More Resources Press Release Technical Requirements

September 16, 2003

Sally Stroup, Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education, comments on the student loan defaults being at the lowest rate ever.

Clip #1:   Listen (:35)   Download(4.0mb)

Transcript:
Gregg Wiggins: The latest figures on student loan default rates are a landmark.
Sally Stroup: Because default rates are amazingly low.
Gregg Wiggins: Sally Stroup is Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education. The rate of five point four percent is the lowest it's ever been. And for the first time, all of the sixty-two hundred schools taking part in federal financial aid programs have default rates low enough to ensure they remain eligible.
Sally Stroup: The combination of student loans and Pell Grants and all the other student aid available is really helping families get through figuring out how to pay for college.
Gregg Wiggins: In washington, I'm Gregg Wiggins... for the U.S. Department of Education.

Clip #2:   Listen (:36)   Download(4.0mb)

Transcript:
Gregg Wiggins: The percentage of defaulted student loans are where they've never been before.
Sally Stroup: The five point four is the lowest rate we've ever seen since we started collecting the data.
Gregg Wiggins: Sally Stroup is Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education. Stroup gives some of the credit to improvements in the management of student loan programs and some to historically low interest rates. These low default rates are also important to the more than six thousand schools taking part in federal financial aid programs.
Sally Stroup: We consider this a success story. We have no schools that are going to lose eligibility because of default rates, for the first time.
Gregg Wiggins: In washington, I'm Gregg Wiggins... for the U.S. Department of Education.

Technical Requirements

• You need RealPlayer to listen to these audio clips. See the RealPlayer site to download the required software.

• Click on Listen to listen to the sound clips. Click on Download to download a zipped, compressed .wav file with higher audio quality.

• Suggestion: Try Listen first. If that doesn't work (e.g., if the audio breaks up, you lose your connection, or our server capacity has reached its limit), you may want to try Download and then play the clip locally on your computer's hard drive.