Tag Archives: Student

Overture Technologies and the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU) Announce Marketing Partnership for Student Loan Marketplace

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Bethesda, Maryland, and Sacramento, California (PRWEB) April 16, 2009

The Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU), representing California’s 75 non-profit accredited colleges and universities with more than 289,000 students, and Overture Technologies, the leading provider of decisioning software solutions that enable transparent, accurate and responsive lending processes, announced today a marketing partnership to create the California Student Loan Marketplace. The California Student Loan Marketplace will be an online education financing resource that connects students and their families with lenders to encourage smart borrowing practices and compare reliable private student loan terms. Prager, Sealy, & Co., LLC, a leading higher education investment banking firm, will serve as the program manager for AICCU.

“It is more important than ever for families to have clear, accurate, and easy-to-understand information about alternatives for financing college costs,” said Jonathan Brown, AICCU president. “The California Student Loan Marketplace will help provide students with affordable higher education at top institutions.”

The California Student Loan Marketplace will allow schools to provide students and their families with access to unbiased information on financing higher education. The Marketplace will offer students, families, counselors, and institutions the following:

*Reliable loan terms from multiple lenders: The Marketplace will provide what students need – the ability to compare and select reliable financing options – not “as low as” advertisements – with a complete listing of reliable loan terms.

*Preservation of borrower credit scores and privacy: The Marketplace will provide a more efficient, safer loan shopping experience for students by pulling a single credit report to match borrower information with multiple lenders’ student loan products and allowing borrowers to choose which lender receives their information.

*Smart borrowing practices: The Marketplace will provide information on how to borrow wisely, including exhausting federal loan options before turning to private loans, and using a co-signer to achieve the best rates and fees.

*Guiding students to make informed decisions: The Marketplace can be configured with school-specific information about policies, deadlines, academic programs, and grade-levels to assure that students receive custom-tailored loan options.

*Enhanced transparency: The Marketplace will be an open network of lenders that allows schools to provide students with meaningful guidance in a safe and trustworthy environment.

“Overture is pleased to work with AICCU, a trusted group that is dedicated to connecting students with lenders for smarter financing of their education at private, non-profit colleges in California,” said Peter Carroll, Overture Technologies’ vice president, product marketing.

About AICCU

Since 1955, the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities is the voice of California’s private, non-profit, WASC accredited colleges and universities for state and federal issues. AICCU schools enroll over 280,000 students annually. Founded in 1955, AICCU offers research, consolidated purchasing, and professional development opportunities to member schools; it also provides information to counselors, students, and parents about higher education in California.

About Overture Technologies

Founded in 2000, Overture Technologies is the leading provider of decisioning software solutions that enable the transparent, accurate and responsive lending processes required in today’s mortgage and higher education industries. Overture’s customers are dedicated to providing superior mortgage underwriting, servicing and securitization services and to increasing students’ access to higher education financing alternatives. Our leadership team applies decades of industry experience from leading financial services and technology firms to help our customers achieve their goals.

About Prager, Sealy & Co., LLC

Since Prager, Sealy & Co. was founded in 1987 with the assistance of two universities, higher education finance has remained a primary focus and strength. The firm’s mission is to provide clients with unparalleled personal and professional service, approaching each engagement with integrity, innovation, and insight. Prager, Sealy is committed to redefining investment banking by offering broad strategic advice with expert market execution.

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Overture Technologies Develops Online Service to Provide Students with More Secure, Reliable Way to Shop for Private Student Loans

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Bethesda, Maryland (PRWEB) April 16, 2009

Overture Technologies, the leading provider of decisioning software solutions that enable transparent, accurate and responsive lending processes for the mortgage and education finance industries, has announced the development of an online service that will be able to provide a more secure, reliable way for students to shop for private student loans. The Student Loan Marketplace is an innovative education financing tool that can help students and their families learn about and compare loan terms in an open and transparent network of lenders.

Overture plans to launch the service through marketing partners, such as associations of colleges and universities, and with participating lenders. The Student Loan Marketplace is the first multi-lender platform that allows students to review reliable private student loan terms based on their own personal and financial information instead of “as low as” advertisements for rates.

Amid the current rising costs of college and challenging economic environment, U.S. Department of Education data indicates applications for federal student aid in 2009 have increased by more than 20 percent over the same period last year. After exhausting all available scholarships, grants, work-study and low-cost federal loans, many students often must consider private student loans to finance part of the cost of education. This search has proven to be a challenge for many students, particularly those with little or no credit record, as the strain on credit markets has also resulted in a contraction of lending sources.

According to a College Board report on student borrowing trends, private student loan volume accounts for almost 25 percent of total education loan volume. The Student Loan Marketplace has been created to give students a secure, transparent resource where they can be matched with lenders to choose a loan based on the criteria that is most important to their individual situations.

*More Secure, Reliable Comparison Shopping for Students Who Are New to Borrowing

Currently, students new to borrowing are faced with a very confusing and time-consuming process to make apples-to-apples comparisons of private student loan terms from multiple lenders. If a student wishes to compare accurate rates and terms, he or she must enter personal information at each lender’s web site and consent to a credit pull before obtaining information suitable for comparison shopping, and then determine how to interpret calculations of APR and other costs across various loan products. With just one credit pull, The Student Loan Marketplace presents a side-by-side comparison of reliable loan products and terms on one page, and provides helpful explanations of terms.

“We built the Marketplace to put students in control of their private loans, giving them unprecedented insight into the details of the loan options available to them,” said David Kirby, general manager of Overture Technologies’ Education Finance Solutions group. “The Marketplace platform enables reliable comparisons of multiple private student loans in minutes – until now, no resource like this has been available.”

A New Student Lending Program for Private Colleges & Universities

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Philadelphia, PA (PRWEB) March 9, 2011

SAGE Scholars, Inc., in partnership with National Education, announces a new student lending program for private colleges & universities.

The “SAGE Tuition Loan Program” — “SAGE TLP” — is designed to help participating colleges increase net tuition revenue, lower discount rates and promote student retention.

SAGE TLP is an innovative “hybrid” program attractive to colleges because it has zero cost, is low cost for families (less than 1% APR), generates cash flow and provides third party loan management, relieving colleges of both administrative burden and compliance risk. Colleges make no capital investment and pay no administrative costs.

Participating colleges will be able to replace a portion of the tuition discounts normally issued to incoming freshmen with the SAGE TLP, converting the discounts to an asset that will eventually provide cash flow. A low-cost loan to students – less than 1% APR with all benefits obtained – replaces a portion of the merit aid that colleges currently provide. Creating a receivable to replace aid allows a college to “recapture the discount”. As some schools have pointed out, this is “found money!”

The program does NOT affect a college’s current cash flows from other sources, such as loans, federal aid, state aid and direct payment from families.

Wesley College, which has signed up with National Education, says it is replacing some grants with loans in financial aid packages for about 20% of incoming freshmen – a decision that will forestall further cutbacks in its budget and existing grants, says Eric Nelson, vice president for finance at Wesley. (source: smartmoney.com)

Colleges can use SAGE TLP as an enhanced retention tool – when changed circumstances imperil a current student’s continued attendance. A college can respond by offering SAGE TLP instead of an increased discount. Repayment can be deferred until after graduation, and a 25% forgiveness benefit will be warmly received by the student and his/her family. Colleges are able to dictate the allocation between the graduation benefit and the on-time payment benefit.

Loans can be made regardless of FICO score, giving the college the flexibility to include the product in award letters. However, only credit-ready loans will be offered in potential securitizations. Early-adopting institutions will have a guaranteed cash flow for all credit-ready loans made.

Wesley College (Dover, DE) is the first SAGE member college to agree to participate. With just under 2,000 students, Wesley has put itself in position to potentially recapture nearly $ 1,500,000 in tuition revenue over the next five years.

How much tuition revenue can an institution recapture using SAGE TLP? In addition to showing projected revenue that can be recaptured, colleges can see how this revenue equates to the number of full-paying students by visiting the on-line calculator on the National Education website.

SAGE Scholars, Inc., established in 1995, has created the nation’s largest private college savings program, with more than 190,000 participating students and 276 participating colleges (45 states) in its enrollment marketing consortium. Families who save in programs such as the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin state 529 Plans are rewarded with Tuition Reward Points – similar to frequent flyer miles – that can be redeemed for guaranteed minimum discounts if students are admitted to and attend a member college, beginning with the freshman year.

National Education, established in 1988, is a financial solution company sharply focused on developing, marketing, originating and servicing education financial products. National Education has received the “Exceptional Performer” designation from the U.S. Department of Education.

For more information, contact:

Matt Scotty at 800.345.4325 ext 5173, President, National Education Servicing

Jeff Hubbard at 800.345.4325 ext 5601, Senior Vice President, National Education Servicing

Dr. Jim Johnston at 215.564.9930, CEO, SAGE Scholars, Inc.

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