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Great Lakes. Our enhanced Portfolio Navigator allows you to use NSLDS data to identify all of your students who need repayment help, not just students with Great Lakes. Then, leverage your time and resources with the new Action Center tool, using your data to connect each student to their servicer for the repayment help they need.

The Department of Education (ED) published new rules on October 30, 2015, finalizing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) published on May 18, 2015. The general effective date of these final rules is July 1, 2016. This article is the third in a series describing the provisions of the final rule.

Despite often paying nearly five times as much as community college students for their credentials, graduates of for-profit institutions don’t appear to have a leg up in the hiring process, according to a new study.

Supervisory actions from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) resulted in the recovery of $107 million in relief for more than 238,000 consumers, including consumers with student loans, according to the latest supervision report from the Bureau. The report outlines the illegal practices uncovered by the CFPB from May 2015 to August 2015. 

The typical financial aid administrator (FAA) wears many hats and is a rich resource for the institution and members of Congress, but often times these parties can be unclear on what exactly FAAs and the financial aid office (FAO) can do for them. NASFAA has created two quick-resource documents to help entities outside the FAO understand how they can interact with the FAO and what FAAs can do for/with them. Please feel free to share them with your institution's leadership, other campus offices, your member of Congress, and the greater community.

New for the 15-16 Program Year, you will learn about a school’s responsibilities for managing Title IV funds, including requesting and receiving funds, maintaining funds, disbursement, notices, and authorizations. Quick quizzes, learning activities, and reflection questions help reinforce content and help individuals understand cash management. Completion of this self-study guide qualifies individuals to take the NASFAA University credential exam on Cash Management.

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.

As published in the Federal Register Notice on January 12, 2015 (80 FR 1495), “Subject: Federal Work-Study, and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant programs; 2015-2016 award year Deadline Dates,” all schools that participate in the Federal Perkins Loan Program must update and submit Part III, section A, Line 1.2 on the Fiscal Operations Report for 2014-2015 (FISAP) to the Department of Education by midnight on Tuesday, December 15, 2015. 

"A new Fusion poll finds that 40% of young people have taken out a student loan—and most borrowers call their loans a source of stress in their lives," Fusion reports. "So what are the presidential candidates planning to do about it?"

"The 'future of higher education' landscape — already ringing with cacophonous predictions from all manner of task forces, books, conferences, and self-styled disruptors — is about to get another. This week the American Academy of Arts and Sciences will announce its own Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

"It may soon be easier for prisoners to earn a college degree," MPR News reports. "In 1994, a federal law was passed that prohibited prisoners at state and federal facilities from receiving Pell grants — a form of government financial aid for low-income students. This summer, however, the Obama administration announced a pilot program that would temporarily waive that rule as part of an experiment."

"For-profit universities have had another rough year, with big players facing federal scrutiny for everything from predatory loans to outright fraud," ProPublica reports. "Now attention is turning to the schools’ accreditors."

"A Colorado county that boasts the world’s largest outdoor marijuana farm and has been actively courting the new pot industry has approved the world’s first marijuana-funded college scholarship," The Associated Press reports.

"As states focus on increasing the number of low-income students who go to college, Alabama has added another target group – their parents," according to The Hechinger Report.

"IHEP spoke to Shirley Reed regarding how STC established Early College High Schools and other programs in the Rio Grande Valley in order to provide local high school students with rigorous, tuition-free, college-level dual-enrollment courses, and how teachers and faculty in the region have embraced the new model to support student success," according to Community College Daily.

"Assembly Republicans quashed an effort by Democrats on Tuesday to pull a student loan refinancing proposal from committee and take it up on the floor," The Capital Times reports. "Lawmakers still debated the merits of the bill, which Democrats have tried unsuccessfully to pass in two consecutive legislative sessions, before voting against bringing it to the floor."

"Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) has called on the Education Department to forgive the student loans of employees at Livermore and Sandia national laboratories," Pleasanton Weekly reports.

"[On Wednesday], New America joined with a coalition of national organizations to call for a fresh conversation around the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA). The coalition includes a dozen organizations with distinct constituencies – from vulnerable students to Fortune 500 companies to state and local governments. ... We have come together around seven principles for reform that we urge policymakers to consider as they prepare to reauthorize one of our county’s most important laws," according to New America's EdCentral blog. 

"Rand Paul says young people should treat offers of free college like heroin," according to Buzzfeed. "The Republican presidential candidate and Kentucky senator made the comments on Friday to Iowa radio host Jeff Angelos, arguing that America’s youth should think about 'what is free and what is a drug, an addicting drug like heroin.'"

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