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In response to questions from NASFAA, its members, and the financial aid community at large, on August 13, 2015, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) updated its Program Integrity Q&A website guidance on verification of individuals who filed an amended tax return. This guidance is effective for verifications completed on or after August 13, 2015, for the 2015–16 award year, and carries forward to the 2016–17 award year. It supersedes guidance issued earlier this summer, including Dear Colleague Letter GEN-15-11.

This October, a team of 12 NASFAA members and staff will participate in the 2015 Washington D.C. Ragnar Relay Race, a 36-hour, 200-plus mile run from Cumberland, MD to Washington, D.C., to fundraise for the Dallas Martin Endowment for Public Policy and Student Aid (DME). We need your help selecting a name for NASFAA's team, so take a moment and cast your vote!

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 of Education is pleased to announce the posting of EDExpress for Windows 2015-2016, Release 3.0, on the Department's Federal Student Aid Download Web site, located at https://www.fsadownload.ed.gov.

This letter announces the availability of Federal Student Aid's online training module that assists with completing the 2016-2017 FISAP, which includes the Fiscal Operations Report for 2014-2015 and the Application to Participate for 2016-2017.

Under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, the Rehabilitation Services Administration makes grants to States and public or nonprofit agencies and organizations (including institutions of higher education) to support projects that provide training, traineeships, and technical assistance designed to increase the numbers of, and improve the skills of, qualified personnel, especially rehabilitation counselors, who are trained to provide vocational, medical, social, and psychological rehabilitation services to individuals with disabilities; assist individuals with communication and related disorders; and provide other services authorized under the Rehabilitation Act.

The Department of Education (ED) takes this action to focus Federal financial assistance on an identified national need. ED intends the VRTAC-TC to improve the capacity of State vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies and their partners to increase participation levels for individuals with disabilities from low-income communities and to equip these individuals with the skills and competencies needed to obtain high-quality competitive integrated employment.

Talent Search grantees must submit the report annually. The report provides the Department of Education with information needed to evaluate a grantee’s performance and compliance with program requirements and to award prior experience points in accordance with the program regulations. The data collection is also aggregated to provide national information on project participants and program outcomes.

"The Education Department, accreditors, states and colleges should collaborate to break down barriers to new learning models that accommodate nontraditional students — possibly at lower costs and with higher, faster success rates — a new report from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators argues,"  POLITICO reports.

"Another federal agency is launching an investigation into how a for-profit institution provided private student loans," Inside Higher Ed report. "California-based Bridgepoint Education and its subsidiary, Ashford University, received a 'civil investigative demand' from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last week to determine whether the for-profit chain engaged in 'unlawful acts or practices related to the advertising, marketing or origination of private student loans,' according to a corporate filing released Friday."

"The Association of American Colleges and Universities has worked to make its voice heard in discussions about competency-based education, MOOCs and other trendy alternatives to traditional higher education," Inside Higher Ed reports. "Yet as the academy’s primary defender of the value of a liberal education, the group’s real goal must be to defend the status quo and keep the upstarts at bay, right?"

"In a Twitter back-and-forth with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Democrats don’t have a great track record for keeping student loan debt in check in recent years," Politifact reports.

"It’s the height of summer, and some would-be college students are starting to fade in the searing heat of bureaucratic blockades," according to The Hechinger Report. "Their college plans may melt away entirely by the end of summer. Up to 40 percent of low-income students who are accepted to college in the spring never make it to the first day of class in the fall. They’re stymied by tuition sticker shock, Kafkaesque paperwork requirements and a quiet, corrosive feeling that they don’t belong."

"Buyout firm TPG Capital LP is in advanced talks to acquire Ellucian Company LP, in a deal that could value the U.S. provider of software to universities and colleges at $3.5 billion, including debt, people familiar with the matter said," Reuters reported.

"Louisiana lawmakers -- a mere six weeks into the current state budget cycle -- are already being forced to cut $4.6 million from higher education and other state services," The Times-Picayune reports.

"Sweet Briar survived a brush with death. Now the college needs to figure out how to survive in the world, something the previous administration thought impossible. Phillip C. Stone, the new president, thinks he can succeed where others have failed," according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

"Campuses across the University of Wisconsin system are grappling with budget shortfalls after the state's legislature approved $125 million in cuts to system's budget earlier this year," MPR News reports.

"College affordability is having a moment. President Barack Obama recently unveiled a plan that relies on community colleges, while the two top Democratic presidential candidates are talking up different plans they’ve developed," according to StateImpact Ohio. "But leaders in Ohio are showing that they’re past the proposal phase and already putting their plans to action."

"As students prepare to start classes Monday for the fall semester at Carteret Community College, some worry about a General Assembly proposal to increase tuition by $4 per credit hour," the Cateret County News-Times reports.

"... [S]tudent loan debt is unlikely to go away anytime soon," Seton Hall University Assistant Professor Robert Kelchen writes for The Conversation. "What is important for now is that students and their families get better information about tuition costs and college outcomes so they can make more informed decisions, especially as the investments are so large."

"The share of Americans behind on their student loan payments jumped over the past year despite the improving economy, new data released Thursday show," according to The Huffington Post.

"In our first post, we looked at how the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators’ recent report proposes timing and using data retrieval to complete the FAFSA. This post will examine another recommendation in NASFAA’s proposal dealing with how applicants are sorted into three 'paths' and what that means for simplifying the FAFSA," according to New America's EdCentral.

The New School's Center for Public Scholarship is hosting a panel discussion, The Problematic Future of Higher Education, on Tuesday, October 13, 2015, at its main location in New York City. The discussion will focus on the ways in which higher education is changing with a greater demand for student outcomes, the shift to MOOCs, the effect of student loan debt on minority and low-income students, and several other topics.

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