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Program Integrity Negotiated Rulemaking Committee Discusses Verification and State Authorization
The Program Integrity Issues Negotiated Rulemaking (negreg) Committee discussed several more of the 14 integrity issues it will cover this week. Wednesday's discussions finished the topic of incentive compensation begun the day before, then moved on to state authorization, verification, and agreements between higher education institutions. This is the first round of program integrity negreg meetings where panelists discuss issues and possible solutions in general terms. Negotiators will discuss draft regulatory language proposed by the Department during subsequent negreg meetings.

Dear NASFAA: Net Price Calculator Q&A's From AskRegs, Our Regulatory Service
One of the most popular benefits of a NASFAA membership is our AskRegs service. Staffed by the financial aid experts in NASFAA's division of Professional Assessment, Training, and Regulatory Assistance, AskRegs gives NASFAA members personal assistance with regulatory or compliance questions. Many inquiries require research and/or consultation with the Department of Education. Where applicable, we cite regulations in our answers. This article discusses a recent question about the Net Price Calculator that AskRegs staff has fielded.

2010-2011 Summary of Changes for the Application Processing System Guide
The Department of Education has posted the 2010-2011 Summary of Changes for the Application Processing System. This guide provides information about major changes to the 2010-2011 application processing system; the schedule for 2010-2011; the FAFSA, including information about ordering and distribution of FAFSA on the Web Worksheets; and the Central Processing System.

2010-2011 Student Web Application Products Process Guide
The Department of Education has posted the 2010-2011 Student Web Application Products Process Guide. This guide contains information about enhancements and other changes it is making in 2010-2011 to FAFSA4caster, the PIN Web site, and FAFSA on the Web.

Reminder: Submit 2009-2010 SAR and ISIR Corrections by January 11, 2010 in Preparation for 2010-2011 Renewal Reminder Distribution
The Department is reminding all schools to update 2009-2010 Student Aid Report (SAR) and Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) transactions for their students with current e-mail and mailing addresses by January 11, 2010. Applicants who meet the eligibility requirements for a 2010-2011 renewal Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) by January 11, 2010, will be sent a Renewal Reminder e-mail or a Renewal Reminder letter between January 15 and February 15, 2010.

2009 Federal Student Aid Conference Registration and Lodging
Because of demand, the Department of Education is reopening registration for its Federal Student Aid Conference and has secured additional overflow hotels. Registration will be open until Friday, November 20th. The cutoff date to make a reservation for most of the overflow hotels is Monday, November 16th.

Suggestions for the Experimental Sites Initiative
The Department of Education is soliciting ideas for new experiments to test alternative procedures for the administration of the Title IV student assistance programs. It has established a two-phase process for the Experimental Sites Initiative that it hopes will encourage institutions to identify areas of the Title IV Aid delivery process in need of improvement and provide the Department with the opportunity to maximize the usefulness of experiments in terms of informing future policy decisions.

Colleges Can Reap Educational Gains by Steering More Aid to the Needy, Studies Suggest (Chronicle of Higher Education)
"Receiving financial aid appears to have a significant positive impact on the educational performance of college students from low-income families, but many higher-education institutions are bending to pressure to give aid to other students who do not necessarily need it, according to research scheduled to be discussed here this week at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education," Chronicle of Higher Education reports. "One study being presented here, based on data from the University of Oregon on its scholarship recipients, found that getting merit-based financial aid appeared to have a positive impact on students in terms of their first-year grades, with the boost being especially pronounced for students from low-income backgrounds."

Gates Foundation Awards $4-Million to Help 7 Cities Improve College-Completion Rates (Chronicle of Higher Education)
"In an effort to improve college-graduation rates, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $4-million in grants to seven cities and to the National League of Cities' Institute for Youth, Education, and Families," Chronicle of Higher Education reports. "The grants, which were announced on Thursday, will be used to better coordinate services that colleges, public school systems, and communities provide to students. The cities are Dayton, Ohio; Jacksonville, Fla.; Mesa, Ariz.; New York; Phoenix; Riverside, Calif.; and San Francisco."

At University of Phoenix, Allegations of Enrollment Abuses Persist (Mother Jones)
"Recruiters at the nation's largest for-profit school are being accused of phony claims, lies, and deception," Mother Jones reports. "Last week, Phoenix's parent company, the Apollo Group, announced that it had put aside $80 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit ... Phoenix said its 'compensation programs and practices were in compliance with the applicable legal requirements.' ... Phoenix is not the only for-profit university to get into trouble in recent years [but] Phoenix stands out with 420,000 students [and] $3.2 billion in federal aid last year."

White House Tally Appears to Overstate Stimulus Jobs (Wall Street Journal)
"The number of jobs the Obama administration credits to federal stimulus money could be overstated by at least 20,000 of the 640,000 claimed," Wall Street Journal reports. Colleges and universities were among the entities that contributed to over-reporting. "Recipients of the government grants and contracts appear to have made mistakes when estimating the number of jobs that have been saved or created, according to the Journal's review. Some recipients said they were confused by forms that asked how they spent the money." One university in Florida counted every part-time work-study position funded by the stimulus, instead of the full-time equivalent of the jobs.

Nebraska: Senator Calls On Duncan To Retract Support For Nationalizing Student Loan System (RTT News)
"Senator Mike Johanns, R-Neb., sent a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Tuesday, calling on Duncan to retract his recent letter advising colleges and universities to move toward a 100-percent government-run student loan delivery system," RTT News reports. "'The Obama administration seems intent on denying competition and ramming through a federally-run student loan system,' Johanns said in his letter. 'By encouraging institutions of higher learning to move quickly to a government-run system, it appears the White House is trying to end run Congress and strong-arm its way toward nationalizing the student loan industry.'"

Washington: Delayed Aid Forcing College Students into Tight Spot (Herald-Net)
"Taking out a short-term, high-interest payday loan was a last resort. It also was the only way Vincent Bryant could stay in college," Herald-Net reports. "Bryant, 38, a business student at Everett Community College, said he had to take out the loans twice in recent months. He is among thousands of students across the state scrambling to make ends meet because the financial aid they were counting on has been delayed this fall. Community colleges are slammed with record enrollments this fall, partly because the faltering economy has pushed idle workers back to school for retraining. 'I have never seen anything that comes close to this,' said Steve Epperson, financial aid director for Skagit Valley College where he has worked for the past 33 years."

Opinion: Stop Financial Aid for Wealthy Students (Inside Higher Ed)
"In the space of several months in late 2007 and early 2008, Harvard, Yale and several other highly selective universities enriched their financial aid programs to guarantee that students from families well up the economic ladder would get sizable grants to attend their institutions," writes Donald Heller in Inside Higher Ed. "As we are all painfully aware today, the changes were made at the beginning of a recession that has gripped the nation and shrunk the value of the endowments at those very same institutions by roughly 25 percent, forcing major cutbacks ... There is an additional step that to date none have taken that would help them cope with these reductions: rolling back the financial aid programs they implemented two years ago that provide generous grants to wealthy families."