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The continued dialogue about FAFSA simplification led NASFAA and three other higher education policy organizations to put on a FAFSA simulation for the staff of Democratic Members of Congress on the House Education and the Workforce Committee on Wednesday. 

NASFAA last week hosted a webinar for the graduate and professional aid community to brief members on federal legislation and updates from Washington, and to address questions about recent changes to federal financial aid programs.

If you missed the Cash Management: Disbursements webinar that aired on the Jan. 10, 2018, you can still take advantage of this learning opportunity by ordering the on-demand event. You'll receive full access to the webinar archive and handout. In addition, you will be provided with the Top 20 Most Frequently Asked Questions document compiled from questions submitted by attendees during the live webcast. If you attended the live event, you can still use your registration link to access the on-demand event and FAQ document. Order it today.

In November NASFAA will adopt a new survey policy to reduce the burden on our primary contacts. We have randomly assigned each institution’s primary contact into one of three groups and going forward will distribute membership surveys based on these groups (with the exception of our conference evaluations). The surveys distributed to our membership provide vital data and help shape our policy and advocacy efforts. We hope, as a result of the decreased survey requests for each group, to see an increase in survey participation so we may collect data that is representative of our overall membership. Please direct any questions about this change to [email protected].

NASFAA University recently launched a new Testing Center to assess knowledge and provide professional credentials. The redesigned platform now offers the examinee a fully responsive design with many more accommodating features to its predecessor. View across browsers and devices, receive instant feedback on testing results, and even print credential certificates. Visit the new and improved testing center and earn your NASFAA Professional Credentials now.  

NASFAA's Board of Directors is here to represent you and is seeking your input. Please email any questions or comments you might have directly to a member of the NASFAA Board by clicking on their name on our Board Member Bios page. Questions or feedback may pertain to NASFAA products and services, membership benefits, policy issues, and advocacy efforts, or any other topic you would like to bring before the Board. The Board will compile feedback and discuss at the June 23-24 Board meeting. We welcome your insight.

"Vice President Joe Biden, announcing on Wednesday that he will not enter the 2016 presidential race, called for a national commitment to free public higher education that goes beyond what the Obama administration has proposed," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"Education Secretary Arne Duncan is preparing to unveil a package of proposals aimed at forcing colleges that receive federal money to improve graduation rates and to provide students with job skills," The Wall Street Journal reports.

"One of the things that sets student loan debt apart from all other types of debt is that it’s almost impossible to get rid of it. Even those borrowers who end up in such dire financial straits that they file for bankruptcy struggle to get a fresh start free of their student loans," MarketWatch reports.

"Student loan borrowers and others will be able to sue a national student loan corporation after a federal appeals court said Wednesday that the corporation’s affiliation with a state government does not shield it from lawsuits," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"Moody's, the credit rating agency, this week weighed in on a recently announced U.S. Department of Education experiment to allow federal financial aid to flow to a handful of partnerships between colleges and nontraditional providers, including skills boot camps and those that offer online courses," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"In January of 2015, President Obama unveiled his 'American College Promise' program – a plan to make two years of community college education available free of charge to 'everyone who’s willing to work for it,'" Time reports.

"Five years ago Staten Island’s Wagner College was struggling to make enrollment targets," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"High schoolers interested in Oregon’s fledgling 'free community college' program now have a set of rules to follow," Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.

"Two sisters have been sentenced to 10 years in prison each for stealing identities to obtain more than $300,000 in financial aid that they spent on personal items," The Chicago Sun-Times reports.

"Today, there is universal access to free, public schools across the United States for kindergarten through 12th grade. That didn’t happen by presidential decree. It took populist pressure from the progressive movement, beginning in the 1890s, to make widespread access to free public schools a reality," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) writes in The Washington Post.

"Would you be willing to give back to your country — and gain valuable on-the-job experience rebuilding America — in return for paying off your student loan debt?" Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) and Danielle Mitchell, president of the American Institute of Architecture Students, write in an opinion piece for The Hill.

"Pell Grants, providing assistance to low-income families, cost more than $30 billion a year. The maximum grant is close to $6,000 a year per student, more than the amount provided by virtually all other antipoverty programs," according to The Brookings Institute's Social Mobility Memo.

"As the 'will he, won’t he' game swirls around Rep. Paul Ryan’s decision to be or not to be speaker of the House, one question looms for the federal worker — what does it mean for me? The answer – a potential hit on your pocketbook," The Washington Post's Federal Eye reports.

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