Loan Counseling Experiment and New College Completion Toolkit

The U.S. Department of Education has announced an experiment to identify loan counseling practices that help students make financial decisions around their education. Fifty-one post-secondary institutions were invited to participate in the experiment testing the effectiveness of requiring loan counseling more often than the current required one-time entrance and exit counseling.  This experiment will enable the Department to determine what types of additional counseling are most effective in boosting repayment outcomes and their impact on helping students manage debt.  The Department expects to continue the experiment for several years, collecting data on important borrower outcomes to conduct a rigorous evaluation. The evaluation will seek to determine whether the required additional loan counseling:

  • Improves students’ decision-making about how much to borrow;
  • Promotes successful repayment of students loans, including reductions in delinquencies and defaults; and
  • Has an impact on students’ academic performance, such as progression through school and completion.

A list of the institutions that will be invited to participate in the Loan Counseling experiment is below.

Additionally, today the Department is releasing a toolkit that highlights promising practices from a dozen schools across the country that are doing the hard work of increasing college completion rates for students on their campuses. The report contains links to resources for schools as they seek to promote student degree completion.

Loan Counseling Sites:

  • AR -- Arkansas State University - Newport, 2-year Public
  • AZ -- Arizona State University, 4-year Public
  • CA -- Cañada College, 2-year Public
  • CA -- College of San Mateo, 2-year Public
  • CA -- Copper Mountain College, 2-year Public
  • CA -- Los Angeles Pierce College, 2-year Public
  • CA -- Riverside City College, 2-year Public
  • CA -- San Diego City College, 2-year Public
  • CA -- San Diego Mesa College, 2-year Public
  • CA -- San Diego Miramar College, 2-year Public
  • CA -- Skyline College, 2-year Public
  • CA -- Southwestern College, 2-year Public
  • CO -- Metropolitan State University of Denver, 4-year Public
  • DE -- University of Delaware, 4-year Public
  • FL -- College of Central Florida, 4-year Public
  • FL -- Tallahassee Community College, 2-year Public
  • IN -- Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, 4-year Public
  • KY -- Big Sandy Community and Technical College, 2-year Public
  • KY -- Elizabethtown Community & Technical College, 2-year Public
  • KY -- Gateway Community & Technical College, 2-year Public
  • KY -- Hopkinsville Community College, 2-year Public
  • KY -- Jefferson Community and Technical College, 2-year Public
  • KY -- Madisonville Community College, 2-year Public
  • KY -- Somerset Community College, 2-year Public
  • KY -- Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College, 2-year Public
  • KY -- Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College, 2-year Public
  • MA -- Northern Essex Community College, 2-year Public
  • ME -- Central Maine Community College, 2-year Public
  • MI -- Glen Oaks Community College, 2-year Public
  • MI -- Lansing Community College, 2-year Public
  • MI -- Washtenaw Community College, 2-year Public
  • MO -- Missouri Southern State University, 4-year Public
  • MT -- Flathead Valley Community College, 2-year Public
  • NC -- Guilford Technical Community College, 2-year Public
  • NJ -- Bergen County Community College, 2-year Public
  • NV -- College of Southern Nevada, 4-year Public
  • NV -- Nevada State College, 4-year Public
  • NV -- Truckee Meadows Community College, 2-year Public
  • NY -- Monroe College, Proprietary
  • NY -- Monroe Community College, 2-year Public
  • NY -- New York University, 4-year Private
  • NY -- SUNY College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill, 4-year Public
  • OH -- Central State University, 4-year Public
  • OH -- Lorain County Community College, 2-year Public
  • OK -- University of Central Oklahoma, 4-year Public
  • PA -- Reading Area Community College, 2-year Public
  • PA -- University of Pittsburgh, 4-year Public
  • TX -- Texas A&M International University, 4-year Public
  • TX -- Texas A&M University, 4-year Public
  • UT -- Salt Lake Community College, 2-year Public
  • WI -- Nicolet College, 2-year Public