Posted Date:March 26, 2010
| Author: | Jana Hernandes, Service Director, Operations, Federal Student Aid |
Subject: Loan Servicing Information - Questions and Answers About Servicing Federally-Owned Loans (Updated March 20, 2015)
March 20, 2015 Note: We updated this announcement by removing the attachment titled “Questions and Answers About Servicing Federally-Owned Loans” because it contained outdated information.
Note: For updated guidance related to Q&A 3.2 within the “Questions and Answers About Servicing Federally-Owned Loans” attachment, see the October 19, 2010 Electronic Announcement titled “Loan Servicing Information – Reducing Amount of FFEL Purchased Loans (Updated April 4, 2012).”
In Electronic Announcements posted on the Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) Web site on August 28, 2009 and September 16, 2009, we explained our transition to additional servicer support for Title IV loans that the Department of Education (the Department) owns and services. Currently, these federally-owned loans include William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) Program loans and Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program loans purchased by the Department under the authority granted the Secretary in the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act (ECASLA) and through methods commonly referred to as a "PUT."
In early September 2009, the Department began assigning FFEL Purchased Loans to the four new servicers on our federal loan servicing team-FedLoan Servicing (PHEAA), Great Lakes Educational Loan Services, Inc., Nelnet, and Sallie Mae. Since that time, we have posted a number of Electronic Announcements in our "Loan Servicing Information" series that provide information about our servicing of federally-owned loans and the four new federal loan servicers. In addition, at the Federal Student Aid Conference in December 2009, we presented information and fielded questions about our approach to servicing federally-owned loans.
In the attachment to this announcement titled "Questions and Answers About Servicing Federally-Owned Loans," we provide an up-to-date overview of how we are currently servicing federally-owned loans. While we have addressed many of the questions and answers in previous communications and conference presentations, some are late-breaking and provide information that we have not yet communicated. The questions and answers are organized in sections as follows:
Section 1 - Approach to Servicing Federally-Owned Loans
Section 2 - New Federal Loan Servicers
Section 3 - Servicing FFEL Purchased Loans
We have also included four resource documents, generally titled "School Support Services," as attachments to this announcement. These documents are extensions of the information we provide in Q&A 2.1 and focus on delinquency/default prevention that each of the new federal loan servicers is providing to customers. After reading Q&A 2.1, please review these documents.
We appreciate the community’s ongoing support of our approach to servicing federally-owned loans.