05/12/2005
OGSLP is Inspired by its New Early Assistance Initiative!

A new day is dawning for OGSLP as we embark on a very exciting endeavor by customizing our efforts to better meet the needs of our borrowers and clients! Our new focus will be on Early Assistance, a default prevention initiative for borrowers! We will also be providing additional services to our schools.

In our Early Assistance campaign, we will be working with our schools and lenders to target student borrowers who are still in their grace period, have just entered repayment, have dropped out of school, or have transferred from one school to another. We want to counsel borrowers on all aspects of the loan process so they will be more confident of the process when their required repayment begins. Our early contact with borrowers should allow for better borrower education using our "We Can Help!" philosophy.

A study recently released by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education indicates that “Students who take out loans for college and then drop out are more likely to default on their loans and face economic hardship than their counterparts who graduate with debt. Borrowing remains a sound investment for most students, but many who borrow and then drop out appear to have lost the bet.”

According to Wayne Sparks, Default Prevention Manager, “This study validates the need to provide students with early assistance, helping them understand their options and teaching them about the financing of their education.”

OGSLP began a pilot project with Student Assistance Corporation (SAC) approximately a year ago to work different segments of our default aversion portfolio. We will further utilize the already strong relationship with SAC by having them handle OGSLP’s entire delinquent account portfolio to continue to improve our cohort rate reduction efforts. Our default prevention team will continue to be available for needs related to our borrowers, schools, lenders or servicers, and will have the time to redirect their efforts to include our new Early Assistance initiative.

"We are really excited about our new Early Assistance initiative! We will be one of very few guarantee agencies to offer this program, and we want it to be the best," said Wayne Sparks, Default Prevention Manager.

Some of the services that will be offered by OGSLP to our schools are training sessions on default prevention techniques, deferments and forbearances, and a default management manual is available to assist schools whether they have new or seasoned default management staff. We can also help schools utilize their current staffing to tailor inventive and unique default prevention efforts for their borrowers, including the best ways to forecast and prevent cohort rate defaults. We can also be of assistance with exit counseling presentations and other default prevention activities. We will continue to look for new and innovative ways to provide debt management tools like our postcards, posters and management articles.

OGSLP wants our extra efforts to complement the strategies that our schools already have in place. Working together, we can make a bigger difference in the area of cohort rate reduction. We believe that the student loan industry is changing toward “Repayment, a Priority” and we hope these changes will better position OGSLP borrowers and clients for the future.