Chesterfield Lender Plans 22 New Hires Every 8 Weeks

Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) in is set to kick off a new era in marshalling student loans.

The Loan Authority, a not-for-profit secondary market lender, cut an 8-year deal Tuesday with the U.S. Department of Education to handle up to 10 million student loans.

Officials said St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley would dedicate Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. the newly expanded, 80,000-square-foot student Direct Loan Servicing Center in Chesterfield Valley.

The company recently hired an additional 60 people for a total of 250. They expect to double that over the life of the deal by hiring 22 people every two months, with space for 500, officials said.

The offices are located at 633 Spirit Dr. A $5 million renovation and security upgrades were completed over the past 20 months, officials said.

MOHELA is the first not-for-profit group in the country to be awarded this kind of contract. It begins with a minimum of 100,000 loans, and can expand up to 3 million William D. Ford Federal Direct Student Loans. No dollar amounts were available yet.

Over the life of the deal, some 10 million loans are expected to move through the Chesterfield center.

MOHELA was created 30 years ago, in part to ensure students would have access to low-cost education loans.