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A working paper entitled Denying Loan Access: The Student-Level Consequences When Community Colleges Opt Out of the Stafford Loan Program, released last week by Mark Wiederspan from the University of Michigan Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, analyzed records from over 50 institutions in the statewide community colleges system (SCCS) to determine the impact it has on students when schools elect not to participate in the federal student loan program-- a decision institutions with high loan default rates sometimes make in order to avoid losing eligibility to award other federal funding, like the Pell Grant.

NASFAA's Communications Department welcomes Allie Bidwell to the team. Allie comes to NASFAA from U.S. News & World Report where she worked as an education reporter. Prior to that she worked as an editorial intern for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Among other things, she will be responsible for producing original news articles for Today's News and helping manage our social media channels. She will be at the National Conference in New Orleans, so be sure to say hi to her then!

Did you know that some of NASFAA’s most popular tools, resources, and programs are never more than a click away, anywhere on the updated NASFAA.org? Each page includes a link to the Student Aid Index (look for the orange button with the X), AskRegs (green button with a hand image) and NASFAA University (blue button with the NASFAA U icon) so you can get to these key items quickly and easily, wherever your journey on the site takes you. Stay tuned for additional tips, tricks, and info on how the updated NASFAA.org can better serve you.

This letter provides guidance to guarantors and educational institutions participating in the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) and Federal Perkins Loan Program (Perkins), hereinafter “holder[s],” as they continue to implement U.S. Department of Education (Department or Education) regulations (at 34 C.F.R. § 682.402(i)(1)(ii) & (iii)) (FFELP) and 34 C.F.R. § 674.49(c)(Perkins)), which govern their actions in defending bankruptcy adversary proceedings seeking discharge of student loans authorized by Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (hereinafter Title IV), on the basis that excepting the loans from discharge would impose undue hardship upon the borrowers.

The Department announces the release of the Opportunities to Improve the Financial Capability and Financial Well-being of Postsecondary Students report available at MyMoney.gov.

These forms serve as the means by which borrowers in the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan), Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) and the Federal Perkins Loan (Perkins Loan) Programs may request deferment of repayment on their loans if they meet certain statutory and regulatory criteria.

These forms serve as the means by which borrowers in the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan), Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) and the Federal Perkins Loan (Perkins Loan) Programs may request forbearance of repayment on their loans if they meet certain conditions.

"The Obama administration on Tuesday issued new guidance on how aggressively loan collectors should pursue borrowers of federally backed loans who are seeking to erase their debt in bankruptcy," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday released a report describing shortcomings the bureau has found in how student loan servicers treat military borrowers, which include improper denial of legal benefits, negative credit reporting and insufficient follow-through on legal protections for military families," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"The U.S. risks missing innovation opportunities if it doesn't lower corporate taxes and move to a reinvent higher education, including creating a new university accreditation process, Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio said Tuesday," Bloomberg Politics reports.

"Some 3.6 million students entered college for the first time in the fall of 2008, at the height of the Great Recession. Over the next six years, they transferred 2.4 million times, ricocheting between two- and four-year public and private colleges, often across state lines, according to a report being released Tuesday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

"Tuition and fees for both private and public schools grew more than twice as fast as inflation last year, according to the College Board. ... Here are some ways to prepare for this investment in your child’s future without derailing your own," according to CNN Money.

"The results of a new survey released Monday by U.S. Bank stated that many college-age young adults say they have no idea how to keep a budget," KSTP reports.

"Three higher education groups that have been strong supporters of the Common Core State Standards Initiative are this morning releasing a joint statement that calls for states to stick to efforts to promote standards," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"Bernie Sanders, the self-described socialist senator, Internet hero, and apparent front-runner in the race for second place in the 2016 Democratic presidential campaign, has ideas about higher-education reform," Kevin Carey, director of the education policy program at New America, writes in an opinion piece for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

"With student debt playing a prominent role in the 2016 presidential campaign, the Obama administration is taking several steps to ease borrowers’ repayment burdens," The Chronicle of Higher Education's The Ticker reports.

"After decades of watching tuition continually rise faster than inflation, students in Washington and Minnesota will experience something new over the next two years: tuition reduction," the National Conference of State Legislatures writes in its blog.

"It's time to ask: When the Department of Education refuses to enforce its own laws, who pays the price?" Luke Herrine, organizer and legal coordinator with the Debt Collective, asks in The Huffington Post's The Blog.

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