Harvard University yesterday announced a new partnership with the Harvard University Credit Union in which international graduate and professional students – including MBA students at Harvard Business School – will be eligible for private education loans without obtaining a U.S. co-signer.
The new agreement, which follows on the heels of similar announcements by Wharton, the University of Chicago, Yale and Darden, among others, comes as a relief to international MBA students who have faced uncertainty around how to fund their study on U.S. campuses as credit markets have dried up and earlier loan programs have been cancelled.
According to the Harvard release, the partnership with the Credit Union represents the second time this year that the university has secured a new source of funding for its international students after previous major lenders withdrew from the market. In late February, Harvard entered into an agreement with JPMorgan Chase that would also provide its international graduate and processional students with access to no co-signer loans.
“Our overall objective is to ensure that a Harvard graduate education remains accessible to talented students regardless of where they live,” Dan Shore, Harvard’s chief financial officer said in a statement. “The agreement with the Harvard Credit Union, combined with the recently completed agreement with JPMorgan Chase, creates multiple lending options for our international graduate and professional students at a time of significant uncertainty in the global credit markets.”
The Credit Union partnership increases loan alternatives for international students that don’t require a co-signer. As part of the agreement, the Credit Union also will offer private loans to domestic graduate and professional students at Harvard.
Specific terms of the new loan programs have not yet been announced. Clear Admit will stay on top of future developments at HBS as well as at other top schools that have yet to announce solutions for their international students. We will provide additional information in this space, so stay tuned.
