Newsroom
Online Counseling records provide valuable information
By Beth Ziehmer
May 22, 2019
The purpose of student loan counseling requirements is two-fold: to educate borrowers and to receive updated contact information for the borrower. Therefore, it's important to retrieve the full counseling record so you have the updated contact information and references for future reference.
Schools have access to counseling records for 36 months (three years) after students complete counseling. Mapping Your Future recommends that schools log in to the secure Access Area to retrieve counseling records on a regular basis to help keep their records up to date, and to help down the road with audit requests or default prevention tasks. The counseling notification e-mails provide very little information about the record, mainly first initial and last name and completion date, so the complete counseling record will provide the best information about the counseling completion.
Counseling records completed within the last six months are accessible by clicking on the Retrieve counseling records link in your secure Access Area, with several options available to retrieve records. For example, you can use the Search link to search by SSN or last name.
If the student completed counseling more than six months ago (and less than three years ago), you may still see the counseling date, confirmation number, and student name and can request the entire record by submitting an archived records request.
Use the "Archives" link to request a date range of records that are six to 36 months old. Archived reports are only available for 10 days, so it is important to retrieve the data once it is available.
Once an Online Counseling account is inactivated, counseling types are removed, or the three years elapses, the records are no longer available.
More information about retrieving records can be found in the Online Counseling User's Guide in the Member Resources section of your Access Area.
Contact the Mapping Your Future customer care staff with questions about retrieving Online Counseling records at feedback@mappingyourfuture.org or (800) 374-4072.