Guaranty agencies are established to guarantee student loans made by lenders and perform certain administrative and oversight functions under the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program. Guaranty agencies frequently hire servicers to administer FFEL program functions. Generally, a servicer that contracts with a guaranty agency to administer any aspect of the guaranty agency’s programs must at least annually have an audit of its financial statements (34 C.F.R. § 668.23(d)(4)) and a compliance audit of the servicer’s administration of the FFEL program loan portfolio (34 C.F.R. § 682.416(e)).

Current Guaranty Agency Servicer Audit Guide:
Guide for Financial Statement Audits and Compliance Attestation Engagements of Guaranty Agency Servicers Administering the Federal Family Education Loan Program - - Letter (PDF, 225K) Guide (PDF, 781K)

• **NEW** Dear CPA Letter CPA-21-05: Guaranty Agency Servicer Federal Family Education Loan Program Financial Statement Audit and Compliance Engagement Example Auditor’s and Practitioner’s Reports Reflecting Changes for 2018 Government Auditing Standards revision, SAS Nos. 134 140, and SSAE No. 21 (Issued October 26, 2021) [PDF]


This guide is effective for fiscal years ending on or after December 31, 2020. Please note that, in order to make this Guide available to the audit community with sufficient time prior to its effective date, this Guide was originally published without illustrative financial statement audit reports. The illustrative financial statement audit reports, along with updated illustrative compliance engagement reports, have now been published in Dear CPA Letter CPA-21-05, linked to above.

Along with a financial statement audit, this Guide requires an examination-level attestation engagement to satisfy the servicer compliance audit requirement.

For copies of suerseded audit guides, send a request to OIGNon-FederalAudit@ed.gov.
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