The way you manage your school’s cohort default rate (CDR) has a long-term effect on both your student borrowers’ and your school’s financial futures. A consistently high CDR puts you in danger of losing access to federal financial aid programs, which has immediate and long-term effects on viability.
That’s why it’s important to have a strong default management program in place to get control of your CDR before it’s too late. But where do you begin? There are three ways to manage CDR:
Outsource to a Third Party
Default Management is off your plate, but you’re still held responsible for the results.
You have no control over when your students are contacted or how often.
The provider doesn’t have a relationship with your student borrowers and doesn’t want one.
You don’t have any say in helping students decide the right repayment plan for them.
Students will not be offered a way back to school, which may be the best way for them to lower their chances of default.
Outsourcing is expensive and can be hard to justify, especially if your results aren’t improving.
Tackle In-House with Manual Processes
You have control of the process, but without the right tools, it’s extremely difficult to generate positive results.
Someone - maybe you - has to sort through complex data reports from the Department of Education and servicers to find the information you need.
Before you can start contacting students, you need to place this data in a spreadsheet that could include over 150 columns, then manually manipulate it to figure out who needs attention.
You’re constantly running behind because data from the Department of Education can change weekly and you need to update your massive spreadsheet each time.
Your in-house team must make calls, manually document notes and resolutions, and update the borrower information in the spreadsheet, leaving the process open to errors.
You feel frustrated because your CDR is not improving in spite of the many hours you’re putting into it and you don’t know how to fix it.
Implement DPS User-Friendly Tools for Your In-House Team
You have an affordable and effective tool that gives you control of the process while eliminating the guesswork and errors of faulty spreadsheets.
You own borrower outreach, leveraging the relationships you’ve already built with your students.
You can be confident your data is up-to-date and secure.
You can rely on automated campaigns to help your borrowers keep their obligations top of mind and incentivizing them to prevent default.
You don’t have to figure out priorities and can focus your time on activities that have the greatest impact on your CDR.
You can easily produce and share executive summaries to keep your school’s leadership team apprised of your diligence and progress in lowering your CDR.
Want to learn more about how PTI can help you reduce your school’s CDR and relieve an overburdened in-house team?
Call (657) 232-4353 or email info@prioritytech.com for a free consultation or more information.