Privacy Policy Statement

This Privacy Policy Statement explains the policy of United Student Aid Funds, Inc. (“USA Funds”) (the “Company” or “We,” “we,” “Our,” “our,” “Us,” “us,” or “its”) regarding any personal identifying information you might supply to us. The Company respects the privacy of its customers and visitors to this site, and we are committed to protecting user privacy on the Internet.

We will protect personal information you share with us through this site in the same way that we protect your personal information in all the other ways in which we interact with you. We may use “cookies” to enhance your online experience. Cookies are pieces of data that we place on your computer's hard drive to help us identify you. The cookies that we place on your hard drive allow us to immediately tell us who you are when you return to the site. They are not used to collect any nonpublic personal information.

Our Web server automatically recognizes your domain name, but not your e-mail address. We do not collect nonpublic personal information from visitors to our site unless you expressly provide it to us. The information we do collect from this site (such as domain name, number of hits, pages visited and length of user session) may be combined to analyze how our site is used. This information is then used to improve the usefulness of the site.

The Company collects only limited “personally identifiable information” on this site. Personally identifiable information is information about you, such as your name and e-mail address. We gather this information to communicate with you about useful tools and resources with respect to the site and in connection with your status as a prospective student, current student or graduate. Such tools and resources may include information about scholarships, jobs, personal finance, schools, etc. We also gather this information so we can deliver information that you request and to administer the site. We do not sell or rent your personal information, and we only share such information with third parties as described in this Privacy Policy Statement.

The types of personally identifiable information about you that we collect on this site and the ways in which we use such information include the following:

• Contact and demographic information, such as your name, e-mail address and zip code. We may use this information, for example, to send you information that you request, to send you e-mail updates or other communications, to customize features that appear on the site, or to contact you about your accounts. We will send you e-mails regarding new features and functions of the site and new functionality of partners linked through the site, as applicable.

• Identification information, such as a username and password. This information helps us, for example, identify you as our customer and prevent unauthorized use of accounts or unauthorized disclosure of your information.

Status information, such as your student status and school you attend. We may use this information, for example, to send you information that may be helpful to you. The Company carefully limits and controls how we share personally identifiable information that we collect on this site. We may share this information with the following types of entities:

• With an affiliated organization. USA Funds is affiliated with Secondary Market Services Corp. – Hawaii and Northwest Education Loan Association. Affiliates of USA Funds may change from time to time due to acquisitions and divestitures. In an effort to fulfill our mission of supporting access to education, we may share your nonpublic personal information with our affiliates as permitted by federal law, specifically the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999.

• With other companies. To improve efficiency with which we provide you service, the Company has contracted with other companies and organizations to perform various business operations or provide services on our behalf. These various contracted vendors are not affiliated with the Company. As part of these business relationships, the Company will share your personal information with these contracted vendors for purposes related to site administration and other services. We require these contracted vendors to comply with strict standards of security and confidentiality, and they are not permitted to release, use or transfer any personal information you provide to us on this site to any other party for their own use. The Company also requires these various contracted vendors to maintain controls to protect your privacy including physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with federal regulations.

• In general. The Company does not sell customer lists or individual customer information. The Company will exchange certain personal information about you when it is legally required, such as in response to a subpoena and to prevent fraud or to comply with a legally permitted inquiry by a government agency or regulator.

Third parties have contributed some of the content on this site. These parties do not have access to any of the account information you provide via this site that is not publicly displayed. Some partners on the site may offer products or services to you by the use of widgets. These widgets allow us to display the partners’ product or service on our site in a format that appears to be offered through our site, but you are actually linking to that partner’s site or service. If you provide personal information through such widgets, the privacy policy of those partners applies, not this Privacy Policy Statement of the Company.

If you participate in the forum on the site, you may voluntarily display your personal information to other users. The Company is not responsible for information that you provide publicly. Such information can be seen, collected and used by others, and we are not responsible for any third party’s use of such information. If you communicate with other registered users of the site, whether through the forum publicly or through the site’s private messaging function, the Company is not responsible for such communications, or the information contained therein, including personally identifiable information shared by you such as your name, email address, address or telephone number. We cannot control how such information may be used by third parties. If you use the calendar function on the site, you may enter personal information, appointments, dates, etc. Such information will only be visible to you as the registered account user and to site administration personnel.

Unless prohibited by law, you have the right, upon reasonable notice, to view any personally identifiable information collected from you through your visits to or use of this site, to make corrections to such information, if necessary, or to request that such information be removed from our systems. You may do so by contacting us at the address indicated at the end of this Privacy Policy Statement.

Our site may also permit you to access non-affiliated sites directly from our site to provide you with value-added information, functionality or services. If you provide personal information via these sites, your information may be shared with these third-party entities. It is also important to remember that, if you link to a non-affiliated site from our site, that party's privacy policy and its terms and conditions will apply to you. Please remember that this Privacy Policy Statement applies only to the Company and this site. We encourage you to learn about each third party's privacy policy before sharing personal information with them. We are not responsible for the collection and use of information by non-affiliated companies and organizations that may be linked to this site.

The Company does not knowingly collect, maintain or use personal information from this site about children under age 13. If a child whom we know to be under age 13 sends personal information to us online, we will use that information only to respond directly to that child, notify parents or seek parental consent.

The effective date of this Privacy Statement is April 25, 2011. It replaced all prior Privacy Policy Statements issued by USA Funds or any of its affiliates with respect to this site. We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy Statement. Any such changes will be reflected in the updated version displayed on this site.

For additional information about this Privacy Policy Statement, please write: Vice President, Corporate and Marketing Communications, USA Funds, P.O. Box 6028, Indianapolis, IN 46206-6028.