization providing career, college, financial-aid, and financial-literacy information and services online to students, their families and schools.
In addition, USA Funds, in partnership with College Answer, the Web’s premier “Going to College” destination, has enhanced the college-planning information available on its Web site at www.usafunds.org/planning. The information includes step-by-step tutorials for choosing a college, funding college and borrowing for college, as well as college-planning tips for parents. The site also offers links to a scholarship-search engine and features, such as college-savings, Expected Family Contribution and college-cost calculators, as well as a college-search tool.
USA Funds also has supplemented its college-planning guide, “Make the College Connection,” with a list of college- and career-planning resources for each of these eight states.
The enhancements come in response to the College Access Initiative provisions of federal legislation enacted earlier this year.
“We are pleased that Congress now has codified in federal law a role that USA Funds and many other guarantors have been performing for years,” said Gregory A. Ayers, USA Funds vice president, policy and compliance. “Guarantors have been instrumental in helping families — particularly those with no previous college experience — connect with the information, services and finances they need to go to college.”
Under the College Access Initiative, a student-loan guarantor must provide a comprehensive listing of postsecondary opportunities, programs, publications and Web sites and other services available in the states that the guarantor is designated to serve by the U.S. secretary of education.