Default rates for borrowers in the guaranteed-student-loan program are likely to drop this year, preliminary data released last month by the Department of Education suggest.

Last year the default rate for student-loan borrowers inched up slightly, from a record-low 4.5 percent to 5.1 percent. This year the rate is forecast to fall to 4.9 percent, according to draft cohort data on default rates that the department provided to guarantee agencies in February.

The cohort default rate measures the number of student-loan borrowers who default in a fiscal year as a percentage of the total number of borrowers entering repayment in the previous fiscal year.

The drop represents good news for the lending industry, which has been on the defensive with Congress and the White House in recent months. Most recently, President Bush proposed paying for an increase in the maximum Pell Grant by slashing subsidies to lenders for the third time in a year.

The National Council of Higher Education Loan Programs, which represents lenders in the guaranteed-loan program, attributed the drop to intensified default-prevention efforts by colleges and lenders.