USA Funds Tools Play Key Role in Default-Prevention Tactics Shared at California Conference

During a recent conference in California that focused on the success of community-college students, Financial Aid Director Melissa Moser discussed how Orange Coast College works to prevent student-loan defaults. She shared her experiences in using USA Funds Life Skills^® and USA Funds Debt Manager^®.

Moser explained several practices that have worked in the financial-aid office at Orange Coast. Among those practices are the following:

• Requiring students to achieve a 100-percent score on online entrance and exit counseling.
• Offering workshops about budgeting to all students, using USA Funds Life Skills Module 1, “Get a Grip on Your Finances — Smart Spending for Students.”
• Counseling students about time management, goal setting and stress management.
• Making financial-aid and loan-repayment presentations during class time.
• Calling students and discussing loan-repayment issues before the student is 30 days delinquent on payments.

Moser gave her presentation at the request of USA Funds Debt-Management Consultant Carole Ann Simpson, a member of the state’s default-prevention task force assembled by the U.S. Department of Education. Two other California schools also participated in the default-prevention session.

Since 2000 Orange Coast College has reduced its cohort-default rate to 6.8 percent from 9.3 percent. Moser anticipates the rate will drop from 6.8 percent, the school’s draft cohort-default rate for 2005.

“USA Funds Life Skills and USA Funds Debt Manager have played a pivotal role in our cohort-default-rate decline,” Moser says.

USA Funds Life Skills is a financial-literacy program that gives schools the tools to teach students to manage their time and money wisely while they’re on campus and after graduation. USA Funds Debt Manager is a Web-based tool that helps schools prevent student-loan defaults by connecting with student-loan borrowers during school and after graduation.

The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office sponsored the April 23-25 conference, conducted in Burlingame, Calif. About 500 student-services and financial-aid staff members from the state’s 109 community colleges attended the event. The goal of the meeting, “California Community Colleges: Student Services is the Key to Success,” was to integrate the system’s student-service-program administration and program benefits to enhance student access and success.

Also during the conference, Denise Malayeri of USA Funds^® University presented customer-service-training sessions.