Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency
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The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, or "PHEAA", headquartered in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania but with regional offices throughout the Commonwealth, is the quasi-governmental agency in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that administers several post-secondary student financial aid programs. PHEAA administers the Pennsylvania state grant program for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and serves as a coordinating body for other grant programs administered by other state agencies. The Agency also serves as one of several student loan guarantors in the United States for the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), under the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended. It also has a loan servicing operation, for student loans that it owns and for lenders in which they contract to service loans. Once a small student loan guarantor with a volume of approximately 5,000 student loans in 1964, it now manages more than $33 billion in total assets and serves nearly four million students through its state grant, guaranty, servicing, and financial aid processing. The Agency has consistently been listed by the US Department of Education as having one of the lowest default rate among all major guarantors through highly successful default prevention initiatives.
In the past ten years, the Agency has experienced tremendous growth through expansion of its lending operations through developing relationships with neighboring states such as West Virginia and Delaware, and with schools throughout the country (and in Puerto Rico) for loan servicing and guaranty services. As a lender of its own right, the Agency created a national presence for itself under the name "American Education Services". As a result, the Agency is frequently now referred to as "AES/PHEAA".
AES/PHEAA is also active in the secondary market for FFELP loans.
As a quasi-governmental agency, AES/PHEAA's Board of Directors is comprised mostly of members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, with one appointee typically a college president. The Board does not have an appointed representative or ombudsman for student/borrower interests, nor does the Board contain a financial aid professional as a formal member.
AES/PHEAA is in the top ten in loan volume of guarantors throughout the nation.
AES/PHEAA's motto, stemming from its statutory creation in the 1960s, is "Creating Access to Education".
