Our attorneys have been continuously engaged in student loan financings for over 35 years. During this period our firm has had substantial participation in federal student loan financings by public programs in 24 States and Puerto Rico. We have also had substantial legal responsibility for the establishment and initial financing of numerous state government-sponsored supplemental student loan programs and have developed a unique breadth and depth of experience in this highly specialized area. We serve as bond counsel to state student loan programs in Connecticut, New York and Kentucky and have acted as underwriters’ counsel for financings undertaken for the Massachusetts and Vermont programs.
Hawkins is one of a handful of firms that have been regularly involved in state student loan finance matters for a significant portion of this period and we are engaged with student loan matters on a daily basis. The firm has served as bond counsel or underwriters’ counsel on over 150 student loan bond issues aggregating over $12 billion in principal amount.
Hawkins is highly qualified to advise clients with respect to all legal aspects of student loan finance, including:
- Determination of loan demand;
- Preparation of legislation to accommodate program development;
- Preparation, revision and revocation of plans for doing business;
- Negotiation, preparation and interpretation of loan processing, origination, servicing, custody and collection, as well as program administration and documentation;
- Sale of loan portfolios, and merger and transfer of program functions;
- Negotiation and preparation of fixed, variable rate bonds, commercial paper, floating rate note, federal conduit, asset-backed and private placement financing documentation;
- Analysis of state and federal tax and regulatory law provisions and preparation of related documentation;
- Structuring of creative financing structures to take advantage of governmental and educational institution subsidies and credit or liquidity support;
- Negotiation with credit, liquidity and swap providers;
- Post-issuance administration of financing programs, including arbitrage requirements and bond repurchase and retirement programs;
- Rating agency requirements; and
- Primary and secondary market disclosure for financing, regulatory and bond retirement purposes.
Hawkins experience with Federal Family Education Loan Program finance includes involvement as bond counsel, special counsel, underwriters' counsel and counsel to credit providers in connection with financing programs administered by Alabama, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wyoming.
Our attorneys have been pivotal in the development of supplemental loan programs in the States of California, Connecticut, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York, and in the District of Columbia. The firm serves as bond counsel to the State of New York Mortgage Agency in connection with the NYHELPs program, which is jointly administered by that agency and by the Higher Education Services Corporation, the New York FFELP guaranty agency. We also act as counsel to the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation in connection with supplemental student loan programs on an ongoing basis.
The following is a representative list of the firm’s recurring bond counsel and underwriters’ counsel engagements in the student loan bond sector:
- Massachusetts Educational Finance Authority
- Connecticut Student Loan Foundation
- Kentucky Higher Education Student Loan Corporation
- Vermont Student Assistance Corporation