Cohort default rate
Federal student loan borrowers who make no payment for any period of 270 days will default on their student loans. Federal student loan default has negative financial consequences for the students who default and taxpayers.
To provide incentives to schools to work with their borrowers to reduce federal student loan default, the Dept of Ed calculates and releases an official Cohort Default Rate (CDR) to each school no later than September 30th of each year. Schools with low rates receive benefits and schools with higher rates are sanctioned and could lose eligibility to participate in federal student aid programs.
For schools having 30 or more borrowers entering repayment in a fiscal year, the school’s cohort default rate is the percentage of a school’s borrowers who enter repayment on certain Federal Family Education Loans (FFELs) and/or William D. Ford Federal Direct Loans (Direct Loans) during that fiscal year and default (or meet the other specified condition) within the cohort default period.
For schools with 29 or fewer borrowers entering repayment during a fiscal year, the cohort default rate is an “average rate” based on borrowers entering repayment over a three-year period. Because it takes three years to track the outcomes, the initial FY 2020 CDR for a school is not released until three years later, in 2023.
The Dept of Education publishes official cohort default rates for the past three fiscal years in a downloadable file accessible by clicking here and through a school search at NSLDS by clicking here.
See below for the previous four year’s Official Cohort Default Rates for all federal student loan borrowers attending any program at the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education.