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Great Lakes. What’s better than managing your CDRs? Helping your students succeed in repayment. Our free and custom solutions do both. Our people, free training, outreach tools like Portfolio Navigator, and custom default management solutions help you prepare students for successful repayment. Visit schools.mygreatlakes.org, or contact your Great Lakes representative.

In a letter sent yesterday, NASFAA urged House and Senate appropriators to restore the year-round Pell Grant in the final fiscal year (FY) 2017 budget deal. One of the major differences between the existing FY 2017 appropriations bills is that the Senate version contains a provision to restore year-round Pell, while the House version does not. As a reminder, NASFAA worked closely with the Senate to ensure that the language would address the administrative complications associated with the program in its first iteration. When Congress returns post-election they will be tasked with funding the federal government for the remainder of FY 2017, as we are currently operating under a continuing resolution through December 9.

In a letter sent to Secretary of Education John King, Under Secretary Ted Mitchell, and other Department of Education officials, NASFAA raises questions about reported data showing very low numbers of borrowers who are on track to qualify for public service loan forgiveness (PSLF) in 2017, requests data about borrowers who may be eligible for PSLF, and inquires about outreach efforts that have been undertaken by ED to ensure that eligible borrowers know about and can benefit from PSLF.

On Wednesday, the College Board released the 2016 iterations of its annual Trends in College Pricing and Trends in Student Aid reports. The growth in published tuition and fees is slowing, grant aid is increasing, and overall student borrowing is down for the fifth consecutive year, but students and families are still on average paying more for college than they were just five years ago, according to the reports.

We'll be heading to Orlando, FL next June for the 2019 NASFAA National Conference and we need your great ideas for engaging, relevant, and interesting conference sessions. All types of session proposals are welcome, from those focused on advocacy, training, and professional development, to sessions structured as open-forum discussions. All proposals must be received by Wednesday, October 24. Refer to our Presenters and Moderators page for more information.

The 2012/17 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:12/17) is conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the U.S. Department of Education (ED).

The Department of Education (the Department) is seeking a new OMB control number for the collection of URLs hosting institutional contracts and contract data relating to campus banking agreements.

"Pauline Muturi moved to the U.S. from Kenya when she was two years old. Now 21, she’s a senior at Florida State University, a first-generation college student aiming to go into pediatric care. She works two jobs and still says she's missed tuition payment deadlines. ... Earlier this month, she learned she had won $10,000," Bloomberg reports.

"Education Secretary John King announced a new program Monday through the office of Federal Student Aid that will pair loan guarantee agencies with minority-serving institutions to improve graduation, retention and cohort default rates at no cost to those colleges and universities," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"The Obama administration recently published long-awaited regulations for programs that prepare new K-12 teachers. The U.S. Education Department had attempted to do this several years ago, but that effort was notable for several controversies, one of them a suggestion that teacher-preparation programs be evaluated in part by the standardized test scores of the students being taught by program graduates. Now we have the final regulations — and critics of the original draft remain unsatisfied," according to The Washington Post.

"William Bowen, a scholar and former president of Princeton University, died last week. He is associated with one of the key explanations for just why a college degree keeps getting more and more and more expensive," according to NPR.

"As this oddest of all U.S. national presidential elections careens into its last month,  we can take a moment to reflect on how higher education policy has figured in," according to Inside Higher Ed.

"About 100 college students from schools across the Chicago area marched on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago on Monday afternoon and then held a rally in front of the Art Institute calling for fully-funded public higher education in Illinois, WBBM’s Terry Keshner reports," CBS Chicago reports.

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