Meet our Exhibitors & Sponsors
NASFAA sends many thanks to our Leadership & Legislative Conference & Expo sponsors and exhibitors. Learn more about each of them below.
Ascent Funding is an award-winning student lender on a mission to revolutionize how students' access, pay for higher education, and succeed in their post-education careers. Established in 2015, Ascent is built around one guiding principle: Student loans should expand possibilities, not limit them. Committed to revolutionizing how students pay for higher education, Ascent created a new private student loan program that gives students more opportunities to qualify for a loan, with or without a cosigner. In an effort to encourage transparency and financial wellness for student borrowers, Ascent incorporates financial literacy/education into the application process as a requirement for student borrowers in order to complete and submit their application. We have a variety of financial wellness resources dedicated to students, to include over $80,000 in annual scholarship giveaways, at AscentFunding.com/Financial-Wellness and resources to help empower students to make better financial decisions today and in the future at AscentFunding.com/Resources. Students can also visit our growing YouTube channel for videos on financial tips and best practices throughout college and beyond. Ascent's recent awards include:
- Best Private Student Loan for 2021 and 2020 by Forbes Advisor and ranked among the best of across eight loan categories
- Ascent's Cosigned Loan chosen as NerdWallet's 2021 Best-Of Awards winner for Best Private Loan
- Ascent's Outcomes-Based and Non-Cosigned Loan selected as NerdWallet's 2021 Best-Of Awards winner for Best Student Loan for Independent Students
- Voted Best Places to Work by the San Diego Business Journal for 2021
Meet your enrollment and retention goals and increase student outcomes! The AuxLending Student Success Loan provides a gap funding solution for academically qualified students who have exhausted all state & federal resources, are unable to obtain a PLUS and do not have access to a traditional private loan due to the lack of a credit worthy co-signer. Colleges partner with AUXLending and invest in their students through a discounted fee structure, providing a resource to enroll and retain students. This loan is not marketed to students and is instead used as a resource by the Financial Aid Director to provide the funding needed for students who are facing a roadblock to enrollment & completion due to a lack of gap funding.
Blue Icon Advisors, NASFAA Consulting, provides high-quality consulting, coaching, training, and interim staffing services to schools across the country.
In just two short years, Blue Icon has successfully grown its team of independent consultants to include outstanding financial aid and enrollment management leaders, representing all school sectors. Our consultants have more than 600 combined years of financial aid knowledge.
Blue Icon continues to innovate and develop new services to meet the community's ever-changing needs. If you have an idea for a new service or you want to get started on a project, please complete the online request form.
Citizens Bank
2023 SILVER SPONSOR
As one of the oldest and largest financial services firms in the United States, Citizens is committed to delivering exceptional value for our customers. Sound operations and deep finance capital has seen us through more than 40 years of student lending. To learn more, visit: www.citizensbank.com/faa
For over 20 years, CMD has specialized in helping administrative departments of colleges and universities across the nation solve their service challenges. More than just a call center, CMD is a US-based, multi-platform solutions provider for University and College Administrative officers who face customer service and operational challenges.
Since our founding in 1991, Cognition Financial has helped financial aid officers put dreams within reach for over a million students and their families. Our goal is your goal. With distinctive pricing, cost reducing borrower benefits, and flexible deferment and forbearance options, we put education dreams within affordable reach. For three decades and counting, we are by your side.
College Ave Student Loans
2023 GOLD SPONSOR
College Ave Student Loans is simplifying the student loan experience so students can get on with what matters most: preparing for a bright future. As a leading lending company with a sole focus on private student loans, we're using technology and our deep industry expertise to connect families who need to cover education costs with lenders who can provide that funding. By specializing in student loans, we give our customers the attention they deserve and deliver loans that are simple, clear, and personalized for the individual: we help customers find the perfect fit. We offer competitive rates, a wide range of repayment options, and a customer-friendly experience from application through repayment.
Discover Student Loans
2023 SILVER SPONSOR
Discover Student Loans provides private student loans to students at college and graduate schools across the country. We also provide loans for parents, post-graduate loans for law and health professions students, and private consolidation loans. Loans for college and graduate school feature fixed or variable interest rates, zero fees, a choice of in-school or deferred repayment, and cash rewards for good grades. US-based Student Loan Specialists are here to help your students 24/7, and Priority Services provides personal support for financial aid offices. We believe in responsible borrowing and encourage students to maximize scholarships, grants and other free financial aid before taking loans.
Earnest
2023 PLATINUM SPONSOR
Like most people, we have seen friends and family struggle to pay for college. It became clear that in order to change the system, we needed to build something new. We launched Earnest to give every responsible borrower the chance to go to college and pay off their student loans.
Established in 1994, Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) is a nonprofit company that provides support for the administration of the Federal Family Education Loan Program as a student loan guaranty agency. ECMC provides financial education services to empower students to make informed choices about their futures.
For postsecondary institutions, ECMC offers Solutions—a suite of services that includes financial literacy, student loan repayment counseling and default prevention. Solutions expands our reach to help student loan borrowers successfully meet their student loan obligations.
Edamerica provides a host of innovative and high-touch solutions that help hundreds of higher education institutions scale to meet service demands while streamlining administrative processes. Our solutions include contact centers, student outreach and engagement, student loan default prevention, consulting and financial aid support. Case studies are available at www.edamerica.net.
Edly is a platform that connects students looking to fund college tuition with investors looking to support social impact investments in education. Edly focuses on a type of tuition funding known as Income Based Repayment Loans (“IBR Loans”). IBR Loans have been used successfully in many countries throughout the world to finance higher education. Edly is the first and only provider of this product as a primary tuition funding method in the U.S.
Compare. Certify. Disburse. In 1994 ELM was created for the sole purpose of streamlining those loan processes for Financial Aid Offices, and today, we are the only not-for-profit, mutual benefit corporation serving the campuses and loan providers who participate in private student loans. With a 95% or higher satisfaction rating from our partners over the last 10 years, we are proud of what we do for you!
Financial Aid Services (FAS), headquartered in Atlanta, has been providing consulting, staffing, and processing services for over 30 years! Our services assist institutions in improving efficiency, enrollment management, student satisfaction, and compliance in the area of financial aid.
GCOM helps higher education institutions understand and use their data to make better decisions. Our focus is helping our higher education clients develop a clear line-of-sight between their strategic goals and day-to-day operations. We design and build tailored analytics platforms to support data visualization, forecasting, and fraud analysis for data informed decision making. GCOM’s Student Success Analytics (SSA) Cloud solution supports your targeted strategies with on-demand analytics that deliver accurate insights for real-time decision making. SSA Cloud brings together all of your institution’s data to create a more complete picture of the student lifecycle and institutional health across Admissions & Enrollment, Financial Aid, Retention & Completion, Finance, and Human Resources.
Inceptia, a division of National Student Loan Program (NSLP), is a nonprofit organization committed to offering effective and uncomplicated solutions in verification, financial aid management, financial education, and repayment wellness. Our mission supports schools as they launch brilliant futures for students, armed with the knowledge to become financially responsible citizens.
Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority
2023 SILVER SPONSOR
MEFA’s mission since our founding in 1982 has been to help students and families access and afford higher education and reach financial goals through education programs, tax-advantaged savings plans, low-cost loans, and expert guidance. All of our work aligns with our ever-present goal to support the independence, growth, and success of students and families. As the authority on helping families plan, save, and pay for college, we aim to provide families with low-cost college financing solutions. The flagship MEFA Loan for undergraduate and graduate students remains one of the most affordable college financing options available. Our fixed interest rate loan allows families a predictable repayment and is accompanied by expert guidance and one-on-one service from the MEFA college planning team. MEFA Loans are available for families across the United States. Our public service initiatives also serve as a significant resource for families, providing expert college planning guidance through community outreach programs, an extensive email curriculum designed to help families navigate the college planning timeline, personalized customer service, and online information and tools. Additionally, we offer annual training opportunities to hundreds of high school counselors and college admissions representatives on college financing and financial aid.
McClintock & Associates, P.C.
2023 GOLD SPONSOR
McClintock & Associates, P.C. is a certified public accounting and consulting firm headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with a nationwide practice in the education industry, serving more than 100 schools. For more than 40 years, we have been recognized as a leader in providing service to the school industry. We specialize in financial aid audits, financial statement audits, 401(k) audits, merger and acquisition due diligence, tax consulting and preparation, management consulting, computer consulting, and financial aid consulting. Greg is a senior manager of the company financial aid department. Where he specialize in financial aid audits, Title IV consulting, Gainful employment, program and file review and 90/10 analysis.
The modern net price calculator that works for any school and every student. With Meadow, any current or prospective student can get a personalized price estimate in under 5 minutes, enabling campuses to better meet compliance, elevate cost clarity, and boost enrollment outcomes.
MOHELA
2023 SILVER SPONSOR
MOHELA is ranked nationally as a top student loan servicer based on volume of loans and dollars serviced. More than 1,200 employees work with students, schools and lenders throughout the nation servicing more than $147 billion in student loans and providing school and lender services. With a disciplined financial management approach and an awareness of the importance of stringent internal systems and customer support, we have developed a 40-year track record of excellence in student loan servicing and working with our school and lender partners in delivering essential support and services.
Ocelot
2023 PLATINUM SPONSOR
Ocelot is higher education's most-deployed and fastest-growing AI-Powered Student Communication Platform serving nearly 500 institutions. The Ocelot SaaS Platform combines text campaigns for targeted outreach, live chat for in-person support, and an AI chatbot which answered 5 million questions in 2020 alone. Students get the information they need, when they need it, to navigate enrollment, persistence, and access challenges. The Platform includes the industry's only fully compliant knowledgebase of Q&As and 2,000+ videos; human-quality multilingual capability; a patent-pending "Explore" advising feature; world-class AI training; and integrations into SIS, CRM, and other data systems for a personalized and consistent experience.
PNC Bank's approach to fiscal responsibility has allowed us to continue meeting our long-standing goal of providing customers a suite of competitively priced products, including the PNC Solution Loan® and PNC Education Refinance Loan (PERL). PNC Bank is one of the largest banks in the United States, based on deposits and branches. With approximately 2,200 branches in 19 states and the District of Columbia, PNC continues to grow geographically. As PNC Bank continues to grow and move into more communities, we will remain committed to those ideals which define us not only as a financial leader, but also as a leader in corporate and community citizenship. Contact PNC Bank at 1-800-762-1001 or online through our website at www.pnconcampus.com.
Regent Education is the leading provider of Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions that automate and simplify the financial aid process for higher education institutions offering traditional and nontraditional enrollment models. Regent’s solutions encompass the automation of financial aid management, verification processes, student financial planning, scholarship management, and state financial aid applications. These solutions offer institutions an unprecedented ability to automate the financial aid process to increase efficiency, mitigate compliance risks, expand enrollment, improve the student experience, and enhance financial management and financial aid life cycle visibility. Since its inception, Regent has packaged and delivered $5 billion in financial aid to more than 250,000 students.
Simplifying the everyday, every single day – that’s what we do. Whether it’s a lender comparison tool, private loan certification and disbursement, or having a knowledgeable loan expert available to help you, ScholarNet is the answer. Save time and reduce stress by processing your private loans securely and efficiently to provide students the funds they need. Let our student loan experts take the stress out of your private loan processing.
SightLine is a nationally certified woman-owned small business focused on increasing revenue, enrollment and retention for colleges and universities of all sizes through predictive analytics. We create customized strategies for institutions to achieve their goals and deliver over 15X ROI for our clients.
SoFi helps people achieve financial independence to realize their ambitions. Our products for borrowing, saving, spending, investing, and protecting give our more than half a million members fast access to tools to get their money right. Visit SoFi on LinkedIn and YouTube.