USA Funds Web Site Can Help Students and Graduates Manage Education Loans

Anne Fischer, USA Funds^® debt-management consultant, offers financial-aid administrators tips for guiding student-loan borrowers through the tools on USA Funds’ Web site that can help borrowers manage their education debt.

Your student-loan borrowers have a wealth of information available to them online. By pointing them in the right direction, you can help your students and graduates access what they need to successfully repay their education loans while you make the most of the time you have to counsel them.

Students tell us they often prefer self-service options they can use when it’s convenient for them. And, with the wide use of e-mail, instant messaging and cell-phone texting, we know they are comfortable communicating in an electronic environment.

With that in mind, the USA Funds Web site offers resources that can help your borrowers find a required form, a crucial telephone number, or their loan status and repayment options. Those resources are available whenever and wherever borrowers need them.

Check loan status
The site has a section devoted solely to borrowers. When your students and graduates click on “Check Loan Status” they can review the status of Federal Family Education Loan Program loans guaranteed by USA Funds and other guarantors. You can suggest that they check their loan totals at the beginning of each term so they can closely track the total amount of their education debt.

Get budgeting tips
In the “Attending School” section, borrowers also can access tips for cutting expenses and living within a budget. They can explore their repayment options in the “Loan Repayment” section.

Calculate payments
Calculators also are available to help them determine their best repayment options and whether they should consider consolidating their loans. If borrowers track their education-loan debt each year, they can use the calculators to understand how their monthly payment changes with each additional education loan. They also can determine the amount of their monthly payments once they graduate or leave school.

Get back on track
If borrowers get behind in their loan payments, Loan-Payment Solutions can help. Your current and former students can review the status of their loans, get advice about how to avoid extra costs, and access addresses and phone and fax numbers for lenders and servicers. They also can learn whether they qualify for a deferment, and — if they don’t qualify — learn the steps they must take to request a forbearance from their lenders.

View and print forms
Helpful forms are available in both English and Spanish. Borrowers can find and print deferment and forbearance forms; applications for Federal Stafford, PLUS and Consolidation loans; and loan-cancellation and loan-forgiveness forms.

More online help for schools, borrowers
USA Funds also offers a variety of other online tools targeted to schools and borrowers to help with preventing default — from the USA Funds Debt Manager^® communication tool, to the USA Funds Loan Counselor^SM product for entrance and exit counseling.

To learn more about how you and your borrowers can make the best use of the USA Funds Web site and other USA Funds online tools in your default-prevention efforts,  please contact me by e-mail or by phone at (866) 497-8723, Ext. 8131. Or, contact your regional debt-management consultant.