DEFAULT RATE INFORMATION
EA – August 20, 2013 – (Loans). Default Rates for Cohort Years 2006-2010
The release of the four types of student loan default rates for the 2006-2010 five-year period is disclosed with this EA. This information is useful for aid administrators to be aware of and more fully appreciate the impact of student loan defaults over time. In addition to the familiar 2-year and 3-year cohort default rates (CDR), the budget lifetime default rate (BLDR) and the cumulative lifetime default rate (CLDR) are also described. The BLDR is the projected percentage of loans (FFEL and DL Stafford Loans) originated in a given federal fiscal year that will default during a projected 20-year life of the loan cohort. This percentage is what is used when the president makes annual federal budget projections. The CLDR is the percentage of all FFEL/DL loan types (i.e., Stafford, PLUS, Grad PLUS, and consolidation loans) that enter repayment in a given federal fiscal year and that now have defaulted as of the end of the most recent fiscal year for which data is available. This rate provides a performance tool to analyze the risk of defaults over the life of a loan and thereby, the projected true costs associated with potential defaults. Interestingly, while the 2-year CDR consistently showed an annual increase during the five-year period from 5.2% to 9.1%, the BLDR ranged from 15.9% to 17.6% over the five years after having peaked at 17.9% in the 2009 cohort year. The CLDR increased less than one-half of one percent from 10.1% to 10.7% when looking at the first year compared to the last year of the review period, although the rate had hit as high as 16.1% in 2008. (Note: The 3-year CDR is only available for the last year of this five-year comparison. The 3-year CDR for 2010 was 13.4%.) It is important to keep in mind that these different default rates may not be used to compare one category of default rate against another, except the two cohort default rates, i.e., the 2-year and 3-year CDRs. This is due to the fact that the three different categories of default rates are looking at different data in the calculation of the default rates. That is, the CDRs reflect the percentage of borrowers in default, the BLDR is a projected percentage of dollars that will be in default, and the CLDR is a calculated percentage of loans in default.
EA – September 16, 2013 – (Loans). FY 2011 2-Year Official Cohort Default Rates Distributed September 16, 2013
This notice announces that ED released the FY 2011 2-year official cohort default rate (CDR) notification packages. The notice provides details of the contents of the CDR packages and informs that the appeal date began on September 24, 2013 for the FY 2011 2-year CDRs.
If a school finds that there is data it believes to be inaccurate, it must file an appeal to correct the data. There are a number of different items used in the CDR calculations that may be appealed. These various items have individual appeal deadlines of various lengths, typically ranging from 15-30 days from the date the appeal process opened (September 24, 2013).
EA – September 23, 2013 – (Loans). FY 2010 3-Year Official Cohort Default Rates Distributed September 23, 2013
Schools are informed of the release of the FY2010 3-Year official cohort default rate (CDR) notification packages. Schools had to have been enrolled in eCDR in order to receive the notification packages. If a school was not enrolled in eCDR at the time of the notification packages distribution, the school will need to access the data via the NSLDS Professional Access Web site. The deadline for appealing any information in this CDR package began October 1, 2013. Depending upon the specific item being appealed, the deadline for appeal may range from 15-30 days from October 1, 2013.
EA – September 30, 2013 – (Loans). National Default Rate Briefings for FY 2011 2-Year Rates and FY 2010 3-Year Rates
In this EA, ED provides “briefings” on the FY 2011 2-year national default rates, as well as the FY 2010 3-year rates. This data provides comparative information among the various sectors of postsecondary education. Schools with small numbers of student borrowers entering repayment and/or that have few students that take out student loans should use caution when interpreting the information provided in the briefings.
