The nonprofit Iowa Student Loan has started servicing federal student loans from across the country through its for profit subsidiary. Iowa Student Loan president, Steve McCullough, says the 2010 student loan law allows non-profit organizations to create a for profit organization to service the loans.
“Through our taxable subsidiary Aspire Resources Inc, we’ve won a contract to do just that. And in that process, we’ve already added about 60 jobs here in the state of Iowa so that we can provide the customer service that these people from all over the country are going to need,” McCullough says.
Aspire runs the student loan servicing operation from West Des Moines. “Pretty much everything that a direct student loan borrower’s going to need to help them in repayment is what we’ll be doing. We’ll be making phone calls, we’ll be processing their payments, be processing deferments and forbearances, reaching out to try and help them get their loans repaid,” according to McCullough.
McCullough says they have the potential to increase their staff even more. “The first round of loans we’ll receive will be about 200-thousand borrowers. There’s the possibility that we’ll earn more accounts to service in the future as we do a good job on the ones that we receive,: McCullough says.
“If we receive more accounts in the future, then we’ll be adding more jobs.” McCullough says Aspire will be paid on a sliding scale depending on how well they handle the loans.