Financial aid in line with federal loan rules
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ISSUE: 11/29/07 > News > Financial aid in line with federal loan rules
The U.S. Department of Education recently announced final regulations on student loans, but Belmont doesn’t have to deal with any changes or investigations.
The new regulations were a response to the Secretary of Education’s call to clarify relationships between lenders and universities, according to a press release on Nov. 1. The new regulations address preferred lender lists, inducements and various loans.
“We never received any direct investigative inquiry into our practices,” said Paula Gill, associate dean of enrollment services. “Our current standard operation procedures are in alignment with the regulations.”
The new regulations look into revenue sharing between universities and lenders, said Gill. They require universities using preferred lender lists, a small set of lenders the schools encourage students to apply to, must have no fewer than three lenders, according to the press release. Oftentimes students don’t know they can apply to other lenders.
“Belmont has never participated in a revenue-sharing relationship with a lender on student loans,” Gill said.
The university also doesn’t have a preferred lender list. Instead, it has a borrower’s choice list: a set of eight lenders suggested by student financial services. The lenders – Key Bank, Fifth Third Bank, Bank of America, SunTrust Education Loans, Edamerica, Citibank, First Tennessee and Regions – were chosen based on the benefits they provide the students.
The list of lenders can be found online, and the lenders show up in a different order every time the link is clicked showing that the university doesn’t prefer one lender to another.
While student financial services encourages students to choose a lender from the list because it speeds up the process of financial aid for the students, Belmont has always certified loans with any lender the student has selected, Gill said.
“Our goal has been to make the financial aide process as transparent as possible.”
