Every year, the Office of Financial Aid will review the lenders on the “A List” section of the website. Every other year (beginning in 2008), a survey will be sent to all approved borrowers under the Stafford and PLUS programs.

The Office of Financial Aid staff (including graduate assistants), along with selected members of administration, will review the jump pages of each lender listed on the website. Using a scale of 1-5 (5 as easiest to find), each lender will be assessed according to the following jump site “Suitability Attributes”:

• Interest rate
• Number of Borrower Benefits
• Types of Borrower Benefits
• Repayment terms
• Repayment options
• Debt strategies
• Ease of navigation
• Appropriateness

These values will be multiplied against prior year’s market share. Example: XYZ Bank obtained 23% of the market share for last year. The average “Suitability Attribute” (SA) is 3.7. The overall score for XYZ Bank is 85.1 [23 times 3.7].

Every other year, a short survey will be sent to all approved PLUS and Stafford borrowers. The survey of “User Attributes” will measure:

• Ease of process
• Frequency of communication
• Problem resolution
• Awareness of debt levels

This survey will be constructed using the same 1-5 scale as the “Suitability Attributes” and the results applied as a second multiplier.

NOTE: The alphabetical listing on the SLC website will reflect the top 10-12 lenders according to these scales. According the SLATE and the pending federal legislation “Sunshine”, a minimum of 3 lenders must be unaffiliated to the others.