Reminder: USA Funds Debt Manager Cohort-Year Date to Change Oct. 1

The federal cohort-reporting period for 2006 ends Sept. 30, 2007, and the cohort-reporting period for 2007 begins Oct. 1, 2007.

USA Funds^® advises USA Funds Debt Manager^® users that settings within the tool for Current Repayment Year automatically will change on Oct. 1. The new setting for Current Repayment Year will be 10/01/2006-9/30/2007. The 2006 cohort year, 10/01/2005-9/30/2006, will become a setting for Previous Repayment Year.

Several Communication, Report and Call Strategies, however, have a Date Entered Repayment Year Option. Current choices are Relative Date Setup and Hard Date Setup. Users may need to re-evaluate their settings to ensure that they match the cohort years they wish to target. Below is a sample of the Date Entered Repayment Year Option.

Relative Date Setup
USA Funds Debt Manager automatically will change repayment years assigned to relative-date options. For example, Future Repayment Year will change to 10/1/2007-9/30/2008, and Previous Repayment Year will change to 10/1/2005-9/30/2006. USA Funds Debt Manager users who take advantage of the Relative Date Setup and want to remain focused on the Current Repayment Year according to the federal definition do not need to change their strategy. USA Funds simply advises these users that the cohort year is changing. Those using the Relative Date Setup that want to continue working the 2006 repayment year, however, will want to change their strategy to use the Previous Repayment Year ("-1") option. 

Hard Date Setup
For users who have strategies set using the Hard Date Setup, the program will not change the date entered. So USA Funds Debt Manager users with a strategy using this option set to 2006, but who want to begin working the current repayment year, will want to change or add 2007. 

Please note that the Delinquency Aging Report requires users to enter a specific repayment year. USA Funds Debt Manager users should ensure that they have their repayment year set correctly for this report and their data needs.

More than 650 schools nationwide use USA Funds Debt Manager, a comprehensive Web-based communication tool that helps postsecondary institutions stay in contact with student-loan borrowers to promote successful loan repayment and prevent past-due loans and defaults.