National Student Clearinghouse® Showcases Meteor and Student Self-Service at White House Education Datapalooza

HERNDON, Va., Oct. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Student Clearinghouse® will be demonstrating their Student Self-Service(SM) and Meteor® Network  services at the White House Education Datapalooza at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Tuesday, October 9.

By using Student Self-Service through their institutions' secure portals, students are able to perform enrollment verification activities via the Internet at no cost. Student Self-Service also allows access to Meteor, the nation's only real-time financial aid tracking and debt management system. Meteor allows students to view detailed information on student loans, including repayment terms, deferment and repayment information, and loan balances. 

According to a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, there are 13 entities that currently service the student loans owned by the federal government, and that number will continue to rise. This will lead to a lack of consistency as students will get different information about their loans depending on which entity they contact. Meteor is a technology-based solution to combat these challenges by enabling students to see a unified picture of their student debt, regardless of the source – federal, state, private, and others.

The Education Datapalooza came about as a result of the Department of Education and the White House working together, as part of the Education Data Initiative, to make more education data open and developer friendly, while rigorously protecting privacy. Various federal government departments have or are holding similar events as part of the U.S. Government's Digital Government Strategy to deliver better digital services to the American people. 

About the National Student Clearinghouse
The National Student Clearinghouse (a nonprofit formed in 1993) is the unique and trusted source for higher education enrollment and degree verifications. The Clearinghouse serves as a single point of contact for the collection and timely exchange of accurate and comprehensive enrollment, degree, and certificate records on behalf of its more than 3,300 participating higher education institutions, which represent 96 percent of all students in public and private U.S. institutions. The Clearinghouse also provides thousands of high schools and districts with continuing collegiate enrollment, progression, and completion statistics on their alumni.

Through its verification and reporting services, the Clearinghouse saves the education community cumulatively nearly four hundred million dollars annually. Most Clearinghouse services are provided to colleges and universities at little or no charge, including enhanced transcript and research services, enabling institutions to redistribute limited staff and budget resources to more important student service efforts. Clearinghouse services are designed to facilitate an institution's compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, The Higher Education Act, and other applicable laws.

In addition, the Clearinghouse provides accurate, timely enrollment and degree verifications to student loan providers, employers, student credit issuers, the U.S. Department of Education, and others who access its registry more than half a billion times annually.

For more information, visit www.studentclearinghouse.org.

SOURCE National Student Clearinghouse