Meteor Shoots into Town

Have you ever thought that you could counsel students more effectively if you had access to all of their financial aid information — but realized that assembling it would be an insurmountable task? Well, your wish and Meteor's are the same. The Meteor Project, a new initiative sponsored by the National Council of Higher Education Loan Programs (NCHELP), seeks to provide students and financial aid administrators with one-stop shopping for student financial aid information.

Meteor is an enabling technology — software and service — that gathers information from a number of sources (such as the federal Office of Student Financial Assistance, guaranty agencies, lenders, servicers, secondary markets, and alternative loan providers) and combines it in a single screen view. This means that if all of the expected participants partake in this effort, financial aid administrators and students will be able to obtain the most current information available on a student's financial aid through one web site with one logon.

Unlike the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) and the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), where the most current loan information can be weeks to months old, Meteor will provide accurate, up-to-the-minute information on a student's Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) loan status in real time. This will be possible because the Meteor software will access information directly from participants' systems.

Meteor is a remarkable project in several ways:

• Meteor began only a few months ago and has already completed the pilot phase with major users. Like its name, Meteor is traveling on an accelerated path from concept to production.
• Meteor software is expected to be fully functional in July 2001.
• Meteor will be free to the financial aid community—a gift from the sponsoring guaranty agencies and lenders.
• Institutions will be able to download Meteor software and run it from any web site.
• Meteor software will support local branding so that users may customize Meteor messages to their own look and feel. This will give customers a consistent experience at the host web site or portal.
• Meteor will implement SFA's information technology standards. Institutions will have to implement the technology used in Meteor to implement other Department of Education systems and components. Nothing new will be required.
• Meteor will provide secure access to confidential information.

Consistent with Texas Guaranteed's (TG's) mission to make the educational experience simpler and to provide innovative electronic solutions, TG is one of ten original sponsors and will be providing its loan information through Meteor. Currently, 30 NCHELP members fund the project. For more information, you can access the Meteor web site at immagic.com/meteorproject/default.htm.

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