Federal Family Education Loan
The Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) is a United States Department of Education program that offers for private organizations to market, originate and service federally guaranteed loans, like Stafford and PLUS loans to students and their parents. FFELP is commonly known as "Direct" or DL and a complement to the Federal Direct Student Loan Program.
The private institutions that take part in FFELP include non-profit as well as commercial organizations. These can realize profits on these loans by collecting initiation fees and with an interest margin.
While FFELP donors traditionally have set their interest rates to what has been offered by the direct channels, there have been recent signals that they may be competing on price.