Student Lending Analytics Blog

Sallie Mae's Pioneer Credit Recovery Top Performer For Federal Loan Collections

From InsideARM:

Performance rankings are out for debt collection agencies under contract with the U.S. Department of Education and once again Pioneer Credit Recovery, Inc. and Coast Professionals outperformed peers in their respective categories.

This time, however, immediate rewards to top performers go beyond bragging rights. Pioneer, of Arcade, NY, and Anaheim, Calif.-based Coast Professional each received a greater number of new accounts than their peers when the education department issued new placements this past weekend. The allocations are proportionate to the agencies’ overall performance between October, 2009 and March 31, 2010, the first few months of the new student loan debt collection contract.

What Exactly Did Happen To The Student Loan Settlements Collected By AG Cuomo?

From the Wall Street Journal: 

"New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has touted student-loan reforms as a marquee achievement of a tenure that has put him on a path toward the governorship.

Yet two-and-a-half years later, $13 million he collected as part of a settlement with lenders and schools to be used to inform students about financial-aid options remains unspent."

The AG's office had requested bids in May 2009 but apparently no decisions have been made on how the funds will be spent:

"Mr. Cuomo's office began to solicit bids for a Web site, a call center and public-service ads in May. The request for proposal's projected start date is Jan. 1, 2010. The plan for the Web site is to contain objective side-by-side comparisons of loans."

Why Is For-Profit Sector Selling Off This Morning?

Symbol	Last Trade		Change		Volume	Intraday	Related Info
APOL	12:24PM EDT	57.99	3.51	5.71%	3,448,024
ESI	12:24PM EDT	104.90	5.80	5.24%	1,172,404
DV	12:24PM EDT	62.11	4.59	6.88%	2,004,910
COCO	12:24PM EDT	15.95	0.96	5.68%	4,506,423

Note: 
APOL = Apollo Group (parent of University of Phoenix)
ESI = ITT Educational Services
DV = DeVry
COCO = Corinthian Colleges

Market watchers are attributing the drop to this article from Inside Higher Ed "Comparing Higher Ed To Wall Street":

Which Schools Experienced Largest Growth In FAFSA Filings In 1Q Of 2010?

Think proprietary and community colleges.  Of the almost 700 schools that had over 5,000 FAFSA filings in the first quarter, these twenty-five schools all experienced over 50% growth in FAFSA filings on a year-over-year basis:

Will Greek Debt Crisis Spur Action on Financial Reforms?

I couldn't help but note the irony of the headlines at WSJ.com this evening:

And The Results Are In....

I spotted the results of the National Financial Capability Challenge, a test to measure high school student's financial literacy, in this essay penned by Geithner, Jarrett and Duncan in the Huffington Post:

"More than 2,500 teachers and 76,000 students in all 50 states participated in the voluntary exam, which shows interest is strong. But the scores were disappointing. The average student is just squeaking by with 70% correct. Students failed to answer basic questions about credit cards, car insurance, and compound interest. This shows we have a lot of work to do."

Why Is Five And Six Years The New Normal For College Completion?

I was just having this conversation about this very topic and thought it was important enough to include "Finish in Four" as part of my 140-character tweet about advice on paying for college.  So, how does the NY Times Freakonomics blog answer the question "Why Does College Take So Long These Days?"

"American college students, particularly male students, have been slower and slower to finish college over the past 30 years.  A new working paper by John Bound, Michael F. Lovenheim, and Sarah Turner suggests the trend is due to rising costs of education.  Demographics and academic preparedness don’t explain the trend, but the authors found evidence in support of the increasing cost hypothesis: both increasing student-faculty ratios and cohort size are linked to increasing time-to-degree, particularly in “non-top 50 public sector” schools.  The authors also found that students are working more hours in response to rising costs.  Low-income students and students at less-selective institutions are particularly vulnerable to the trend."

Sign of Times: Tuition Increases At State Universities For 2010-11 Coming In At Mid-To-High Single Digits

A sampling of recent headlines (see post from earlier this month for additional data on trends in tuition increases):

• Forbes recently released a College Tuition Risk List to rank universities based on their likelihood of increasing tuition levels: 

"Five of the 10 schools on our high-risk shortlist are part of the University of California system. Despite the recent approval of a 32% tuition increase that will force many UC in-state students to pay roughly $10,000 in tuition and fees for the next school year, we predict still more pain for a system that's supported by a state with a 49% budget gap and has a ways to go before it charges its in-state students as much as, say, the University of Vermont ($13,554)."

What's New Peer Models Are Evolving To Help Cover The Cost of College?

Here are some new developments which show how the peer financing market continues to morph over time with one provider, People Capital, providing their origination platform to facilitate traditional private loans while several other companies move more towards more of a donor model: 

• People Capital partners with Access To Money (ATM) to provide private student loans solution.  People Capital will provide the origination platform and their credit analysis tool, the Human Capital Score (from People Capital's blog) and ATM will provide their business development skills:

Financial Literacy In the News

It's Financial Literacy Day today and April is Financial Literacy month so lots of news to compile this week:

• Syracuse University financial aid director Youlanda Copeland-Morgan sees transformation in  financial aid's role in assisting students (from Syracuse.com):  "Traditionally, financial aid professionals are most recognized for one thing: helping students pay for college. But now more than ever, we are also seeing the growing need to counsel students who are in way over their head with personal financial issues."
  • Syracuse has rolled out an array of services including: