Schools’ Test of USA Funds Loan Counselor Components Yields Positive Results
USA Funds® school-customers have completed the testing of USA Funds Student Loan Transition GuideSM, and of enhancements to other features of the USA Funds Loan CounselorSM suite of online-counseling products. The pilot program began in April and concluded in June.
Exit-counseling test results
The pilot program centered around USA Funds Student Loan Transition Guide, USA Funds’ online exit-counseling tool for undergraduate students. Students completed a total of 284 exit-counseling sessions using USA Funds Student Loan Transition Guide at 12 schools during the test period. Students reported that the concepts presented were easy to understand and retain.
Pilot participant Judy Cuellar, student-loan counselor at Harding University, was pleased with the results of the testing. Cuellar noted, “The information shared in the exit counseling was outstanding and far superior to what we were using before.”
Forced borrower entrance counseling
Also as part of the testing, new borrowers were forced to complete online entrance counseling with USA Funds Stafford Loan GuideSM prior to applying for a Stafford loan online using OpenNet’s borrower interface. During the testing, 334 borrowers from three schools completed this process successfully.
Cuellar also was impressed with the forced borrower entrance-counseling process for students at Harding. “This feature made a huge difference with our students,” she said. “It helped the students know and understand that they must complete entrance counseling before applying for a new loan and could do both in one sitting.”
School notification of counseling results
Harding University successfully downloaded both entrance- and exit-counseling results using the File Transfer Protocol process. The FTP process automatically pushes entrance- and exit-counseling results to the financial-aid office to be stored or uploaded to its Financial Aid Management System.
You must contact your USA Funds Services account executive to be set up for the FTP process.
Guarantor notification of exit-counseling results
Additionally, USA Funds successfully uploaded exit-counseling results to the National Student Clearinghouse during the test period. USA Funds is participating with the Clearinghouse to submit borrower-contact information — such as permanent address, next of kin, and employer name and address — collected during the exit-counseling process. The Clearinghouse then will distribute this information to all the guarantors identified for each borrower. By participating in this process, both USA Funds and the Clearinghouse are helping schools fulfill the requirement to notify each borrower’s guarantor of the borrower’s post-college contact information.
The USA Funds Loan Counselor components recently tested are now available. For additional information about USA Funds Loan Counselor, contact your USA Funds Services account executive.