February 11, 2002
Meteor Development Milestone Delivered On Time
Phase II Completion On Track for 2002 NCHELP Convention Devivery
OMAHA, Nebraska —
Priority Technologies, Inc. (PTI), a
leading provider of technology solutions to the education loan community,
in partnership with the National Council of Higher Education Loan Programs,
Inc. (NCHELP), has met a major Meteor project development milestone by
releasing the first Meteor system components that can be integrated and
tested in users’ systems.
The first Meteor release, developed by Instructional Media & Magic (im+m), established the foundation of Meteor functionality. The current milestone, as defined and coordinated with the Meteor Advisory Team (MAT), establishes the full Meteor communication pathway between access providers, data providers, index providers and the central Meteor collaboration systems.
“The functionality in this release allows organizations that desire to be early adopters to establish preliminary Meteor interfaces to their existing systems,” said Tim Bornholtz, PTI’s Lead Development Engineer on the Meteor Project. “Future releases will build on this early foundation.”
The release of the full Meteor Phase II functionality is on track for delivery at the 2002 NCHELP Spring Convention. It will provide access to Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) loan information for financial aid professionals. Further developments will expand Meteor to include access for students/borrowers and may include information on Direct Loans, Perkins Loans, Pell Grants, state grants, and alternative loans.
PTI is working with NCHELP to build Meteor as a gift to
the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) community. “PTI
has committed its resources to the development of advanced technology
in the national student loan industry,” said Tom Anderson, Vice President
of Business Development at PTI. “We believe that by donating the
Meteor system development, NCHELP members will be empowered to provide
cutting edge services to their student and institutional
customers.”
“We were fortunate to find a company like PTI who has extensive experience in developing business applications using the web-based technology in Meteor,” said Brett Lief, President of NCHELP. “Their enthusiasm for the Meteor Project is evident by their commitment to make the Meteor software available by this spring.”
PTI has a full suite of training courses and transition packages available to assist organizations in the process of adopting this cutting edge technology. Please contact Tom Anderson at PTI, or refer to www.prioritytech.com/studentloans for more information.
NCHELP represents a nationwide network of guaranty agencies, secondary markets, lenders, loan servicers, collection agencies, schools and other organizations involved in the administration of the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). NCHELP members promote student access and choice for post-secondary education and training. Over the past 35 years, FFELP lenders have provided more than $300 billion in student loans.
Meteor is an open-source software product that is available to participants at no cost. Institutions will be able to download Meteor and run it from their own web site, or they may access it from a servicer, lender, school, or guarantor. Sponsored by nearly forty NCHELP members, Meteor will aggregate student-specific financial aid information from a number of distributed sources on Stafford, PLUS, Consolidation, and Perkins loans.
