The Meteor Network
Submitted by Tim Cameron

The Meteor Network, a valuable service of the National Council of Higher Education Loan Programs Inc. (NCHELP), assists students and schools by providing aggregated, timely and accurate financial aid information. The Meteor Network is a free tool that allows schools, students and other users to access financial aid award data from multiple sources in real time. The software that powers the network is the result of a collaborative effort of the Federal Family Education Loan Program community to provide financial aid professionals and borrowers with secure, online access to loan information.

Meteor continues to grow in importance as student aid volume increases and access to accurate and timely information becomes mandatory. As a result of recent regulatory, legislative and program changes, the percentage of students with multiple loan servicers is expected to increase.

Because the Meteor Network can aggregate data directly from the data source, schools have a real-time tool to complete the loan certification and counseling processes. Using the Meteor Network provides education loan borrowers with an excellent way to track and manage their debt from federal and private loan providers—in a single view.

Meteor is unique in its capability to deliver borrower information from multiple sources, which can then used as a value-add to existing web services by customizing and incorporating that data with the data provided by the other web services.

At a time when many schools and student borrowers will likely need to manage debt with multiple lenders and/or servicers, the Meteor technology provides a way for them to gather their loan information in real-time from multiple providers. Meteor technology also powers several other tools that are currently offered to schools and students are powered by this technology:

• Mapping Your Future
  • Online Student Loan Counseling – Students can access their federal and private loan information during their exit counseling sessions. This access provides students with much more meaningful exit counseling sessions.
    
    
  • School Access Provider – Mapping Your Future schools can access data on the Meteor Network directly from Mapping Your Future’s secure web site. They simply enter their user IDs and passwords. This process provides schools with a program- and participant-neutral site to access all data available to the Meteor Network.
    
    
• The National Student Clearinghouse
  • LoanLocator — This tool provides colleges and students with access to 100 percent of outstanding FFELP loans and Federal Direct loans, in addition to billions of dollars in private student loans at no charge. LoanLocator with Meteor enables colleges and students to track and manage their federal and private student loan debt and to receive detailed information in real time.
    
    
  • Campus Based Authentication — Institutions enrolled in the Clearinghouse’s free online Student Self-Service program also can provide their students with access to Meteor data. The Clearinghouse uses campus-based authentication to provide access to Meteor and its other Student Self-Service offerings from a school’s web site.
    
    Campus-based authentication provides greater access to valuable debt management, default aversion and other tools and services by using a school’s authentication process to gain access to the Meteor Network and Clearinghouse services.
    
    
• Additionally, several Meteor participants have incorporated data from that network into other customized applications, to provide students and financial aid professionals with information about the location of their loans, detailed contact information for their providers, and aggregated details of outstanding debt — including interest rates detailed repayment information and more.

Meteor Network traffic continues to increase as more and more organizations provide access for students through standard Meteor implementations and through integrating customized applications into current online services. Already this year, Meteor usage has more than doubled as compared to the same time period last year. By early 2007, Meteor had realized a usage increase of more than 600 percent in the year since students first gained access to the service.

Currently 14 Web sites provide access to the Meteor Network—and that number continues to grow. Schools even have the option of installing the software on their systems to provide direct access to their students.

“Meteor continues to lead the way in provision of open access to a borrower’s data for schools and borrowers. Especially now, at a time when many borrowers are obtaining federal and private loans with multiple lenders or servicers, Meteor provides a way to access all of that information within a single view. Through its unique abilities, Meteor has demonstrated its value as a default aversion tool, and is an excellent example of how the student loan industry has worked together for the benefit of schools and borrowers,” said Dick George, Chairman of the Meteor CEO Steering Committee.

Meteor is a prime example of a successful collaboration to implement a leading-edge solution for the benefit of schools, and for the benefit and protection of borrowers.

For more information about the Meteor Project, please visit www.MeteorNetwork.org. Or, for information about membership and implementation, please contact Tim Cameron by e-mail at meteor@nchelp.org.

Meteor is a collaborative effort within the student aid industry to simplify and consolidate access to student financial aid information. Sponsored by FFELP providers, and coordinated by the National Council of Higher Education Loan Programs, the Meteor software provides open, non-proprietary, real time access to all available aid information for a student, and aggregates it for display to students and Financial Aid Professionals. For additional information visit www.nchelp.org/meteor.htm or contact Tim Cameron at meteor@nchelp.org.

NCHELP represents a nationwide network of guaranty agencies, secondary markets, lenders, loan servicers, collection agencies, schools and other organizations involved in the administration of the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). NCHELP members promote student access and choice for post-secondary education and training. Over the past 35 years, FFELP lenders have provided more than $300 billion in student loans. More information is available at www.nchelp.org.