Most of the largest student loan servicers offer paperless deferments, where students from Clearinghouse participating schools can request a deferment over the phone. These servicers use electronic enrollment statuses instead of paper forms. However, servicers that do not participate in the Clearinghouse still request paper deferment forms.

To ensure deferments are processed quickly, we recommend bundling deferment forms and submitting them to the Clearinghouse at the same time. Advise your students to return their paper deferment forms to you.

Forward any FFELP or Direct Loan program, Perkins, and private loan deferment forms to the Clearinghouse. Make sure all deferment forms include the following:

• Student’s full name
• Student’s Social Security number
• Student’s date of birth
• Name and address of the servicer
• Term for which the student is requesting deferment
• Student’s signature

You must include a cover sheet with the following information:

• Your institution’s full name
• Your institution’s school and branch codes
• The academic term for which you are submitting the deferments

You have three options to submit deferment forms to the Clearinghouse:

If you have transmitted your enrollment data for the applicable term, the Clearinghouse will process your deferment forms within 10 business days. You can view records of all deferments we process on the Student Reporting tab of our School Secure Site.

We might take longer than 10 business days to process your deferments if…

• Your institution transmitted enrollment data late. If your institution does not submit enrollment data on schedule, we cannot send enrollment information to your students’ servicers on time, which may cause them to prematurely contact students for repayment.
• Your end-of-registration period occurs significantly after the beginning of the term. In this case, we recommend transmitting an early registration file. This will allow us to send enrollment information almost as soon as the term begins.
• The student is enrolled in a special program. If a student is enrolled part time at your institution and part time at another institution, neither school will report the student as full time, and the student will not be considered eligible for deferment.