Purdue University to Become School-as-Lender Participant in 2006

RESTON, Va., March 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Sallie Mae today announced that Purdue University's West Lafayette campus will become a Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) lender for its graduate and professional students beginning March 2006.

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Purdue has selected Sallie Mae to be the servicing partner for the FFELP School-as-Lender program. School as Lender allows eligible institutions to make loans and receive federal subsidies and secondary loan market proceeds, as well as provide competitive FFELP borrower benefits and need-based grant aid to students. Proceeds earned through the FFELP School-as-Lender program will be directed to need-based grant aid for students, providing much-needed financial assistance for Purdue University-West Lafayette students, said Joyce Hall, executive director of Purdue's Division of Financial Aid.

"Participation in the FFELP School-as-Lender program will enable us to create a need-based aid pool to help provide access for needy students who wish to realize the promise of a Purdue degree," Hall said. "The excellent servicing relationship we currently enjoy with Sallie Mae will allow us to give borrowers the best customer service possible for loan servicing and delivery of funds."

Purdue University-West Lafayette and Sallie Mae will bolster a nine-year partnership and provide a comprehensive benefit package to eligible borrowers, Hall said. Eligible graduate and professional student borrowers who select Purdue as their FFELP lender will receive Sallie Mae origination and loan servicing. More than $20 million in federally guaranteed loans is issued annually to Purdue University-West Lafayette graduate and professional students; the majority of loan processing for the 2006-2007 academic year will commence June 2006.

"We are thrilled to have the opportunity to bring our products, technology and service to these students and to provide them with a new source of funding," said Lisa Mitchell, president of Sallie Mae Higher Education Sales for the Central Region. "We are very proud to be a longstanding Purdue partner and now to help graduate students apply for and receive a total package -- covering all of their education finance needs -- from a single source."

West Lafayette graduate and professional students who choose Purdue as their FFELP lender will receive a competitive borrower benefit package that matches what undergraduate borrowers can currently receive from Purdue Employees Federal Credit Union. Purdue University will pay the 2 percent FFELP origination fee charged to Stafford loan borrowers on loans issued on or after July 1, 2006. Qualified borrowers will be eligible to receive a rebate of 5 percent of the loan principal after only 12 on-time payments. The loans will be serviced by Sallie Mae and guaranteed by USA Funds, the nation's largest student loan guarantor.

As part of the agreement, Purdue students will benefit from new technology solutions that streamline and simplify existing financial aid application and delivery processes. OpenNet, Sallie Mae's student loan delivery platform, will be used to speed loan processing time and to bolster communications both within the financial aid office and across departments, Mitchell said.

SLM Corporation , commonly known as Sallie Mae, is the nation's No. 1 paying-for-college company, managing nearly $123 billion in student loans for 9 million borrowers. Sallie Mae was originally created in 1972 as a government-sponsored entity (GSE) and terminated its ties to the federal government in 2004. The company remains the country's largest originator of federally insured student loans. Through its specialized subsidiaries and divisions, Sallie Mae also provides debt management services as well as business and technical products to a range of business clients, including colleges, universities and loan guarantors. More information is available at http://www.salliemae.com/. SLM Corporation and its subsidiaries are not sponsored by or agencies of the United States of America.

Purdue University, Indiana's land-grant university, was founded in 1869. More than 38,000 students, from all 50 states and 130 countries, are enrolled at Purdue's West Lafayette, Ind., campus. Purdue's system wide enrollment is more than 69,000 students. At its West Lafayette campus, Purdue offers 7,400 courses in more than 500 undergraduate majors and specializations.

USA Funds is a nonprofit corporation that works to enhance postsecondary- education preparedness, access, and success by providing and supporting financial and other valued services. USA Funds annually guarantees more than $20 billion in loans for students and parents throughout the nation and serves as the designated guarantor of federal education loans for eight states: Arizona, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Nevada and Wyoming.