Palo Alto, California -- June 18, 2009 -- More than 58% of financial aid administrators responding to a recent SLA survey indicated that they are either "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" about the availability of private student loans for the 2009-10 academic year. These results are based on a flash survey of 187 financial aid administrators conducted by Student Lending Analytics between June 3rd and June 4th, 2009.

Here are several highlights from this survey (go to Student Lending Analytics blog to download the complete survey results):

• 58% of financial aid adminstrators were either "very concerned" (14%) or "somewhat concerned" (44%) about private loan availability for their students.
  • Aid administrators at 4-year private institutions were most concerned with 17% "very concerned" and 52% "somewhat concerned."
• 56% of respondents indicated that they would be providing students with a lender list for the 2009-10 school year.
• In terms of the lender selection process:
  • 35% of respondents indicated that they went through a formal RFI process.
  • 32% indicated that they would be using the same lenders (who are still lending) from their 2008-09 list.
  • 12% indicated that they would list all of the lenders used by their students over the past 3-5 years.
• The top three third-party sites provided by schools linking to private loan information were:
  • FinAid.org (64%)
  • Student Lending Analytics (38%)
  • Simple Tuition (31%)
• The top five strategies cited most frequently to assist students looking for gap financing were:
  • Parent PLUS loan (78%)
  • Recommend use of cosigner (73%)
  • Tuition repayment plan (54%)
  • Individualized counseling (51%)
  • State Alternative Loan programs (25%)

Posted 06/18/09 to www.NASFAA.org. Posting of press releases is done as a service to Members and does not imply endorsement or support by NASFAA. NASFAA does not review this information for content or accuracy.