Defaulted Student Loans

Private Lender Collection Efforts Often Inadequate Gao ID: HRD-87-48 August 20, 1987

GAO evaluated the Department of Education's and guaranty agencies' policies and procedures in paying default claims under the Guaranteed Student Loan Program to determine whether they adequately protected the federal government's financial interest and minimized unnecessary insurance costs.

GAO found that: (1) although most of the guaranty agencies developed standards for collecting loans and filing claims, Education never reviewed them; (2) agency standards were inadequate to ensure prompt collection of defaulted loans; (3) agencies poorly enforced claims paid by lenders without standards; (4) interest costs varied widely among the guaranty agencies, since the average time between delinquency and claim payment ranged from 148 to 455 days; and (5) an average delay of 30 days in processing claims would increase federal interest costs by $4.1 million.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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