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With just under two legislative days until the deadline for reauthorization of the Perkins Loan Program, the House of Representatives made a big effort to save the program on Monday. The Higher Education Extension Act of 2015, which includes a provision to extend the Perkins Loan Program, easily cleared the House by a unanimous voice vote.

While there are many improvements policymakers could enact to streamline and improve the financial aid process, there are three options available right now that can help students make better-informed decisions about which college to attend, according to a new report from the National College Access Network, The Education Trust, the Urban Institute, and NASFAA.

While community colleges are among the most affordable options for higher education, their students tend to default at higher rates and often on lower amounts of debt, according to a new report from the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT).

This collaborative course will teach you how to handle a student's Title IV funds when they withdraw from school before completing the payment period or period of enrollment. This is one of our most popular NASFAA U courses and sold out when offered last year. This class, beginning Jan. 30 , 2018, will be the only offering during this season. Register Now.

The 2015 Graduate/Professional Issues Task Force Report identified several issues of importance to the G/P community and corresponding recommendations to mitigate those issues. One of the issues identified included the lack of graduate-specific student aid data. To address this problem, the task force recommended the creation of a new task force to tackle this issue and identify data needs specific to graduate student financial aid. Review the complete task force charter for more details and, if interested, complete the volunteer form by 5:00 pm on October 7.

As part of the Obama Administration's commitment to create a fairer, more effective criminal justice system, reduce recidivism, and combat the impact of mass incarceration on communities, in July the Department of Education announced the Second Chance Pell pilot program to test new models to allow incarcerated Americans to receive Federal Pell Grants and pursue  postsecondary education with the goal of helping them get jobs, support their families, and turn their lives around.

"While we wait for the dust to settle on the Department of Education student loan default releases this week, Black Engineer brings you insights from the organization representing 300,000 students attending America's 47 publicly supported historically Black colleges and universities," according to Black Engineer. "According to [NASFAA], federal student loan borrowers must begin repaying loans six months after graduating or leaving school, and they go into default if they do not make a payment for 270 days, or roughly nine months, ED calculates annually the percentage of borrowers who default for each school that participates in the federal student loan program."

"Eighty leading colleges and universities [on Monday announced] a plan to reverse a decades-long process by which colleges have -- largely through the Common Application -- made their applications increasingly similar," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"Like most colleges, the University of New Mexico is trying to help more of its at-risk students get to graduation. And officials at the university know academic preparation isn’t the only factor to watch," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"Community colleges are relatively affordable, and their students tend to borrow less than those who attend other types of institutions. Yet the debt students rack up at community colleges is troubling," Inside Higher Ed reports. 

"You know Sheila Bair as a critic of big banks during the financial crisis and a fierce defender of taxpayers. Now she's landed in the world of higher education, fighting for another underdog: the college student," CNN reports.

"Colleges and universities across Tennessee are trying to make it easier for adults with some college credit to go back to school. Nearly 40 public and private schools met this week to discuss a $1.1 million program called Tennessee Reconnect + Complete, part of the state’s ongoing plan to increase the percentage of Tennesseans with degrees," Nashville Public Radio reports.

"Normally the Legislature passes funding bills late in the session, but in 2016 House and Senate members will be asked early in the session to provide additional funds for college financial aid," the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reports. 

"Leaders of three Division I schools in Virginia recently expressed opposition to cost of attendance allowances for student-athletes, a policy that the NCAA began allowing, although not mandating, this school year," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

"If Andrew Hanawalt wanted to take online classes at Arizona State University, they wouldn’t cost him a thing," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports. "He works at a Starbucks store in Washington, and when the company pledged last year to offer discounted tuition to students who enrolled at ASU Online, he was interested."

"State spending on public higher education has been in a free fall since the Great Recession. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in 2013-14, average state support for higher education was 23 percent less than it was prior to the recession. For many colleges and universities, reductions in state spending have left sizable budgetary holes that cannot be filled exclusively with spending cuts," Sara Goldrick-Rab and Tammy Kolbe write for Inside Higher Ed.

"... [The new College Scorecard] represents a huge step toward transparency in higher education. Parents, students, college leaders, journalists, policy makers, and researchers are now empowered to more empirically evaluate thousands of U.S. post-secondary institutions in terms of their contributions to student economic success," according to The Brookings Institution.

"In the last few years, higher education reform, especially vis-à-vis college access and affordability, has become a clarion call among politicians and others throughout the nation, including some candidates for president of the United States. Two in particular, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, both democrats, have issued fairly well-developed proposals," Gary Olson, president of Daemen College, writes for The Huffington Post.

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