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Private Loan Resources

Before you apply for a Private Student Loan, we recommend that you exhaust your eligibility for federal and state grants, and federal direct loans (Subsidized, Unsubsidized and PLUS) first. The terms and conditions of federal loans are typically more favorable than those of private loans.

To learn about the financial aid application process, visit our How to Apply page or contact the Financial Aid Office. Matriculated students with a complete Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) on file with Birthingway will receive an award letter with the maximum amount of federal grant and loan assistance available to them for the award year. This information will be very useful to you when determining how much private loan assistance you may want to seek.

What is a Preferred Lender List?

We developed a Preferred Lender List for private student loans in order to help you find the best solutions for funding your education.

Originally, Birthingway decided not to have a preferred lender list because we did not want to limit nor direct our student's borrowing choices to any specific lender. Our goal, instead, was to provide all students with tools and questions for researching lenders and comparing/contrasting loan products. However, we found over time that many of our students had difficulty navigating the private student loan world, and that it was necessary to take a more proactive step to develop a preferred lender list.

A Preferred Lender List is a published list of private loan lenders that are assessed and compiled by the institutions, and made available to prospective student borrowers. Our belief now is that a preferred lender list will provide a comparison of selected lenders in relatively consistent terms in order to reduce confusion and assist borrowers and their families in making the best-informed decisions.

Please note that Birthingway does not endorse one lender over another. We encourage our students to shop around for lenders and to feel free to select lenders that do not appear on our list. We will not deny or otherwise impede your choice of a lender that is not included on the list. We also adhere to an Educational Loan Code of Conduct with regards to our relationship with lenders.

For tools and questions to ask when researching other private student loan lenders, please read these two documents:
Questions To Ask Before You Borrow (PDF)
What To Expect When You Are Borrowing (PDF)

Lender Criteria

Birthingway sent a Request for Information (RFI) on September 1, 2012 to 11 lenders. These lenders were selected either because we had heard about them from students or through mailings/advertisements; we had worked with them in the past; other Portland area post-secondary schools included the lenders on their list; or they otherwise came up in our research of preferred lender lists. Lenders were given until October 15, 2012 to respond to Birthingway's RFI.

Birthingway developed the following criteria to assess lenders for our Preferred Lender List:

  • Lender Stability:
    • Years in service
    • Mission
    • Default Rate
    • Debt management programs
  • Loan Terms:
    • Competitive interest rates
    • Low/no fees
    • Availability of borrower benefits
    • Multiple repayment options
    • Deferment/forbearance options
  • Customer Service:
    • Ease of loan processing for borrower
    • Customer call center with sufficient hours/accessibility
    • Web-based services for borrowers
    • Financial literacy and/or struggling borrower support
  • School Relationship
    • Ease of loan processing for school
    • Marketing representative assigned to Birthingway
    • Availability of school customer service support

Preferred Lender List

To view our preferred lender list, go to the Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation (GLHEC) FastChoice website tool. Birthingway uses the GLHEC  FastChoice to help you better compare the lenders on review our Preferred Lender List.

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