Media Coverage

Business Is Up in Keeping Default Rates Down (July 7 2010)

“‘To really be an advocate for the borrower, you need to be a neutral third party’, says Paul Combe, president of American Student Assistance, an agency that guarantees student loans. ‘If it takes you 15 minutes to explain an income-based resolution and it only takes 2 minutes to talk about a forbearance, it’s going to go in that direction’…Companies that help colleges cut down on their defaults maintain that their foremost goal is to be advocates for students.…But Mr. Combe and other loan-industry experts say a desire for expediency can sometimes outweigh the best of intentions.…The fear is that colleges and the companies they hire can have a ‘very limited view of success’ that involves staving off high default rates only during the period being measured, says Michael T. Ryan, vice president of borrower services for American Student Assistance. It’s winning the game of ‘beat the clock’.”

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Financial Aid: Help Is on the Way (July 8 2010)

“For most families, the transition should be relatively seamless, says Allesandra Lanza, a spokeswoman for American Student Assistance, a Boston-based nonprofit that helps students and families manage higher education debt.‘People might not be aware that some of these changes have occurred, but I think schools and colleges are by and large ready for this,’ Lanza says.” The article also goes on to explore the changes to in-school consolidation and Income-Based Repayment.

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SouthCoast College Graduates Face Challenging Future (June 6 2010)

“‘I think across the board, you see more and more students applying for federal financial aid, and as a result, starting to see student loan amounts really grow,’ said Allesandra Lanza, corporate public relations manager for American Student Assistance, a Boston-based nonprofit student loan guarantor. Lanza attributed this to a variety of factors, including a dramatic rise in tuition costs and college savings hit by the bad economy.”

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With Direct Lending Ascendant Student Loans Adjust to New Reality (May 9 2010)

“Amid the upheaval, the biggest question mark is who will pay for borrower services, such as financial-literacy education, debt management, and default prevention, that student lenders and guarantors warned would vanish in the transition to the direct-loan program. The Education Department says guarantors and nonprofit lenders can apply for grants to provide such services under a program that is slated to receive $150-million over the next 5 years. Critics say that’s not enough to sustain the current level of services. ‘You can’t build a stable structure and business on that,’ says Paul Combe, president and chief executive of American Student Assistance, a Massachusetts guarantor. ‘It’s a one-shot thing.’ He argues that the federal government has an ‘obligation’ to finance debt-management programs over the long term. Still, Mr. Combe says, he is delighted that the conversation over student lending is finally shifting away from a debate between the direct-loan program and the bank-based program and toward how to best help students manage their debt. His agency was one of a handful of guarantors that was reimbursed by the federal government, under a contract that expired in 2008, for its success in preventing defaults. Mr. Combe has long said that guarantors should be ‘borrower advocates,’ not debt collectors.”

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Human Capital: People on the Move (March 11 2010)

"American Student Assistance, a Boston-based nonprofit delivering higher education debt management services to students, hired Julie Ryder as the organization’s director of government relations. Ryder comes to ASA after spending more than 9 years as a congressional aide to Sen. Edward Kennedy and his interim successor, Sen. Paul Kirk Jr."

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Who's What Where (March 10 2010)

“Julie Ryder has been named director of government relations at American Student Assistance, a Boston-based student loan services non-profit.”

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One Month Later (May 11 2010)

“…in the words of one student loan guarantor (American Student Assistance), at least now the financial aid community is ‘shifting away from a debate between the direct-loan program and the bank-based program and toward how to best help students manage their debt.’ Yes, it’s about time.”

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What Does The Future Hold For Participants In The Federal Student Loan Programs? (April 1 2010)

“Meanwhile, in January, American Student Assistance (ASA) completed a major redesign of their website while highlighting their debt management mission going forward in this press release: American Student Assistance® (ASA), the leading, stand-alone nonprofit delivering higher education debt management services to students, today announced a major website re-launch and a new domain name. The move from www.amsa.com to the new domain of www.asa.org reinforces ASA’s standing as a trusted nonprofit that students and families can rely on for neutral, honest federal college loan solutions. The website refresh better aligns ASA’s Internet strategy with its public purpose mission: to help student loan borrowers successfully manage their education debt. ‘We believe this new look and feel, and explicit nonprofit identity, capture our commitment to the central issue impacting college students and their families, which is how to manage the debt that comes along with higher education today,’ said Susan Nathan, ASA’s vice president of consumer services.”

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Where's the Champion? (December 16 2009)

“At least 1 reader (Paul Combe of ASA) found yesterday’s news interesting in that headlines surrounding rising cohort default rates appeared on the same day that Treasury and Education announced an effort to increase the financial capabilities of our citizens which led him to ask the question: Where’s the champion?

‘I find the juxtaposition in this morning’s blog of the stories on the National Financial Capabilities Study and the 3 year cohort results telling. They should lead policy makers to the, what seems an obvious, conclusion that special efforts should be direct at federal student loan “consumers” to raise their financial capabilities to help them avoid the especially heavy consequences of defaulting on these loans. These borrowers are “awarded” the loan as an integral part of the federal financial assistance they need to access education. Yet when they sign for the loan, the consumer issues of monthly repayment, debt to income ratio, and their credit rating are de facto unknowable. They can’t exercise their financial capabilities without the data. And, years later when they have the data, and a reasonable financial analysis says they are in over their heads, they can’t undo the loans.

‘If the financial aid we are providing students to access education and improve their economic life is ruining the credit and blighting the economic future of a substantial number (remember you don’t have to default to ruin your credit), we have an obligation to help. If the federal government helped them get into debt, the federal government also has an obligation to help them get out of debt. Congress has supplied an array of options and solutions for federal loan borrowers. What is missing is proactive, timely, and targeted debt management communications to education loan consumers to get the right information to the borrower at the right time. The right information at the right time should include not only a list of options available, but also the financial capabilities and tools they need to make a sound consumer decision.

‘The federal student loan programs can provide a “Montessori” approach to improving Financial Capabilities. The “moments of truth” in the federal student loans (withdrawing from school, making the first payment, picking and understanding a payment option, working within a budget and dealing with financial problems, and etc.) are teachable moments. By proactively providing the borrower with the practical, hands-on tools and information they need at these moments of truth, when they actually need to use them, creates a strong learning experience. By being proactive, it helps borrowers avoid delinquency and stay in good standing. If you avoid delinquency, you obviously avoid default.

‘Yet, while we are “reforming” federal student loans, there is no real champion for debt management in Congress and the policy dialogue is buried by the FFELP VS DL argument over the source of capital.’”