Loan Default Rate & Prevention

Federal Loan Default Prevention

Although not required by the Department of Education to have a default prevention plan in place, the Office of Scholarships & Financial Aid (OSFA) at the University of Wyoming makes significant efforts in the areas of loan default prevention and debt management. This document, a part of UW’s Consumer Information, describes these efforts and presents information about the institution's loan program that helps guide these efforts.

Cohort Default Rate

Federal student loan* borrowers generally have to begin repaying their loans six months after graduating, leaving school, or dropping below half-time enrollment.  If borrowers make no payments for any period of 270 days, or roughly nine months, they will default on their student loans.

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) tracks the number and percentage of federal student loan borrowers who default on their student loans within three years of entering repayment.  This is the Cohort Default Rate (CDR).  The three-year period begins on October 1st of the fiscal year when the borrower enters repayment and ends on September 30th of the second fiscal year following the year in which the borrower entered repayment.  This is the period during which a borrower’s default affects the school’s CDR.

ED releases official CDRs for each school that is eligible to participate in the federal student loan* program once per year.  The current rates (FY 2021) were released in 2024 and the FY 2022 rates should be released in 2025.  The University of Wyoming’s FY 2021 3-year CDR is 0.0%.

*Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program or William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) Program loans


University of Wyoming’s Cohort Default Rates

Fiscal Year

2021

2020

2019

Default Rate

0%

0%

0.9%

Number in Default

0

0

19

Number in Repayment

1940

1934

2030

 


Default Prevention Plan

Institutions must implement a default prevention plan if, or when, they meet or exceed the national default rate.  At this time, UW’s default rate is well under that threshold, but we monitor it annually and will implement a plan if required.

Efforts to Reduce Default

UW - and specifically OSFA - understand that our default prevention efforts must focus on both short-term and long-term efforts to reduce both default rates among students who have received loans and are already in repayment, and default risk among those students who are currently enrolled or who will enroll at UW in the future.  We understand that this effort will combine strategies which are both targeted and general in nature.  Those currently include:

We will continue to seek additional opportunities to both reduce default rates and default risk.  If you have questions about any aspect of our efforts, please contact OSFA at finaid@uwyo.edu.


 
 
 






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