USA Funds Helps Nevada Focus on Preventing Student-Loan Defaults

In an effort to assist Nevada colleges in improving their cohort-default rates, USA Funds^® helped coordinate two February workshops focused on retention and default prevention.

USA Funds partnered with the Nevada System of Higher Education, which invited financial-aid, student-services and academic-support professionals to the workshops in Reno and Las Vegas Feb. 6 and 7.

“USA Funds really geared the information toward Nevada and identified issues that affect our state,” says Sharon Wurm, director of financial aid for the Nevada System of Higher Education. Some of those issues include Nevada’s transient population, flat college-enrollment levels and high-paying jobs that require no college education.

“It was not the standard default-prevention workshop that focused on how to work your list of students who are delinquent or heading toward default,” Wurm says. “USA Funds offered different approaches and a school-wide perspective that was very valuable.”

Each daylong event focused on how student success can affect student-loan-default rates. The workshop included a presentation about retention and financial literacy as well as an analysis of Nevada’s cohort-default rate, which was 8.3 percent for 2004. Schools also worked with USA Funds representatives to develop individual action plans to address student-loan-delinquency and default issues at their schools.

“Everybody left with some sort of plan to take home with them,” says Carol Buchli, USA Funds debt-management consultant.

Some of the plans included developing financial-literacy sessions for students, teaching students about money management, offering guidance on how to be a good student, and using “early-alert” systems to help faculty direct students to support services that can help them succeed.

Representatives from the following schools attended the Las Vegas session:

• University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
• The Art Institute of Las Vegas.
• Heritage College.
• Community College of Southern Nevada.
• Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts – Las Vegas.
• Western Nevada Community College.

At the Reno workshop, representatives from the following schools took part:

• Truckee Meadows Community College.
• Great Basin College.
• Western Nevada Community College.
• University of Nevada, Reno.

Several lender representatives also attended each workshop.

Buchli says that USA Funds will follow up with schools that request assistance.

Wurm says the Nevada Association of Financial Aid Administrators is discussing the creation of a statewide default-prevention committee to continue focusing on efforts to help students succeed and repay their student loans. Any school, lender or guarantor could be a part of the committee, she says.

“I’m glad we are starting to look at a statewide effort, but now it’s up to the schools to take action,” she says. “USA Funds put a lot of work into the workshops. They were just what we needed.”