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Prompted in part by a question from a NASFAA member, NASFAA contacted the Department of Education (ED) questioning the figures in the 2016-17 Asset Protection Allowance (APA) tables. Today, ED published a correction to the original tables. Individual APAs based on the parents’ or student’s age increased between two and three times the original amounts.

More than 40 percent of students who begin college do not graduate within six years, often resulting in severe consequences for those who took on debt to pay for their education, according to a recently released fact sheet from the Department of Education (ED).

During its "Program Review Essentials and Top 10 Compliance Findings" interest session at the 2015 NASFAA Conference in New Orleans, the Department of Education (ED) presenter shared the top 10 program review findings. The usual suspects – verification, return of Title IV funds, and entrance/exit counseling deficiencies – were there, but a new item has appeared on the list.

The National Training for Counselors and Mentors (NT4CM) will hold its annual Training of Trainers webinar on Thursday, August 13, at 1:30 pm ET. The broadcast will share information about the program, provide a federal update, and review the available training materials. NT4CM is a collaborative effort of NASFAA, the Department of Education, and other higher education associations to make high-quality financial aid training available to high school counselors and other college access professionals. Register now.

NASFAA is here to help you stay up to date on the top policy events occurring throughout the week in Washington, D.C. and, when applicable, across the country. Make sure to check back in to Today's News each morning for coverage of some of the events, and email us at [email protected] if you're aware of upcoming policy events that could be of interest to the financial aid community.

Congress:
The House is in session Monday through Wednesday. The Senate is in session Monday through Friday.

Tuesday:

• Negotiated Rulemaking Committee Meeting for Borrower Defense, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm ET
• State of the Union Address, 9:00 pm ET

Wednesday:

• Negotiated Rulemaking Committee Meeting for Borrower Defense, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm ET

Thursday:

• Negotiated Rulemaking Committee Meeting for Borrower Defense, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm ET

The COD Processing Update provides information related to COD System processing and includes the following sections: COD News and Updates, Current Issues (with a subsection for All Programs, Direct Loans, and Grants), and Reminders.

The Department announces the availability of the updated 2015-2016 Federal School Code (FSC) List of Participating Schools on the Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) Web site.

The Department announces the availability of the 2015-2016 Federal Student Aid Handbook Appendices.

On May 27, 2015, the Department published in the Federal Register a notice announcing the annual updates to the tables used in the statutory Federal Need Analysis Methodology that determines a student's expected family contribution for award year 2016-17. Section 478 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended, requires the Secretary to annually update four tables for price inflation. This notice corrects the Education Savings and Asset Protection Allowance tables.

"The Obama administration moved Friday to make state and federal prisoners eligible for Pell grants, reversing a two-decade-old policy that was a signature of the 'Tough on Crime' era," Politico reports.

"Vanderbilt University Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos earlier this year testified before a U.S. Senate committee and cited a rather compelling, if somewhat surprising, fact: the cost of complying with federal regulations 'equates to approximately $11,000 in additional tuition per year' for students," according to Inside Higher Ed.

"The Obama administration’s unveiling of a pilot program to make some prisoners eligible for Pell Grants has been long awaited by advocates who have worked to bring higher education into prisons over the past two decades," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

"The Obama administration is expected to announce on Friday that it will allow some prisoners, all of whom have been barred from receiving federal Pell Grants since 1994, to receive them under a limited pilot program. The change is small in scope, but it sends a strong signal," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

"More student lenders are for the first time offering to refinance the loans of professionals who are years out of college, promising low rates in return for the prospect of lucrative new customers," The Wall Street Journal reports.

"The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire is not a particularly wealthy school. So when the writing on the wall made it clear that the regional campus, which educates 10,700 students, would have about a quarter of its state funds cut this year, Eau Claire administrators had already planned a course of action to trim the fat: significant administrative reductions, preferably as far away from the academic enterprise as possible," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"More than a dozen college students whose parents illegally entered the United States years ago are asking Gov. Jay Nixon for help with suddenly higher tuition rates," St. Louis Public Radio reports.

"Some days, it seems as if you can't swing a cat in Washington without sending it wailing through a panel on student loans.  ... Here's one fix that doesn't require the government to open up the faucet of tax dollars: income share agreements," Bloomberg columnist Megan McArdle writes in an opinion piece.

"To some, millennials — those urban-dwelling, ride-sharing indefatigable social networkers — are engaged, upbeat and open to change. To others, they are narcissistic, lazy and self-centered," Steven Rattner writes in an opinion piece for The New York Times.

"The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) is working on ways to streamline the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)," the American Council on Education's Higher Education Today reports.

"Recently, a chorus of critics of the for-profit education sector publicly began a written assault against those schools," Harry C. Alford, president and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, writes in The Hill's Contributors blog.

"There are more than a million people at least nine months behind on their student loan payments. ... But the colleges that encouraged them to borrow rarely suffer any consequences," according to The Washington Post's WonkBlog.

"Sara Goldrick-Rab is among the loudest critics of America’s structures designed to fund college education," according to Credit.com's blog.

"More student-loan borrowers can now refinance their loans. A growing number of lenders are offering to convert borrowers’ existing federal or private student loans into a new loan with a potentially lower interest rate," The Wall Street Journal's MoneyBeat reports.

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