With a 47-year track record of success as an education-loan administrator, and $154 billion in guarantees, USA Funds® offers education lenders unmatched experience and reliability. USA Funds offers education lenders advantages that other guarantors simply can't match.
Guarantee-process| E-signature| Default prevention| Debt-management| Claim processing| Online tools| Leadership| Training| Loan-policy| Advisory councils| Independent guarantor| Personalized attention
Guarantee-process options
USA Funds guarantees all loans in real-time, all the time. Schools can choose to get immediate-response files for all applications or elect overnight-response files. USA Funds also supports the blanket guarantee-process, which permits participating lenders to disburse a loan prior to USA Funds' processing the request for guarantee.
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Electronic signatures
USA Funds supports electronic signatures on Stafford-, PLUS- and Federal-Consolidation-loan promissory notes. The electronic-signature process reduces paperwork, speeds the delivery of funds and simplifies the education-loan process for schools, lenders and borrowers.
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Default prevention
USA Funds invests significant resources to prevent seriously delinquent education-loan accounts from falling into default. More than 240 professionals work on behalf of USA Funds to counsel delinquent borrowers. During fiscal 2006, their efforts prevented default on more than 94 percent of the accounts on which lenders had requested USA Funds' assistance, averting nearly $15.8 billion in potential loan defaults.
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Debt-management initiatives
As part of our commitment to help postsecondary institutions achieve measurable reductions in their loan-default rates, USA Funds supports a broad range of debt-management initiatives.
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Claim processing
USA Funds accurately processes and pays lender claims, while providing the maximum period for borrowers to avoid default. Default-prevention specialists continue to work with borrowers to avert default all the way up to claim purchase. In addition, USA Funds offers Web Claim, a Web-based claim-submission process that helps lenders meet the new Common Claim standards without the programming necessary to comply with Common Account Maintenance electronic processes.
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Online tools and reports
USA Funds offers education lenders convenient online access to loan-guarantee and disbursement-status information. In addition, a wide variety of lender reports are available online through DocumentDirect. These reports cover disbursement information, borrower-demographic and enrollment-status changes, as well as PLUS credit-check results.
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Leadership and support of key FFELP initiatives
USA Funds participates in and has provided key leadership to important cooperative efforts among service providers in the Federal Family Education Loan Program. USA Funds is a member of ELM Resources and the National Student Clearinghouse, and is a sponsor of the Meteor Project and the Mapping Your Future Web site. In addition, USA Funds played a leading role in the development of the NCHELP CommonLine Network, the Common Manual initiative and the development of common forms and applications. USA Funds also has adopted Total Enrollment Processing and Common Record:CommonLine.
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Training
Through USA Funds University, USA Funds offers Student Loan Boot Camp, a two-day training experience that provides an intensive nuts-and-bolts overview of student loans. This training is geared to lending representatives who are new to education lending or those who just want a refresher on the basics. USA Funds also hosts several lender forums throughout the year. These one-day events help keep you abreast of the latest developments in the ever-changing education-finance marketplace.
USA Funds University provides online-learning courses about financial-aid, the guarantee process, loan disbursement and student-loan-default prevention. Courses include:
- Financial-Aid Overview for Lenders.
- Guarantee Process.
- Claim Filing and Post-Claim Recovery.
- Loan Disbursement and Delivery.
- Default Prevention.
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Loan-policy guidance
USA Funds' loan-policy and compliance experts help lender-customers stay on top of the multitude of regulations that govern the student-loan program. Our policy analysts are available to answer questions regarding loan policies and regulations. We offer a convenient e-mail resource—askpolicy@usafunds.org—to which customers may submit policy questions for a quick and accurate response.
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The voice of the customer
To ensure that our services meet the needs of education lenders, USA Funds hosts regular meetings of our national and state advisory councils, which include lender representatives.
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An independent guarantor
USA Funds is an independent education-loan guarantor and, except in the state of Hawaii, is not affiliated with any lender, secondary market or loan servicer. Because of our independent status, we look forward to working with every education lender to deliver the finest services to schools, students and parents. We advocate and provide financial support for the development of open loan-delivery systems that permit schools and borrowers to choose their lenders.
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Personalized attention
We're proud of our tradition of attentive, high-quality customer service. We're "there for you." Our success is built on responsive service to education lenders, financial-aid professionals and education-loan borrowers. For more information, contact our lender-relations professionals.
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